Tampa General and USF Health launch USF Tampa General Physicians, a new physician management service organization to better care for patients of the Tampa Bay region.

Tampa General Hospital and USF Health announced that on Jan. 1, 2022, they officially launched USF Tampa General Physicians (USFTGP), a new organization dedicated to providing a unified management and support structure for physicians of both USF Health and Tampa General Medical Group, making it one of the largest academic medical groups in the state of Florida.

The creation of the USF Tampa General Physicians follows more than a year of transition planning since announcing the broadened affiliation in July 2020.

“Tampa General Hospital is on a path to become the safest and most innovative academic health system in the country and our affiliation with USF Health gets us closer to achieving that vision,” stated John Couris, president and CEO of Tampa General Hospital. “USF Tampa General Physicians represents an elevation of our already established and dynamic alliance and will further our collaboration on key priorities and share a greater level of resources.”

USF Tampa General Physicians will help drive growth, improve quality, and increase access to world-class, academic medical care across the community. Academic medical centers provide cutting-edge specialized care for the most complex and challenging illnesses and conditions, as well as provide patients with access to innovative research and clinical trials and train the next generation of health care professionals.

USF Tampa General Physicians will also serve as a recruiting tool for leading academic physicians from across the country and represents a new framework for physician management services. USF Tampa General Physicians will further elevate the reputation of both organizations as the collective force behind the region’s preeminent academic medical center, attract additional research dollars and help support the economic engine of the medical district here in Tampa Bay.

The alliance will benefit patients by elevating and enhancing the growth of West Florida’s leading academic medical center.

“USF Tampa General Physicians is a jointly created academic medical group between USF Health and Tampa General Hospital and represents the best medical care available in the Tampa Bay region and beyond. It is a comprehensive and sustainable affiliation that formally joins shared clinical, research, and teaching efforts from both organizations,” said Charles J. Lockwood, MD, MHCM, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. “Ultimately, this organization will help Tampa Bay become a center for the finest health care in Florida, and potentially the Southeastern United States.”

Approximately 1,400 clinical personnel will comprise USF Tampa General Physicians to serve and support physicians employed by Tampa General Medical Group and USF Health. USF Tampa General Physicians will provide practice infrastructure, clinical management, and related operational and administrative support services. The new group also will benefit the private practice physicians on staff at Tampa General Hospital by offering purchased services and management services through the new organization.

USF Tampa General Physicians is currently led by interim co-presidents Dan Vukmer, senior associate vice president and chief strategy officer for USF Health, and Steve Short, advisor for special projects at TGH. A national search is underway to recruit a recognized leader in the field to lead the organization and serve as its first president.

The new office will allow the previously separate offices to combine resources and elevate their research efforts to improve health care for all Floridians

TAMPA, Fla (Nov. 30, 2020) — Tampa General Hospital and USF Health today announced the creation of a joint TGH-USF Health Office of Clinical Research to strengthen and expand current jointly conducted clinical trials, including translational studies that bridge laboratory discoveries and benefit patient care.

Both organizations are working to create Florida’s leading academic medical center dedicated to outstanding patient care, education and research. The restructuring will allow TGH and USF Health to combine resources and work together more seamlessly to initiate, operate and coordinate clinical trials looking at new ways to prevent, detect and treat disease.

“We already have established and invested in a strong foundation for clinical research,” said Tampa General President and CEO John Couris. “Combining the efforts of TGH and USF Health is the next step to elevate the world-class research we do to push forward to the edge of scientific discovery.”

“The joint office will allow for expansion of that portion of our clinical research portfolio occurring at TGH and to conduct that research with greater efficiency,” said Charles J. Lockwood, MD, MHCM, senior vice president of USF Health and dean of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.  “A robust research portfolio is a core component of all academic medical centers – and clinical trials are an essential part of what we do to advance the science leading to evidence-based health care. We expect this joint office to streamline the clinical trial process, thereby providing greater opportunities for both hospitalized patients and outpatients to participate in leading studies investigating new treatments.”

The joint TGH-USF Health Clinical Research Office will build upon the success over the last seven months of researchers and research staff at both institutions working to collaboratively launch about 35  COVID-19 clinical trials investigating a range of diagnostics, antiviral and anti-inflammatory medications, treatment protocols, vaccines and surveillance registries. Several, such as the joint studies testing Regeneron’s combination monoclonal antibody therapy in sick people or those exposed to the virus, are part of larger national clinical trials.

Including those COVID trials, TGH and USF Health now are working together on about 350 research studies. In July, TGH and the University of South Florida signed a new clinical affiliation to further solidify one of the largest academic medical centers in Florida and build upon their longstanding relationship and commitment to improving health care in Tampa Bay.

Clifton Gooch, MD, professor and chair of neurology at USF Health, was appointed co-vice president of Clinical Trials and Translational Research, and Rachel Karlnoski, PhD, was named executive director of the joint TGH-USF Health Office of Clinical Research.

This move to better align joint clinical research includes new leadership appointments:

• Clifton Gooch, MD, and Abraham Schwarzberg, MD, were named as co-vice presidents of Clinical Trials and Translational Research for the joint office. Dr. Gooch is professor and chair of the Department of Neurology at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and Tampa General Hospital Endowed Chair in Neurology. Schwarzberg is senior vice president of network development and chief of Oncology at TGH.

• Following a national search, Rachel Karlnoski, PhD, director of clinical research operations for USF Health, was selected to fill the new role of executive director of research. Karlnoski will report to Gooch and Schwarzberg for the oversight of all clinical studies involving both USF Health and Tampa General Hospital. She retains the position directing clinical research operations for USF Health, which she had held since 2018. For all USF Health trials except those based at TGH, Karlnoski continues reporting to Stephen Liggett, MD, vice dean for research at USF Health.

The administrative research changes will not affect USF Health’s participation in clinical studies with Moffitt Cancer Center, James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital or other community and academic partners. Nor will the changes affect TGH’s partnership in clinical studies with Moffitt Cancer Center, TeamHealth, the Florida Orthopedic Institute, or other private practice physician partners.

TAMPA, Fla. (Jun 18, 2019) — Tampa General Hospital is leasing up to 25,000 square feet of space in the new USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and Heart Institute building now nearing completion in downtown Tampa, creating even more synergy with the university and its primary teaching hospital.

John Couris, CEO of Tampa General Hospital, and Dr. Charles Lockwood, senior vice president of USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine.

“Tampa General Hospital is very proud of and committed to its strong relationship with USF Health,” said John Couris, president and CEO of Tampa General. “This public/private partnership is an example of promoting and driving innovation, collaboration and partnerships related to the advancement of cutting-edge world-class health care and teaching the future physicians for Florida and our country.”

USF Health’s 13-story, 395,000 square foot building is scheduled to open in late 2019 in Water Street Tampa.  The building is a key anchor for the transformation of the downtown waterfront district created by Strategic Property Partners.

“We are excited to share our new space with Tampa General Hospital,” said Dr. Charles J. Lockwood, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine. “Such proximity with TGH offers an environment full of collaborative clinical care and research opportunities. This is one of the many kinds of collaborative endeavors we envision for our new facility in the heart of Water Street Tampa, and with TGH, our primary partner and teaching hospital.”

Under the terms of the arrangement, Tampa General will pay $20 million to USF Health and lease space in the new building for 25 years. The first floor will feature a TGH urgent care center and an imaging center in collaboration with TGH, Tower Radiology and USF Health. TGH also will lease space on the ninth floor for future use and on the 12th floor for an executive wellness program in collaboration with USF Health. Patients will benefit from world-class care as health students and residents learn and scientists collaborate on research in these spaces.

Tampa General and USF have collaborated closely for years, partnering to provide strong education programs for students across all health disciplines and combining cutting-edge medical research with a hospital that is recognized as one of the best in Florida. The medical school’s new location in Water Street Tampa brings it closer to Tampa General and will pave the way for newer and even stronger partnerships.

“This promising new agreement solidifies our strategic partnership and paves the way for increasing partnerships,” Dr. Lockwood said. “It clearly represents another step in the journey for both of our organizations to become a premier academic health system.”

“The innovative changes happening in downtown Tampa today are spurring us to think and behave differently,” Couris said. “Our strong academic health system is developing a medical district that will complement that transformation.”

ABOUT TAMPA GENERAL HOSPITAL

Tampa General Hospital, a 1007-bed non-profit academic medical center, delivers world-class care as the region’s only center for Level l trauma and comprehensive burn care. It is one of the nation’s busiest adult solid organ transplant centers and is the primary teaching hospital for the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. Advancing medicine through innovation, Tampa General houses a nationally accredited comprehensive stroke center, an 82-bed Level IV neonatal intensive care unit, and a state-certified spinal cord and brain injury rehabilitation center. For more information, go to www.tgh.org.

ABOUT USF HEALTH

USF Health’s mission is to envision and implement the future of health. It is the partnership of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the College of Public Health, the College of Pharmacy, the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences, the Biomedical Sciences Graduate and Postdoctoral Programs, and the USF Physicians Group. The University of South Florida, established in 1956 and located in Tampa, is a high-impact, global research university dedicated to student success. USF ranks in the top 25 nationally for research expenditures among public universities, according to the National Science Foundation. Visit health.usf.edu for more information. 

This is the first story in a series highlighting faculty who are shining examples of quality and compassionate patient care and patient safety. Every day, these health care providers put their patients first. In the process, they create successful models of advanced care focused on empathy, safety, technology and evidenced-based medicine, models that carry through everything they do – into their practice, their teaching, their research, their community outreach, and into the USF Physicians Group.

It’s in Dr. Lucy Guerra’s genes to be completely drawn in to the team-based patient care offered at USF Health. Her own Latino heritage includes a close-knit family that is involved in nearly every aspect of life, including each other’s health.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_GrHUTenBM

Knowing she is living true to who she is, she practices team-based medicine every day, putting her patients first, reinforcing the concept to medical students and residents she teaches, and watching the students, in turn, practice it as they provide free care to the local underserved community at the BRIDGE Clinic.

Dr. Lucy Guerra in the midst of teaching medical students and residents at the Morsani Center for Advanced Healthcare.

Dr. Guerra wears multiple hats in her career as a physician. She is associate professor, director of the Division of General Internal Medicine in the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, co-faculty mentor for the BRIDGE Clinic, and associate director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program.

She doesn’t see them as multiple roles, but as one job, she said, a testament to her preference for working at an academic medical center.

“We all need to change our concept of what medical care is and to think of it as having evolved to a very patient-centric model,” Dr. Guerra said. “It’s more about working as a team to provide the best care and realizing the patient is part of that team. It’s a trend we call value-based care. When patients come to a place like USF Health, they’re going to always meet with the physician and other health care providers – a nurse practitioner, social worker, pharmacist or physician assistant – and it’s always going to include medical students and residents because we are an academic teaching institution.”

But an academic medical center is more than patient care and Dr. Guerra is emphatic in her efforts to incorporate USF Health’s other missions into her world.

“Our other missions – research and teaching—are equally important to patient care because you really can’t do one well without the other,” she said. “If we don’t have the research component then we can’t find better drug therapies and better behavioral therapies to treat patients. And sometimes I think this needs to be emphasized more because patients don’t necessarily realize that. The research part is very ethereal – you just don’t see it in action. Patients think of research as being done in the lab. But when you’re coming here, to an academic institution, you have the opportunity to participate in research studies and get involved. If patients realize they can participate in some kind of research study that will make a difference for the next generation of patients that come after them then wow, what a contribution they’ve made to medicine, as well to the future of their own grandchildren.”

For the teaching mission, Dr. Guerra said that, beyond the science of medicine, she tries to remind her students and residents why they chose medicine as a career.

“People who are learning and in a learning environment sometimes get caught up, just like I did, in studying or trying to get good grades or trying to pass, and you have to keep reminding them why they chose this profession,” she said. “For a physician, a nurse or anyone working in health care, it really needs to be a commitment. You’re making a commitment to somebody else – the patient. If you can ground a student in that, then they’re going to be the better health care provider for it.”

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She conveys that same philosophy to her colleagues, urging them to always remember why they went into medicine, to do their best to block out the added duties, patient charts, and demanding schedules and return to their core reasons for choosing medicine as a career.

Sometimes, she said, it’s as simple as looking at the young and eager medical students and residents to reignite the passions that carried them through medical school.

“Participating in things like BRIDGE, or teaching students and residents, can remind them why they went into health care to begin with,” Dr. Guerra said. “They’re seeing what they were a few years before or a decade before. And that’s the difference we find working at an academic medical center, where you have a lot of younger people around all the time from different disciplines.”

What keeps her motivated, staying on track with a demanding career? Among many things, she looks to her own father, who was a physician in Cuba and Spain before coming to America.

“I admire my father because he was always studying, learning English and trying to pass the medical boards here,” she said. “And he was older when he did that, in his late 30s, and worked three jobs during that same time. I just thought if someone could care so much about something, that’s what I’d like to do.”

Photos and multimedia story by Sandra C. Roa, USF Health Office of Communications. 

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By Jeff Lowenkron, MD

Over the next few weeks, millions of people driving Interstate 275 northbound by downtown Tampa will see a billboard that re-introduces USF Health to the Tampa Bay community as Doctors of USF Health.

This billboard signifies the launch of our campaign to inform patients and families throughout the area that Doctors of USF Health provides them access to the most advanced health care available.

The campaign – sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle – will remind everyone we are this region’s only academic medical center, a competitive advantage that benefits patients and the community.

Here’s how academic medicine matters:

• Better outcomes: National studies show that patients tend to fare better at academic medical centers, which typically treat some of the sickest patients and toughest medical cases. Access to that care is through the many USF Health Centers for Advanced Health Care and hospitals that are linked to the Morsani College of Medicine.
• Newest knowledge: Nearly every medicine, treatment and cure we know can trace its origin to an academic medical center. As part of an academic medical center, Doctors of USF Health provides the most current health care available, an advantage few other physician groups can offer.
• More expertise:  Doctors of USF Health has more than 400 highly specialized healthcare professionals who know today what other doctors will read about in the future.

What does being an academic medical center mean?

It means our faculty, residents, students and staff are part of a multi-disciplinary engine providing the best care possible to families throughout central Florida. It means we are part of the pioneering advances in medicine, scientific research, and patient care emanating from USF Health. It means USF Health  plays a vital role in educating tomorrow’s physicians, nurses, pharmacists, researchers, physical therapists, and public health professionals.

The billboard is just part of the campaign that is delivering a consistent message that fits our long-term strategy. Why did we focus on Doctors?  To make it more personalized, to provide more of a connection with patients, and to point out our greatest strength, that as an academic medical center, we make unmatched contributions to the health and well-being of the community.

Our brand identity links to the launch of our newly designed patient care website. The pages offer a more robust format and improved patient-centered interface. It even has a great video of our own //www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdjiT0dhOPE

Kira Zwygart, interim chair of Family Medicine, describing perfectly the importance of academic medicine and what our type of center means to patients and families in this community.

As the campaign moves forward, there will be other  tangible signs of strategic marketing to reinforce our message around our competitive advantage, and we’ll share the new components with you as they roll out.

But, for the next few weeks, check out the new billboard at the junction of Interstate 4 and Interstate 275. You’ll see we’re not shy about telling the world the best care is right here.

Dr. Lowenkron is the CEO for Doctors of USF Health

Click on this image and download a PDF file of our internal poster and share.

-Video by Allyn DiVito, USF Health Information Systems

The USF Physicians Group is the only academic medical center on the west coast of Florida.

So when the opportunity to lead USF’s practice plan came up, Jeff Lowenkron, MD, jumped at it. After working for the Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group of 1,000 physicians, he considered it a wonderful challenge to help the USF group of more than 400 physicians to function more like an integrated multi-specialty group.

What intrigued him more was the chance to help drive the continued growth by demonstrating the value of the academic medical center to health and well-being of the Tampa community.

“Growing into the largest medical practice plan is all fine and good, but size isn’t necessarily a competitive advantage,” said Dr. Lowenkron, a practicing internist who joined USF in January as CEO of the USF Physicians Group.

“Our competitive advantage is that we are an academic medical center.  We have to be successful on each of the three axes: education, research and clinical.

“Dr. Lowenkron’s work at Kaiser Permanente is exactly the level of experience our physician’s group requires to not only weather the current economy, but to propel us into the healthcare environment to come,” said Dr. Stephen Klasko, CEO of USF Health and dean of the USF College of Medicine.

DEFINING ADVANTAGES
What separates the USF Physicians Group from other multi-specialty practices in the Tampa Bay area is that it is part of an academic medical center, a connection that benefits both patients and the community it serves.

National studies show that patients tend to fare better at academic medical centers, which typically treat some of the sickest patients and toughest medical cases. In addition, patients have access to the newest treatments that are provided by clinics and hospitals linked to a college of medicine. And, the communities served by an academic medical center feel a huge economic impact due to a center’s hiring, buying and building power.

The USF Physicians Group serves patients from throughout Florida – even some from outside Florida – but most come to USF from the 15-county region surrounding Tampa. Its position, both geographically and professionally, stood out to Dr. Lowenkron in a big way.

“It’s an exciting time with incredible challenges and fabulous opportunities,” he said. “We are linked to the community in a way where our commitment to success mirrors the needs of Tampa for us to be successful.”

PLANS FOR THE USF PHYSICIANS GROUP
Dr. Lowenkron said that when he visited USF last fall, he noted one apparent characteristic in everyone he met: an incredible sense of optimism.

“Most institutions are trying to figure out how to batten down the hatches and weather the storm,” he said. “But at USF, they are looking ahead and designing their own future. I definitely want to help design the future of health care.”

Dr. Lowenkron said that, although there is a multi-specialty group in place, there is room to improve our system, to one that better coordinates care across departments and is more patient centric.

“There are systems in place, but there are also systems missing, and others that require modification,” he said. “Departments are trying to grow services, focusing on revenue generation, but not understanding the true cost of providing those services.

“There has to be some re-tooling that works toward a more cohesive whole. Form must follow function. We will assure alignment with the mission of USF Health and of the university. There are decisions to be made that cut across the entire group, including building new systems, fine-tuning service delivery, assessing service lines, continual development and evaluation of new business, and measuring quality outcomes.”

Dr. Lowenkron said he sees a strong patient-experience at USF, but wants it to improve “to make the care experience delightful for both patients and families as well as for those who deliver the care.”

“People go into healthcare because they want to help,” he said. “So let’s let them help. Healthcare doesn’t happen in an administrative office.”

KAISER PERMANENTE
Over his 17 years with the Permanente Medical Group, Dr. Lowenkron held increasingly greater leadership roles, including spearheading Mid-Atlantic’s process improvement efforts for patient access, scheduling, patient flow, service excellence, and communication and messaging. Prior to that he was the area medical director for the District of Columbia and the suburban Maryland regions, where he was responsible for a medical group (similar in size to the USF Physicians Group) in two hospitals, 12 medical centers and a skilled nursing facility.  Kaiser Permanente of the Mid-Atlantic States provides health care to about 500,000 people throughout 30 medical centers in Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia.  Kaiser Permanente is one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health plans serving nearly 9 million members.

Dr. Lowenkron earned a bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, and a medical degree from Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, NE. He completed his residency and chief residency in internal medicine at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC, where he also earned a master’s degree in public policy. Dr. Lowenkron was also trained in the executive leadership program at Harvard University School of Business in Cambridge, MA.

PERPETUAL PROGRESSION
Dr. Jeff Lowenkron has a tremendous desire to have broad-based impact improving the health and well-being of the community in which he works.  He believes that care delivery is a team sport and will require incredible effort across the program for us to succeed.

“When you stop feeling challenged, it’s time for a change,” Dr. Lowenkron said.

Story by Sarah A. Worth, Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Office of Communications

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To watch Dr. Darrell Kirch’s keynote presentation, click here. To download presentation (130 MB), right click on the folowing link and then select Save As. 
http://health.usf.edu/nocms/publicaffairs/now/videos/Dr%20Kirchlecture2012.m4v

Medical schools need to think differently about what excellence means if they are to lead the way towards reforming healthcare, says the leader of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

“One thing that holds us back … We have fallen into a trap, in academic medicine and nationally, about how we judge excellence, said Dr. Darrell Kirch, president and CEO of the AAMC, at a keynote lecture on the USF Health campus Wednesday evening.

Dr. Darrell Kirch (center), president and CEO of the Association of American Medical Colleges, met with students in the SELECT MD program while visiting the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

Medical-school excellence, old-style: how high the ranking.

New style? How healthy the community around the school.

Old-style: Mean MCAT scores.

New: Students who are more than smart.

Old: Research funding.

New: Research that makes a difference.

Now is the time to change that thinking, Dr. Kirch said.

“We’ve never needed leadership more than right now in academic medicine and health care,” he said.

Fortunately for the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, Dr. Kirch said he has seen plenty of examples this week that USF is committed to his “new excellence.”

Those signs include the SELECT physician leadership program, the soon-to-open Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation, and USF’s innovative partnership with The Villages retirement community.

Dr. Kirch praised USF Health’s commitment to interprofessional education and the patient-centered focus of the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute, the Diabetes Center, and other programs. He is on campus this week visiting USF Health, touring various sites and learning more about USF’s new projects.

“I have validated something that I suspected about all of you, which is that you are committed to excellence in its really critically important forms right now,” Dr. Kirch said.

Dr. Kirch explored the history of medical education, pointing to how the way healthcare was shaped by key milestones in the history of medical education and healthcare.

Educator Abraham Flexner fought for higher standards in medical education, but what Flexner may not have foreseen, Dr. Kirch said, is that adhering to university standards would make medical education place more value in hierarchy and tradition.

Similarly, Dr. James Wyngaarden, director of the National Institutes of Health during the 1980s, fought to support research scientists, more than doubling NIH funding during his tenure. But he also created a culture that places a great deal of value in the individual.

And when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare into law, he created better access to healthcare for older Americans. But he also affirmed a medical culture that pays fees for services, so that doctors are rewarded most when their patients are sick, not well.

“It explains why healthcare is the way it is. Healthcare is individualistic, focused on the expert, often fragmented,” Dr. Kirch said.

That must change.

“It may work for us, but it doesn’t work for an awful lot of people in this country,” he said.

Today’s medicine, Dr. Kirch said, is often hierarchical, autonomous, competitive, individualistic, and expert-centered.

The healthcare of the future needs to be collaborative, team-based, service-based, mutually accountable, and patient-centered.

Making that change won’t be easy, he said. It will require broad systemic change.

“Some have said it’s like trying to redesign an airliner – in flight,” he joked.

That’s why academic medicine must change how it educates students and approaches education, he said. He’s criss-crossing the United States, seeking out new ideas medical schools are pursuing and pushing medical educators to enact new models of excellence.

“I’m optimistic,” Dr. Kirch said. “Because what I’ve seen is a commitment to excellence that is emerging in new ways.”

– Story by Lisa Greene, photos by Eric Younghans, and video production by Amy Mariani and Elizabeth Peacock, USF Health Communications

First Lady mentions USF as example of universities stepping up to care for veterans and their families

Tampa, FL (Jan. 11, 2012) – Today, as part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Joining Forces initiative, the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida (USF), the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM) committed to creating a new generation of doctors, medical schools, and research facilities that will make sure our heroes receive the care worthy of their service.

Recognizing veterans and their families’ sacrifice and commitment, the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine pledged to mobilize its uniquely integrated missions in education, research, and clinical care to train the nation’s physicians to meet veterans and their families’ unique health care needs, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

Dr. Stephen Klasko, dean of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, was among the deans who pledged to leverage their academic missions to train physicians to meet the unique health care needs of the military and veterans communities.

“We are honored to participate in the White House Joining Forces initiative to address the health care needs of military service members and veterans and their families,” said Dr. Stephen Klasko, CEO of USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine . “USF Health has created a veterans reintegration initiative, including our medical school, partners in physical therapy, nursing and other disciplines and two VA hospitals in Tampa Bay, to serve the heroes who have served our country for so long. Our goal is to show these heroes that their country is there for them, no matter what they’re going through.”

“I’m inspired to see our nation’s medical schools step up to address this pressing need for our veterans and military families. By directing some of our brightest minds, our most cutting-edge research, and our finest teaching institutions toward our military families, they’re ensuring that those who have served our country receive the first-rate care that they have earned,” said First Lady Michelle Obama.

First Lady Michelle Obama announced an initiative of the country’s top medical schools, including USF’s, to ensure care for veterans and their families.

Together, the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, the AAMC and AACOM are committing to enriching medical education along its continuum to ensure that physicians are aware of the unique clinical challenges and best practices associated with caring for this group; develop new research and clinical trials on PTSD and TBI so that we can better understand and treat these conditions; share their information and best practices with each other through a collaborative web forum created by the AAMC; and grow the body of knowledge leading to improvements in health care and wellness for our military service members, veterans, and their families.

The University of South Florida is helping create a new generation of integrated comprehensive care for veterans and their families:

• USF is ranked fifth nationwide by Military Times Edge magazine for being veteran friendly and is the only Florida university participating in the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program.

• The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine is affiliated with two major VA Hospitals, including the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital (Tampa, FL), home to one of the five busiest polytrauma centers in the United States. All USF residents and medical students receive part of their training in these VA hospitals.

• The medical director for the new USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation is Dr. John Armstrong, who previously directed medical simulation for the army and has close ties to U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command.

• Many patents held by USF — ranked ninth worldwide among universities for U.S. patents — are based on medical inventions and therapies in such areas as prosthetics, TBI and brain repair.

• USF is planning a first-of-its-kind Center for Veterans Reintegration, led by Retired Marine Corps General Martin Steele and Dr. Paul Sanberg of the Morsani College of Medicine. This interdisciplinary research, education and treatment facility will propel a unique collaboration among the university, the VA system, Department of Defense and private research and educational entities – all of which are part of the building plan.

First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden created Joining Forces to bring Americans together to recognize, honor and take action to support veterans and military families as they serve our country and throughout their lives. The initiative aims to educate, challenge, and spark action from all sectors of society to ensure veterans and military families have the support they have earned. The initiative focuses on key priority areas – employment, education, and wellness while raising awareness about the service, sacrifice, and needs of America’s veterans and military families. More information is available at: www.JoiningForces.gov.

– USF Health –

USF Health’s mission is to envision and implement the future of health. It is the partnership of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the College of Public Health, the College of Pharmacy, the School of Biomedical Sciences and the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences; and the USF Physician’s Group. The University of South Florida is a global research university ranked 34th in federal research expenditures for public universities.