DIRECTING RURAL HEALTH EFFORTS

Maggie Blackburn, M.D., (above, center) assistant professor of family medicine and rural health, has been named Director of Rural Health at the College of Medicine. Blackburn, who has experience in rural private practice and is a member of the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services, will focus on issues in rural medical education, research and policy.

PROMOTING LEADERSHIP

Bob Watson, M.D., is the College of Medicine’s new executive associate dean for administration, leading strategic planning efforts for the continuum of medical education. Watson, an experienced and distinguished educator and leader who spent 18 years as senior associate dean for educational affairs at the University of Florida College of Medicine, is recognized statewide and nationally for his insights and understanding of medical education.

He will serve as chair of the College of Medicine curriculum committee, which is examining current methods, practices and assessments to ensure the medical school is best positioned to meet its mission.

THE PEOPLE SPEAK

Gail Bellamy, Ph.D., professor of family medicine and rural health, is conducting five town hall meetings in small Florida towns during the month of February with the ultimate aim of improving health care for citizens of the state’s rural areas.

Bellamy, director of the college’s Center for Rural Health Research and Policy, said the meetings will help her in preparing a report for the Florida State Office of Rural Health. It’s one way the college contributes to state planning efforts for addressing health care needs of rural Floridians.

“Too often, health care providers feel that they know what their community needs with respect to health and health services.  If our goal is truly to promote good health, it’s important for us to periodically test reality to see how well we really know our community,” Bellamy said.

“The town hall meetings are one means toward that end.  Through this series of meetings around the state we hope to see how well our key stakeholders gauged the needs of rural Florida, and from there look at what can be done to meet those needs.”

The meetings are taking place in Starke, Liberty County, Madison, Clewiston and within the counties belonging to the Highland Rural Health Network.

EXPERIENCING HISTORY

Alma Littles, M.D., senior associate dean for medical education and academic affairs, and her husband, Gentle, traveled to Washington, D.C., to be among the people experiencing the occasion of President Barack Obama’s inauguration, Jan. 19.

FACULTY NOTES

Adam Ball, M.D., clinical associate professor at the Fort Pierce regional campus, has been inducted as a Fellow in the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Ball also serves as a manuscript reviewer for the journal Urology.

Raymond Bellamy, M.D., surgery clerkship director for the College of Medicine’s regional campus in Tallahassee, will receive the Capital Medical Society’s 2009 Outstanding Physician Award at the organization’s eighth annual awards dinner, March 26. The event takes place at the University Center Club.

Bellamy is being recognized for “leadership efforts to improve, strengthen and promote the profession of medicine.”

Debra Danforth, A.R.N.P., director of the Charlotte E. Maguire, M.D. and TMH Center for Clinical Simulation, authored “What to do when the eyes have it” for The Clinical Advisor – a forum for nurse practitioners, August 2008. The feature article was subtitled, “Subconjunctival hemorrhage is often easily identifiable, but determining the proper treatment is crucial to preserve the patient’s vision.”

Mariana Dangiolo, M.D., assistant professor in the department of geriatrics, authored along with Ken Brummel-Smith, M.D., chair and professor in the department of geriatrics, “Assistive Technologies in the Home” for the February 2009 issue of Clinics in Geriatric Medicine. Link: Article

Myra Hurt, Ph.D., senior associate dean for research and graduate programs, is making use of a research tool allowing other scientists to study genes of interest. She directed a collaborative effort in which important information about what takes place during the first two hours of a new round of cell division. The resulting paper - Identification of G1-Regulated Genes in Normally Cycling Human Cells – is published through an NIH database for other scientists to use.

The research involved Hurt’s lab at the College of Medicine, a lab at Stanford University and a robotic apparatus built by one of Hurt’s former graduate students, Amy Baldwin, to harvest cells at a precise point during cell division.

The time period in question is critical because this is when the cell makes a decision to grow and divide again, providing applications to growth related conditions, such as the abnormal growth associated with cancer formation.

Dan McGee, Chair of Statistics at FSU, did the statistical analysis of more than 350,000 data points and Hank Bass, associate professor of biological sciences at FSU, collaborated with microscopy. The team also included Hurt’s former doctoral student Maroun Beyrouthy, and Beth Alexander, an assistant in Hurt’s lab. Read more: Collaborative science

Suzanne Johnson, Ph.D., chair and professor of medical humanities and social sciences, published in the September 2008 issue of Pediatric Diabetes the results of her study “Participant and parent experiences in the oral insulin study of the Diabetes Prevention Trial for Type I Diabetes.” Read the article

Santiago Martinez, M.D., clinical associate professor, who teaches internal medicine to third- and fourth-year students at the Orlando regional campus, recently led a workshop in Seattle at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Dr. Martinez presented “Immunity and Autism,” helping participants to recognize and classify various types of autism, describe a fair and balanced view of the controversies about the etiology of the increased incidence of autism, and describe recognized immunologic abnormalities associated with autism.

Howard E. Voss, M.D., clinical associate professor at the Ft. Pierce regional campus, has been selected for recognition from the American College of Physicians. At the ACP’s annual convocation ceremony, scheduled April 23 in Philadelphia, Voss will receive the Oscar E. Edwards Memorial Award for Volunteerism and Community Service.

Voss directs the Volunteers in Medicine Clinic in Stuart, Fla., treating residents of Martin County who have no insurance. He is assisted by 90 volunteers, 31 of whom are physicians, with eight paid staff members.

For a story in the TCPalm newspaper, Voss explained his decision to accept a position teaching clinical sciences with the FSU College of Medicine faculty. “Through this position, I hope to meet a number of young men and women who will agree to come and intern with our clinic for a while," Voss told the paper.

PRESENTING GERIATRICS

The department of geriatrics will be well represented at the American Geriatric Society annual meeting this May in Chicago. The department has had five posters accepted for presentation:

Mariana Dangiolo, M.D. and John Agens Jr., M.D. – “Geriatricizing an EMR for use in a Geriatrics Clerkship.”

Dr. Agens – “Improvement in Short Form 36 (SF36) Scores in a Geriatrician-Led Chronic Care Model (CCM) for Patients Selected as High Risk in an HMO.”

Jacqueline Lloyd, M.D. –“Steps towards Improved Learning: Enhancing students responsibility for learning on a Geriatric clerkship.”

Alice Pomidor, M.D. – “For and By the People: Interdisciplinary Group Writing of Team Curriculum” and “Perceptions of Learning: Town versus Gown.”