The USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy (TCOP) continues to be a pacesetter for innovative education, most recently with its plans to incorporate holographic technology into its educational framework. This ambitious leap aims to elevate the learning experience for both students and faculty, fostering a more immersive and engaging educational environment.”The new holographic technology is the first of its kind in the region“, said Kevin Sneed, PharmD, dean of the TCOP and senior associate vice president of USF Health. It is set to transform classrooms and laboratories alike and bring a new layer to an already premier pharmacy program.

Kevin Sneed, PharmD, dean of the TCOP and senior associate vice president of USF Health posing in front of the Proto hologram unit.

One of the key advantages of this technology is its departure from conventional two-dimensional remote platforms like Microsoft Teams or Zoom. With holographic transmission, students can experience a lifelike classroom setting, enhancing their understanding and connection with the material.

“With our new holographic technology, we can “transport” anybody from anywhere into the classroom, such as a professor or a renowned scientist that we want to engage in our studies with, creating more diversified collaboration and learning experiences”, Dr. Sneed said.  

Proto hologram unit being custom wrapped with the TCOP’s branding.

The college also plans to use intricate three-dimensional models, structures, and processes that might be otherwise challenging to understand through conventional methods. This realism aids in grasping intricate topics more effectively.

While the full implementation of this technology in TCOP’s future location in the downtown campus is scheduled for July next year, the college’s dedication to staying at the forefront of education prompts the immediate exploration of their new holographic technology. The college plans to train its faculty before the upcoming move and create intuitive lesson plans for its students.

“The future for us starts today,” Dr. Sneed said. “Using holographic technology is just the beginning of what you can expect in terms of the technological advancement that we are going to be putting into our downtown building.”

More Images:

Story, photos, and video by Ryan Rossy, USF Health Communications and Marketing
 

The pharmacy program will build out shelled space in the new USF Health Downtown building over the next year and move in early 2023.

TAMPA, Fla (Aug. 12, 2021) – The USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy is moving forward with its plans to build out space and move into the USF Health Downtown building, an opportunity for the innovative pharmacy program to expand its physical space, technology and creative learning pedagogies.

The new 30,000-square-foot home for the pharmacy school will fill about one and a half floors of the building and will enhance the pharmacy program in several ways, including:

• Clinical learning center: A dedicated space that will provide an innovative environment to learn advanced compounding techniques and hone clinical skills for students. This space will also be a resource for pharmacist clinicians, and others, to advance their health care knowledge through continuing education programs.
• Expansion of interprofessional education: As health care becomes even more team based moving into the future, the new home will foster even greater opportunities for interprofessional training, a core component of the educational mission for all USF Health programs, including MD, nursing, public health, physical therapy and physician assistant programs. The convergence of multiple disciplines learning together will create one of the most robust interprofessional learning centers in the country.
• Collaborative ‘maker’ space: A unique space offers a creative environment for student groups, such as ITEHC (Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship in Healthcare), to cultivate new ideas and discoveries resulting in the ability to generate prototypes of new health-related devices.
• Community outreach: Plans are in place to offer space as a resource for youth in surrounding areas to experience health professions through direct engagement and gamification. This will build upon long-standing successful community outreach programs already taking place with the Taneja College of Pharmacy.

“The Taneja College of Pharmacy continues to grow, and a move to the state-of-the-art USF Health Downtown Facility will provide incredible opportunities to enhance its innovative educational and research programs,” said Charles Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine. “By building out new spaces in the facility, the TCOP will take the next step in establishing itself as a state and national leader in personalized medicine, pharmaceutical compounding, and advanced pharmacy education.”

The new space is being designed by architecture, engineering and design firm Gresham Smith. The design will integrate with the building’s existing mechanical, electrical and life safety systems, and will extend many of the classroom technologies and innovative educational initiatives already in place for the Morsani College of Medicine.

Already a leader for attracting Florida’s best pharmacy students, USF’s pharmacy school will likely feel further impact in both student and faculty recruitment efforts due to the appeal of its new location in the burgeoning Water Street Tampa district of downtown Tampa.

“We’ve had great success building our revolutionary curriculum and are already a much sought-after, forward-thinking pharmacy program,” said Kevin B. Sneed, PharmD, dean of the Taneja College of Pharmacy and senior associate vice president for USF Health. “This new home will further elevate our program in stature, for providing an advanced pharmacy education and for its new location, where students can live, work, play and stay.”

The USF Health Downtown building opened in Water Street Tampa in January 2020, welcoming the MD program for the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, and the Heart Institute. Across the years from groundbreaking to opening the new USF Health Downtown building, the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine experienced drastic upticks in recruitment efforts and caliber of students applying to the MD program.

At the August 2019 announcement that USF had received a $10 million gift from the Taneja Family Foundation for the USF Health College of Pharmacy.

The potential for the College of Pharmacy to move into USF Health Downtown began in August 2019, when the College announced a generous $10 million gift from Taneja Family Foundation, the largest philanthropic gift to a pharmacy school in the state of Florida.

“The generosity of the Taneja Family Foundation set into motion these plans for setting up home in downtown Tampa,” Dr. Sneed said. “And the ripple effect of that gift will be felt for years to come as we continuously improve our program and attract the best and brightest pharmacy faculty and students.”

The USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy was established by the Florida Board of Governors in 2009 and welcomed its charter class in August 2011. From the start, the pharmacy program set out to build an innovative program that would be a pacesetter in both pharmacy curriculum and clinical experience. Today, the College of Pharmacy welcomes 100 new students each year for its PharmD program, and has expanded its offerings to include master’s degrees suited for students interested in pursuing a professional degree program, an advanced degree, a degree focused on research, or a degree for those interested in working in the pharmaceutical industry.

Renderings of the new space were provided by Gresham Smith:

MD program fully reaccredited, following approval of $17M to help build new facility downtown

Tampa. FL (June 30, 2015) — The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine’s MD program has been reaccredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) for the next eight years – the maximum period allowed.

This caps off a month of great news for the University of South Florida medical school. The reaccreditation follows the Governor’s approval last week of a state budget, which includes $17 million for the university to begin building its new Morsani College of Medicine (MCOM) facility in downtown Tampa, co-located with the USF Health Heart Institute.

A few of the MCOM faculty, staff and students involved in the LCME reaccreditation process. Clockwise from center: Dr. Bryan Bognar; Dr. Gretchen Koehler; Adriane Smith; Elizabeth Rogers, MS4; Casey Nagel, MS4; Harold Paul, MS4, Neil Manimala, MS4 (Medical Student Council President), Monique Konstantinovic, MS4 (co-president, Class of 2016), and Seema Martinez.

“We will continue to relentlessly pursue excellence in education, research and clinical care,” said Charles J. Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine. “This positive LCME evaluation validates the progress we have made in modernizing our MD curriculum to prepare physicians to lead and practice in a rapidly changing, interdisciplinary health care system.”

The LCME accreditation is additional evidence of a medical school on the move, which is attracting more top prospective medical students to USF. A record number of 5,235 AMCAS applications – up 24 percent from last year – were received for the class of 175 students expected to enter MCOM this August. Additionally, the average Medical College Admission Test score, or MCAT, for the newly admitted students is up 7 percent from last year, which places the incoming class in the top quartile for average MCAT scores among medical schools ranked by U.S. News & World Report.

The LCME is the nationally-recognized accrediting authority for medical education programs leading to the MD degree in U.S. and Canadian schools. Accreditation shows that a medical school has met very rigorous national standards. Graduating from an LCME-accredited school is a condition for licensure in most states.

The LCME cited USF’s ongoing efforts to minimize medical student debt as a particular strength. Among Dr. Lockwood’s priorities since arriving at USF last year is reducing student debt by freezing tuition, as well as boosting the number of medical student scholarships. Scholarship and grant funding to help defray educational expenses for USF medical students increased 300 percent over the last seven years, and student debt rate remains below the national average for all LCME-accredited medical schools.

To prepare for the LCME’s site visit this past February, a team of more than 100 faculty, students and staff spent nearly two years conducting a self-study to help ensure MCOM met LCME standards and to guide institutional improvement.

Dr. Bryan Bognar is vice dean for Educational Affairs at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

“This successful outcome speaks volumes about our comprehensive and meticulous preparation,” said Bryan Bognar, MD, MPH, vice dean for Educational Affairs at MCOM. “It would not have been possible without the hard work, collaboration and dedication of our administration, faculty, staff and students, including our colleagues at the Lehigh Valley campus in Allentown and our incredible Tampa Bay area hospital and community partners.”

For the first time, the LCME reviewed USF Health’s MD SELECT Program – a new partnership with the nationally-recognized Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN). The innovative program, which graduated its first 16 students this spring, admits a group of medical students demonstrating a high level of emotional intelligence and leadership potential. It develops their skills in medical leadership, values-based, patient-centered care and health systems. Students take classes in Tampa for two years, then go to the USF Lehigh Valley campus in Pennsylvania for two years to focus on their clinical education.

“When you embrace the challenges and changes that arise when creating a groundbreaking program like SELECT, you expect to undergo a tough reaccreditation process. We prepared well for the scrutiny and passed,” said Robert Barraco, MD, associate dean for Educational Affairs at MCOM’s Lehigh Valley campus. “This is a huge victory for everyone, both on the USF Tampa campus and the Lehigh Valley campus. Even though we are 1,000 miles apart, there is no distance between us when it comes to working together to improve medical education.”

Dr. Robert Barraco is, associate dean for Educational Affairs at the USF Lehigh Valley campus, where medical students in the MD SELECT program conduct their clinical education.

The move to downtown Tampa is expected to make MCOM even more attractive to top medical student talent in the near future. Bringing together education, translational research and high quality patient care under one roof, it will place students within five minutes of the university’s world-class medical simulation and learning space (CAMLS) and Tampa General Hospital, where they conduct the majority of their clinical rotations.

“It’s a unique opportunity to bring USF Health closer to our primary teaching hospital, into what will be a thriving downtown waterfront district with tremendous appeal to students and faculty,” said Dr. Lockwood. “We look forward to being there well before our next LCME visit in 2023.”

-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 50^th in the nation by the National Science Foundation for both federal and total research expenditures among all U.S. universities. For more information, visit www.health.usf.edu.

Media contact:
Anne DeLotto Baier, USF Health Communications
(813) 974-3303 or abaier@health.usf.edu

Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications