Allen Parent sees something beautiful in faded muscle cars. A 1965 Pontiac GTO is his current rehab project.

All that had to be put on hold when the retired machinist discovered a lump on the left side of his neck in late 2018.

Mr. Parent, of Brookville, Fla., was diagnosed with squamous cell mouth cancer, a head and neck cancer, and referred for treatment to Tapan Padhya, MD, USF Health department chair of Otolaryngology, and Matthew Mifsud, MD, a USF Health head and neck surgeon and otolaryngologist.

Allen Parent near his current rehab project, a 1965 GTO.   Photo by Allison Long | USF Health

About four percent of all cancer cases diagnosed in the United States each year involve the head and neck, according to the American Society of Clinical Oncology. This year, head and neck cancer will affect an estimated 66,630 people.

To treat Mr. Parent’s cancer, Dr. Mifsud had to remove parts of his left mouth and jaw. He reconstructed the jaw with muscle, bone and tissues taken from Mr. Parent’s right leg. The result left him with noticeable cosmetic deformities.

“There was a big lump (of tissue) hanging,” said Mr. Parent, adding, “you catch it in zippers.”

Allen Parent before his surgery with Julia Toman, MD. Photos courtesy of Dr. Toman

Mr. Parent after his surgery Dr. Toman. Photos courtesy of Dr. Toman

Dr. Mifsud said that while many cancers and their scars can be covered up with clothing, “You can’t hide cancers of the head and neck.”

To deal with the visible loose tissue, Dr. Mifsud recommended that Mr. Parent see Julia Toman, MD, a USF Health facial plastic surgeon, in 2020 after Mr. Parent had finished his cancer treatments. She was able to repair the loose tissue and make his face appear more symmetrical.

“To be able to do procedures that allow people to be seen on the outside the way they feel on the inside really affirms people’s quality of life,” Dr. Toman said.

“They both (Drs. Mifsud and Toman) did a great job and I am appreciative for everybody that was involved,” Mr. Parent said.

Allen Parent is grateful for his treatment by Drs. Mifsud and Toman. Photo by: Allison Long | USF Health

Now that his more than two-year-journey with cancer is completed, Mr. Parent is planning trips on his beloved Harley Davidson.

“If you have cancer, it’s not the end of the world,” said Mr. Parent, 69. “The best thing to do is just look at the positive side of things cause, there’s always a brighter day ahead.”

Watch the video above to learn more about Mr. Parent’s journey.

Dr. Matthew Mifsud

Dr. Julia Toman

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a lasting impact on the way we live, work and interact. Watch Dr. Bryan Bognar, vice dean of the Morsani College of Medicine Department of Medical Education, discuss USF Health’s medical education successes and challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The COVID-19 pandemic is having a lasting impact on the way we live, work and interact. Watch Dr. Terri Ashmeade, chief quality officer at USF Health, discuss patient safety in the clinics.

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The COVID-19 pandemic is having a lasting impact on the way we live, work and interact at USF Health. Watch Jacqueleen Reyes Hull, Ed.D, assistant vice president for administration at USF Health, discuss how daily life has changed for faculty and staff.

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USF Health medical student Tampa Hutchens discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected medical education and what students and USF faculty have done to keep their medical training on track.

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USF Health Dean of the Taneja College of Pharmacy Dr. Kevin Sneed discusses the role pharmacists play in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Sneed stresses how pharmacists are helping find promising treatments, connecting with patients virtually to go over their medication regimens and further strengthening the healthcare sector’s approach to fighting the pandemic.

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USF Health Dean of Public Health, Dr. Donna Petersen, discusses the importance of public health especially during pandemics like COVID-19. Dean Petersen stresses the importance of following CDC guidelines — washing hands thoroughly, wearing a mask and maintaining social distance — to avoid contracting and spreading COVID-19. Dr. Petersen leads the COVID-19 Task Force and lays out plans to reopen USF to students, faculty and staff.

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Nurses protect the health and well-being of patients every day and play an integral role in our nation’s health care system. In the latest USF Health Brief, Dr. Usha Menon, interim dean of the USF Health College of Nursing, discusses the challenges and changes nurses and nurse training face during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Dr. Stephen Liggett, USF Health associate vice president for research, discusses how COVID-19 has changed how research is conducted and the types of conditions researchers work.

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Dr. Deborah DeWaay, USF Health associate dean of undergraduate medical education, discusses the current and long-term changes in medical education due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Dr. Mark Moseley, USF Health’s Chief Clinical Officer, discusses how physicians and other health care providers are using telehealth services and technology to remotely care for patients, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

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In the first USF Health Briefs, Dr. Charles Lockwood, Dean of the Morsani College of Medicine, talks about how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed our way of life and access to health care, the lessons the virus is teaching the medical community, and how long it may take before we can safely mingle in large groups again.

Greg Strachov of Citrus County, FL, has been an artist for more than 40 years, garnering numerous local, national and international awards for his watercolors.

In the fall of 2017, an MRI scan discovered a softball-sized meningioma tumor near where Mr. Strachov’s brain connects to his spinal cord. Meningiomas, while usually benign, are the most common type of brain tumor and can still cause widespread health problems for the patient. For Mr. Strachov, this included losing his ability to walk or create his art.

Greg Strachov displays some of his watercolors recently in his Citrus County, FL, home. Mr. Strachov, a renowned artist, had a softball-sized brain tumor removed by USF Health neurosurgeon Dr. Harry van Loveren after two successful surgeries.

Mr. Strachov, 69, was referred to USF Health neurosurgeon Dr. Harry van Loveren, who performed a 13-hour surgery on the tumor in January 2018. The surgery removed much of the tumor but left Mr. Strachov paralyzed on the right side with little ability to move his left eye. Over the ensuing months, Mr. Strachov underwent strenuous rehabilitation to regain movement and coordination on his right side. He even picked up a new hobby; he found restoring old hand drills helped retrain his fine motor skills.

Dr. van Loveren determined in mid-2019 that he needed to remove more of the tumor and presented the potential risks to Mr. Strachov. They agreed, and Dr. van Loveren performed the second surgery in August 2019. The operation was a success, although a small piece of the tumor remains inoperable and Mr. Strachov’s physicians will monitor its development in the years to come.

Dr. Harry van Loveren, USF Health Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery.

Mr. Strachov has been able to return to painting and other activities he loves. “Dr. van Loveren,” he says, “gave me back the ability to live.”

Mr. Strachov paints a wide variety of watercolor work, including portraits and still life, but he particularly enjoys landscapes.

“I like to paint places that remind people of a reality that they can actually visit in reality,” he says. In fact, after eventually regaining the ability to paint, his first big project was a painting of a lone desert tree in the American Southwest.

Greg Strachov stands with the first watercolor he completed following a series of surgeries to remove a brain tumor.

“It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen, and it’s a place that kept itself on my mind while I went through all of the hospitalization and all the surgeries,” he says. “That tree is perhaps me, and it’s survived a very, very difficult environment.”

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a lasting impact on the way we live, work and interact at USF Health. Watch Jacqueleen Reyes Hull, Ed.D, assistant vice president for administration at USF Health, discuss how daily life has changed for faculty and staff.

A common problem at the end of medical office visits is patients being unable to clearly remember what was talked about, including details about their diagnoses or recommended changes to their diet, activity levels or medications.

In fact, the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality says studies show that patients can forget up to 80 percent of information shared during an office visit and almost half of what they do remember can be inaccurate.

That forgetfulness can obviously negatively affect the patient’s health. It can lead to unnecessary medical complications, added health costs and duplicated effort when the patient or caregivers invariably contact the doctor’s office with follow-up questions.

USF Health’s Department of Neurosurgery is offering a new tool that can avoid many of those issues by providing patients with an online video recording of their visit with their physician, which they and their family can review afterward.

Called the Medical Memory, the service is designed to be HIPAA-compliant and user friendly for both the patient and health care providers. The physician records the visit on a tablet computer, and the recording is then uploaded to a secured website. The Medical Memory emails a link to the video to the patient and anyone else connected to the patient’s account, such as family members or other caregivers.

Fayyadh R. Yusuf, PhD, is the director of physician development in the USF Health Department of Neurosurgery. Dr. Yusuf said he appreciated The Medical Memory’s “simplicity” and how it provides USF Health patients a permanent record of their consult with their physician.

“Knowing that a lot of things get missed in the moment, there’s great security knowing they can simply turn on the video, re-watch it, watch it with family, watch it with their home physician and go, ‘Ok, this is what the doctor said, these are the instructions, this is what we are supposed to do,’” Dr. Yusuf said.

A tablet is used to record a patient-doctor visit.

The Medical Memory, the company that produces the service, was founded in 2015 by Phoenix, Ariz.-based neurosurgeon Randall Porter, MD. According to the company’s website, the company was founded to “improve patient comprehension, satisfaction and trust.”

USF Health was the first health care organization in Florida to adopt the system when it was implemented in January 2020, Dr. Yusuf said and is now part of a pilot project focused on patients in the critical care division. He said having The Medical Memory is useful as the COVID-19 pandemic has limited visitors within the hospital.

“We’re hoping that this really facilitates and eases the burdens on the families that can’t come in and see their loved ones,” he said.

Besides providing videos for patients, physicians can also use The Medical Memory to create libraries of two- and five-minute videos where they can describe health conditions and treatments and then share those videos as part of patient education.

Harry van Loveren, MD, is chair of the Department of Neurosurgery and Vice-Dean of Clinical Affairs in the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. He said providers have begun regularly using The Medical Memory as part of their clinic hours.

“Why would you have this lengthy in-depth discussion and then not record it?” Dr. van Loveren said.

He said the service has already led to improvements in patient satisfaction and reduced calls to his staff. Dr. Porter’s company said that, in a study involving 400 patients, half of whom used the video recording and upload system and half of whom didn’t, the video patient group generated almost 24 percent fewer calls to their physicians’ offices, freeing up staff time and other resources.

“The number one question (patients) are asked by family members is, ‘What did the doctor say?’” Dr. van Loveren said. “The number one phone call we get about the office visit is, ‘I don’t remember what the doctor told me.’”

The neurology program is also looking to use The Medical Memory to overcome limitations of patients diagnosed with such conditions as dementia or brain tumors, or patients who may have received a critical or even fatal diagnosis and may have trouble processing the rest of what they hear during the visit.

“(With) a diagnosis that might affect clarity or thinking, we are very relieved to know the whole session is being video recorded so their caregivers and significant others can view it,” Dr. van Loveren said, adding, “I think this should be the way that every medical visit is conducted. It is a fantastic record of the visit.”

USF Health medical student Tampa Hutchens discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected medical education and what students and USF faculty have done to keep their medical training on track. This is the final episode in an eight-part series looking at the way COVID -19 is impacting the way we live, work and access health care.

USF Health Dean of the Taneja College of Pharmacy Dr. Kevin Sneed discusses the role pharmacists play in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Sneed stresses how pharmacists are helping find promising treatments, connecting with patients virtually to go over their medication regimens and further strengthening the healthcare sector’s approach to fighting the pandemic. This is the seventh in an eight-part series looking at the way COVID -19 is impacting the way we live, work and access health care.

USF Health dean of Public Health, Dr. Donna Petersen, discusses the importance of public health especially during pandemics like COVID-19. Dean Petersen stresses the importance of following CDC guidelines — washing hands thoroughly, wearing a mask and maintaining social distance — to avoid contracting and spreading COVID-19. Dr. Petersen leads the COVID-19 Task Force, and lays out plans to reopen USF to students, faculty and staff.

Nurses protect the health and well-being of patients every day and play an integral role in our nation’s health care system. In the latest USF Health Brief, Dr. Usha Menon, interim dean of the USF Health College of Nursing, discusses the challenges and changes nurses and nurse training face during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the types of research being conducted at USF Health? The fourth in an eight-part series looking at how COVID-19 is impacting the way we live, work and access health care. Dr. Stephen Liggett, USF Health associate vice president for research, discusses how COVID-19 has changed how the school conducts research and the types of conditions researchers study.