Dressed in business attire, middle school students from two local same-gender magnet schools listened intently as USF Health staff described the paths they have taken – some direct, some not-so-direct – to get to their current jobs.

Health care providers, administrators and students visited the Boys Preparatory Academy Franklin Middle School on Jan. 27 and the Girls Preparatory Academy Ferrell Middle School Feb. 10, and were joined by other speakers from the community, including a professional wrestler and football player, a meteorologist, and Tampa Fire Rescue teams.

USF Physicians Group CEO Rich Sobieray talked with middle school Students at Boys Preparatory Academy Franklin Middle School Jan. 27.

The annual Career Days, which is coordinated by USF Health, was spearheaded by Catherine Lynch, MD, professor and associate vice president for Women’s Health and Faculty Development for USF Health and associate dean for faculty development for the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

Now in its fourth year, the two days offer budding professionals and young entrepreneurs insight and advice from experts in a range of fields, and the impact is felt by speakers, as well as students, Dr. Lynch said.

“The Career days at Franklin and Ferrell Magnet schools have been very rewarding for all who participate,” she said.  “We have tried to provide a wide variety of career options for the students to hear about and often the presenters have great personal stories of their path to their careers. The students seem to really enjoy the opportunity to interact and hear about different interesting careers.”

About 50 USF Health faculty, staff and students talked with the middle schoolers. Without fail, the presenters leave the schools with smiles on their faces and hopefully a positive sense about their career and their day, Dr. Lynch said.

“As I was being escorted by one of the 8th graders at Franklin, he told me that he was excited to meet all the USF people as this is where he thinks he will go to college and thinks he wants to be a physician’s assistant after hearing a presenter talk about that career.”

USF Health Chief Communications Officer John Robinson shares his previous career experiences managing communications for Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base.

Sharing their successes and challenges of their own career paths were:

Presenting at the Franklin Middle Magnet School Jan. 27:

Thaddeus Bullard (Titus O’Neil), Professional Wrestler/Football Player
William Carpenter, Instructional Designer – USFSP Alumni
Mike Clay, (SKYPE) Chief Meteorologist – Bay News 9
Edwing Daniel, Director/MD Admissions, USF Health MCOM
Stanley Douglas, Assistant VP Operations and Facilities Management USF Health
Shane Earley, Athletic Trainer – SMART
Daniel Gomez, Assistant Prof/OB-GYN, USF Health MCOM
Brian Graves, Assistant Professor/USF College of Nursing
Ralph Kirk, Facility Shift Manager/Dept of Juvenile Justice (Retired Airforce)
Richard Arnold, 4th year student, USF College of Pharmacy
Kevin O’Brien, Associate Professor/Internal Med, USF Health MCOM
Yashwant Pathak, Professor and Associate Dean, USF College of Pharmacy
Robert Pelaia, Deputy General Counsel, USF Health
Zachary Pruitt, Assistant Professor/COPH
John Robinson, Chief Communications Officer/USF Health
Ronald Shelton, Information Technology/ Raymond James Financial
Kevin Sneed, Dean, USF College of Pharmacy
Adewale Troutman, Professor Assoc. Dean/Health Equity and Community Engagement, USF COPH
Peter Bath, Vice President for Mission/ FL Hospital
Earl Johnson, and Steve Horton Student/Veteran/Marine USF Veterans Affairs
Chris Daniel, Chief of USF Police
Janus Fraley, LTC Professor/Military Science/Battalion Commander USF Army ROTC
George Kiefer, USF Head Coach- Men’s Soccer Athletics
Brian Siegrist, Assoc. AD Communications/USF Football Athletics
Andrew Goodrich, Senior Assoc. AD External Relations USF Athletics
Ralph Shick, Asst. AD/Compliance USF – Athletics
Scott Glaser, Senior Assoc. AD/Facilities and Event Management USF Athletics
Tim Anderson, Assoc. AD Academics USF – Athletics
Casey Carter, Fire Fighter/Tampa Fire Rescue
Andrew Guggino, Fire Fighter/Tampa Fire Rescue
Pat Forward, Captain/Tampa Fire Rescue
Joseph Bunts, Fire Fighter/Tampa Fire Rescue
Kevin Antunez, Fire Fighter/Tampa Fire Rescue
Austin Bubley, Fire Fighter/Tampa Fire Rescue
Vincent Jackson, Driver Engineer/Tampa Fire Rescue
Andrew Brown, Fire Fighter/Tampa Fire Rescue
Calvin Johnson, Captain – Tampa Police Department
Richard Sobieray, Chief Executive Officer USF Physicians Group

Presenting at the Ferrell Middle Magnet School Feb. 10:

Diane Allen-Gipson, PhD, Asst. Prof./Pharmacy Sciences/USF College of Pharmacy
Beth Baker, Learning and Devt Facilitator/Public Broadcasting/WUSF – Public Media
Christina Baldwin, MD, Resident/Pediatrics/ USF Health MCOM
Marisa Belote, PhD, MBA, RN, Instructor/USF College of Nursing
Alicia Best, PhD, Assistant Professor/USF COPH
Lani Boothman-Carpenter, MA.Ed, Resource Manager IT – USF Health Information Systems
Marie Bourgeois, PhD, MPH, Research Asst. Prof./USF COPH/Environmental and Occup. Health
Jarda Bradford, Police Officer/Tampa Police Department/Special Support Div/Training Unit
Jessica Brumley, PhD, CNM, Dir. Div. of Midwifery/Midwife – OB-GYN/ USF Health MCOM
Jane Castor, Retired Chief of Police: Tampa Police Department
Sheila Connery, MD, Associate Professor/OB-GYN/ USF Health MCOM
Jasmine Cutler, PharmD, USF Women’s Health Fellow, USF College of Pharmacy
Sharon Dabrow, MD, Professor/Pediatrics/ USF Health MCOM
Jasmine Dorsey, Applicantion Developer- USF Health IS
Diane Elmeer, Artist/Tampa Arts Council
Jocelyn Fisher, Senior Associate Athletics Director/USF Athletics
Lisa Gamell, MD, Associate Professor- Ophthalmology/ USF Health MCOM
Michelle Guitard, MS, Doctoral Student/Geological Oceanography/USF College of Marine Science
Marilu Hernandez, Media Sales Manager/Public Broadcasting/WUSF – Public Media
Courtney Justice, Major Assistant Professor Military Science/Army ROTC
Alicia Kaufman, CSTII, Crime Scene Tech II/Tampa Police Forensic Unit
Gretchen Koehler, PhD, AVP for USF Health, Sr Associate Dean, USF Health MCOM
Marci Kornegay, Women’s Golf – Head Coach/USF Athletics
Lindsey Krakower, Coordinator for Community Engagement/USF Athletics
Cindy LaFond, Fire Fighter/Tampa Fire and Rescue
June Lake, MA, Human Resources Director/USF COPH
Taylor Leffler, Graduate Assistant/USF Athletics
Jodie Libadisos, Associate Athletic Director/Student Athlete Enhancement
Juli Marquez, Bay News 9 – Metorologist
Melanie Michael, DNP, Asst. Prof./USF College of Nursing
Jessica Moore, Assistant Athletic Coach – Softball/USF Athletics
Heather Murphy, CNM, Certified Nurse Midwife/OB-GYN, USF Health MCOM
Lyette Pate, MED, MBA, Fiscal Business Specialist, USF Health MCOM
Shalon Pate, BA, Legal Assistant/Christopher Ligori and Associates
Ahn-Kay Pizano, MEd, Assistant Director/MD Admissions/USF Health MCOM
Joann Quinn, PhD, MA, Assistant Professor/Office of Educational Affairs USF Health MCOM
Jodi Ray, MA, Project Director/Lawton & Rhea Chiles Center/USF COPH
Kristin Robinson, PharmD, USF Women’s Health Fellow/USF College of Pharmacy
Dana Rose, Owner/Entrepreneur- Beauty Health Nature
Denise Schilte-Brown, USF Women’s Soccer – Head Coach/USF Athletics
Erini Serag, PharmD, Assistant Professor/Pharmacy Practice/USF College of Pharmacy
Lana Soylu, MD, Assistant Professor/Pediatrics/ USF Health MCOM
Ashley Spies, 4th year Pharmacy Student/USF College of Pharmacy
Joann Strobbe, MS, Chief Financial Officer and Senior AVP Administration/USF Health
Susan Tamme, District Chief/Tampa Fire Rescue
Anna Torrens Armstrong, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor/Community & Family Health/USF COPH
Barbara Tripp, Captain Quality Improvement Officer/Tampa Fire Rescue
Ambica Tumkur, MD, Assistant Professor/Neurology/USF Health MCOM
Amy Weiss, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor/Pediatrics/Adolescent/USF Health MCOM
Jacqueline Wiltshire, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor/Health Policy Management/USF COPH
Therese Wooley, Fire Fighter/Tampa Fire and Rescue
Sonya Jacobs, MA, Asst. Dir., USF Health Office of Faculty Development
Catherine Lynch, MD, AVP, USF Health Women’s Health and Faculty Development

From left, Kathleen Wasserman, Lead Teacher at Franklin Middle School, Sonya Jacobs, Assistant Director, USF Health Office of Faculty Development, and Carla Sparks, Supervisor of Single-Gender Programs for Hillsborough County Public Schools.

Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Office of Communications

She’s a grandmother to 16 grandchildren, she’s taking a cruise to the Caribbean, and she’s going to Miami to get a boat. These are details June Ryan wants her health care team at USF Health to know about what’s going on in her life so she wrote them on a large poster as part of the Tell Me More event aims to improve communication between physicians and their patients.

June Ryan shares new details about her life with Dr. Kevin O’Brien.

Held Feb. 15 to 19, the event is part of Solidarity Week and is sponsored by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation to raise awareness for compassionate patient care. Using the “Tell Me More” prompt, patients write at least three things about themselves on a poster, offering details about their own lives that the health care team might not know. Collected and posted on walls within clinics, the written information serves as a reminder that patients are more than the symptoms they present.

“The details patients provide us about themselves help us start conversations with them and offer a better way to humanize their medical experience with us,” said Lucy Guerra, MD, associate professor and director of the Division of General Internal Medicine for the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

“Sometimes we miss these details and knowing them could impact the health care we provide. These details can give the health care team a better understanding of what’s going on in the patients’ lives and what might be affecting their health, details that otherwise might not have been presented. That information helps us define better health care plans that patients are more likely to follow through on.”

At the Byrd Institute, Jasmin Perry writes down her three points with Dr. Crystal Jacovino.

The annual campaign is held at medical schools, patient care facilities and other organizations across the country. At USF Health, health teams in the Division of General Internal Medicine, the Department of Family Medicine, and the primary care clinic at the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute stepped up to participate in the week-long campaign. In addition to forms for writing their three personal details, patients were presented with information about Solidarity Week, a button calling for Solidarity for Compassionate Patient Care, and an apple.

Walter Chapin (far right) talks with his health care team, from left, Karin Hussein, first-year medical student, Santosh Reddy, MD, second-year resident, and Dr. Crystal Jacovino.

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Shenita Sanders, certified medical assistant for USF General Internal Medicine.

Abby Jones was diagnosed with breast, kidney and lung cancers at Moffitt Cancer Center two years ago – all at age 29.

“Who knew I would have to deal with the threat of cardiovascular disease while I was being treated for cancer,” said Jones, a healthy non-smoker who through genetic testing discovered she had a rare disorder that greatly increased her risk of developing several types of cancer.

Jones shared her personal story about overcoming cancer and a chemotherapy-associated cardiac complication Feb. 17 during a luncheon marking the first year of the Cardio-Oncology Program jointly developed by USF Health and Moffitt Cancer Center. More than 130 community, USF and Moffitt leaders attended the educational event, along with several patients and their families.

Abby Jones of Ocala, Fla., center, was one of their first cancer patients to benefit from Cardio-Oncology Program jointly established in late 2014 by USF Health and Moffitt Cancer Center. She poses here with here with her doctors, who oversee the program — Moffitt oncologist Dr. Roohi Ismail-Khan, right, and USF Health cardiologist Dr. Michael Fradley.

The Ocala resident was one of the first patients to participate in the USF Health-Moffitt program, which aims to reduce the risk of cardiovascular complications and prevent cardiovascular disease in cancer patients and survivors.

Jones’ kidney and lung cancers were completely removed surgically. But, research has shown that Herceptin (trastuzumab), one of the chemotherapy drugs administered to help treat Jones’ breast cancer, can have significant toxic effects on the heart. So, Roohi Ismail-Khan, MD, Jones’ oncologist at Moffitt, made sure Jones’ heart was monitored routinely during chemotherapy. When an echocardiogram indicated reduced heart pumping function, Dr. Khan referred Jones to colleague Michael Fradley, MD, a USF Health cardiologist.

After a 7-week “vacation” from Herceptin until her heart function returned to normal and the addition of a low-dose blood pressure medication, Jones said, she was able to successfully complete the optimal chemotherapy regimen for her type of breast cancer last year without cardiotoxic side effects. She will continue to see Dr. Fradley and have her heart tested yearly.

Last weekend, Jones and her husband took their 3-year-old son on a trip to Disney World. “I definitely benefitted from this program,” she said.

From left, Dr. Fradley speaks with Dr. Arthur Labovitz, chair of cardiovascular sciences at USF Health, and Dr. Charles Lockwood, senior associate vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine.

***

Since its creation in late 2014, 520 patients have used the USF Health-Moffitt program – Florida’s first comprehensive academic cardio-oncology program. It is overseen by Dr. Fradley, assistant professor of cardiology at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, and Dr. Khan, a medical oncologist with the Center for Women’s Oncology at Moffitt.

“Based on our first year, this comprehensive and collaborative program is definitely filling a need,” said Dr. Fradley, a pioneer in the emerging field of cardio-oncology and director of the joint program. “It’s a partnership that will continue to strengthen as our patient volume grows and we expand our research and clinical efforts to reduce cardiac risk and improve outcomes for patients battling cancer.”

Today’s targeted cancer treatments are saving and extending lives, but some chemotherapy and radiation therapies can significantly damage the heart by aggravating preexisting heart disease or creating new cardiovascular problems.

Community leaders and officials from USF Health and Moffitt, as well as patients and their families, attended the educational event to raise awareness about the academic partnership that aims to reduce the risk of cardiovascular complications during cancer treatment.

Up to 30 percent of patients receiving cancer treatment experience cardiovascular complications – some not apparent until 10 to 20 years later, Dr. Fradley said. These cardiotoxicities may include heart failure, abnormal heart rhythms, heart attacks, high blood pressure and valve disease.

Moffitt and USF Health have begun research to find more effective ways to eliminate cardiac disease as a barrier to effective cancer therapy.

“Ultimately, our goal is to prevent these cardiotoxicities from ever happening,” Dr. Fradley said. “The last thing we want is for someone to survive their cancer and be left with lifelong cardiovascular disease.”

***

The Cardio-Oncology program serves male and female patients equally, but Dr. Ismail-Khan adds that breast cancer patients are at extra risk for cardiotoxicity. A single breast cancer patient may receive several chemotherapeutic drugs (including such agents as anthracyclines, trastuzumab, pertuzumab and tyrosine-kinase inhibitors) as well as radiation therapy — all of which may cumulatively increase the individual’s risk of heart disease, she said. Age and pre-existing heart conditions add to the risk.

Dr. Lockwood called the academic partnership in the emerging field of cardio-oncology a “model” for other collaborations between USF Health and Moffitt.

Moffitt and USF Health have already conducted an exploratory study to determine whether patients with mutations of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes also have a higher risk for cardiotoxicity. The researchers found that breast cancer patients with these genetic mutations may be at higher risk than the general population for heart failure, and plan to delve deeper into the reasons why.

Another research question to be investigated, Dr. Ismai-Khan said, is whether risk stratification and cardiac rehabilitation can improve the outcomes of patients undergoing chemotherapy with cardiotoxic drugs.

Dr. Labovitz thanked the cancer survivors who shared their experiences and recognized the Moffitt partners who “have been instrumental in the success of the program.”

“The relationship between cardiology and oncology is an absolute must for the future of cancer survival,” she said. “Many novel Phase 1 drugs fail due to cardiotoxicity. If we can control the (damaging) side effects, we may have more treatment options for our patients.”

***

Joining Dr. Fradley and Dr. Ismail-Khan as speakers at the luncheon were Arthur Labovitz, MD, FACC, chair of cardiovascular sciences at USF Health, Charles Lockwood, MD, senior vice president of USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine, and G. Douglas Letson, MD, executive vice president at Moffitt.

Among the luncheon speakers was Dr. G. Douglas Letson, executive vice president at Moffitt.

Recognizing that cardiovascular disease and cancer are the two leading causes of death, they praised the academic multidisciplinary partnership that seamlessly combines the expertise of cardiologists and medical and radiation oncologists.

“Just a few years ago, the field of cardio-oncology didn’t even exist and yet in a very short time our two institutions have developed a partnership to offer our community this unique and important resource,” said Dr. Labovitz, co-director of the USF Health Heart Institute.

“I see this Cardio-Oncology Program as a model for other collaborations between USF Health and Moffitt to make sure our patients collectively get the very best care than can,” Dr. Lockwood said.

In addition to comprehensive care and research, the partnership includes an educational component to teach Moffitt staff how to recognize signs of cardiotoxicity and patients the importance of reporting symptoms as well as healthy lifestyle changes to help reduce cardiac risk. A cardio-oncology fellowship training program has also been established, Dr. Letson said.

For more information on the Cardio-Oncology Program, please visit //moffitt.org/tests-treatments/treatments/cardio-oncology/

Abby Jones shared her personal story about overcoming cancer and a chemotherapy-associated cardiac complication.

The event included lifestyle information about how to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, including a display of fat and sugar content in some popular foods.

Bernadette Shields, Moffitt nurse coordinator for the Cardio-Oncology Program, provides support and education to patients.

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Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications and Marketing

A wide range of science filled the Ballroom at the Marshall Student Center, showcasing the groundbreaking work of rising research stars taking part in the annual USF Health Research Day.

This year’s event, held Feb. 19, featured nearly 330 students, residents, fellows and post-doctoral researchers from across USF Health.

“This event gets better every year,” said Phillip Marty, PhD, vice president for USF Health Research.

Presenters arrived early to set up their posters in the Marshall Student Center Ballroom.

“I’m always impressed with the level of research that is presented at our Research Day,” Dr. Marty said. “Our faculty are engaged in important research, which translates directly to our students, graduate students, residents and trainees who are presenting here today. This is a great training ground for the rest of their careers.”

This year’s slate of presenters showed more students and trainees and slightly fewer faculty, Dr. Marty said, perhaps a reflection of the event’s return to its roots of showcasing science learners.

The day-long event brings together researchers from across all USF Health colleges, programs and disciplines, as well as guest researchers from USF programs studying the science of health. Beginning the day are the oral presenters, the few whose work earned them an invitation to present their work orally. This year’s 11 selected students presented their work at the 7th Annual Joseph Krzanowski, PhD, USF Health Invited Oral Presentations Session, They were: Ngozichukwuka Agu; Faris Galambo, BS; Krishna Reddy; Alison E Roth, MPH; Stephanie Ciarlone; Jaymin Kathiriya; Jared Tur; April Lussier; Abby Pribish, BS; Jessica M Gordon; and Rachel G. Sinkey, MD.

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Alison Roth won best overall for her oral presentation.

The full poster presentation session followed, filling the Ballroom with hustle and bustle as researchers stood next to their posters tacked up onto bulletin boards and judges walked from poster to poster evaluating each presentation and asking lead researchers questions about their work or to further explain their methods, results and conclusions. As always, for those who are new researchers, USF Health Research Day is a key event for acting as a practice run for future national research meetings.

Dr. Charles Lockwood judges the work of Kristen Marcet, second-year medical student.

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//www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDiMw339ToQ

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The day included students from Berkeley Preparatory School, who showcased their own award-winning posters, as well as visiting 12^th grader Patricia Askins (Sarasota High School) presenting her work on anticancer drugs from her time in the lab of Subhra Mohapatra, PhD, associate professor in the USF Department of Molecular Medicine.

After a lunch break, the Roy H. Behnke Distinguished Lectureship began, featuring. This year’s guest lecturer was Robert H. Brown, Jr., MD, PhD, professor and chair of neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and Medical School. His research is devoted to identifying gene defects that lead to neuromuscular diseases.  This year, the title of Dr. Brown’s lecture is “Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis:  Therapeutic Insights from Genetics.”

Dr. Robert Brown

At the conclusion of the talk, the much-anticipated awards are presented. Winners for the USF Health Research Day 2016 are:

Best MCOM Graduate Student Poster Presentations:

Doctoral Student Poster Presentation: Allergy and Immunology: Jillian Whelan

Doctoral Student Poster Presentation: Cancer Biology: Stephanie Buttermore

Doctoral Student Poster Presentation: Cardiovascular and Clinical Science Research: Natascha Alves

Masters Student Interdisciplinary Research: Kathryn Fomuke and Andrew McGill

Doctoral Student Poster Presentation: Molecular and Cellular Biology: Jaymin Kathiriya

Best MCOM Medical Student Presentations:

Med I Student Poster Presentation: Interdisciplinary Research: Nima Hosseinian

Med II Student Poster Presentation: Interdisciplinary Research: Curtis Gravenmier

Med II Student Poster Presentation: Interdisciplinary Research: Kristen Marcet

Med II Student Poster Presentation, Case Studies and Chart Reviews: Andrew Lai, MPH, Anthony Clark, and Luis Perez-Mena

Med III Student Poster Presentation, Case Study and Chart Review: Kyle Achors

Med III Student Poster Presentation, Empirical Study: Laura Kidd

Med IV Student Poster Presentation Case Study and Chart Review: Cheryl Godcharles

Best MCOM Medical Resident Poster Presentations:

MCOM Resident Poster Presentation: Interdisciplinary Case Studies: Jennifer Divine, MD, and Joanna Robles, MD

MCOM Resident Poster Presenation: Case Study and Chart Review: Karina Vivar, MD

MCOM Fellow Poster Presentation: Case Study and Chart Review: Sangeetha Prabhakaran, MD

Best College of Nursing Poster Presentation:

CON Graduate Student Poster Presentation: Nisha Vijayakumar, BDS, MPH

Best College of Pharmacy Poster Presentations:

Graduate Student Poster Presentation: Jeffrey Burgess

Postdoctoral Poster Presentation: Leslie Sandusky, PhD

Best College of Public Health Poster Presentations:

Graduate Student: Umonighu Michael Bubu (epidemiology and biostatistics)

Graduate Student: Athena Failla (global health)

Graduate Student: Kate LeGrand (global health)

Graduate Student: DeAnne Turner (community and family health)

Graduate Student: Tora Suggs (community and family health)

Graduate Student: Kristina Harand (environmental and occupational health)

Post-doctoral Student: Christopher Rice, PhD

Best Undergraduate Student Poster Presentations:

Allergy, Immunology and Infectious Diseases: Priyanshi Patel

Neurosciences: Sophia Abraham

Cancer and Clinical Sciences: Mevin Mathew

Interdisciplinary Sciences: Asgard Marroguin

College of Pharmacy: Neurosciences: Anjanet Loon, and Abdulah Barakat

Top Awards

USF Health Vice President’s Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Oral Presentation: Alison Roth, MPH

MCOM Outstanding Postdoctoral Poster Presentation: Aurelie Joly-Amado, PhD

MCOM Outstanding Fellow Poster Presentation: Liliana Bustamante

MCOM Outstanding Resident Poster Presentation: Anne Mattingly, MD (oncological sciences)

Outstanding Global Pediatric Behavioral Health Poster Presentation: Sophia Zaurou

Outstanding Innovations in Medicine Poster Presentation: Rose Tillis

Watson Clinic Award to a Fourth-Year Medical Student: Sriram Velamuri

Dr. Christopher P. Phelps Memorial Fund Annual Morsani COM Graduate Student Travel Award: Krishna Reddy

A field of research fills the Marshall Student Center Ballroom.

USF Health Research Day 2016.

Story by Sarah A. Worth, USF Health Communications

Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications

Video by Sandra C. Roa, USF Health Communications

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwe7-t-yleM

Jaymin Kathiriya, MS, an aspiring young researcher who investigates how hypoxia exacerbates pulmonary fibrosis, was among the select group of 11 students invited to give oral presentations at the 2016 USF Health Research Day.

Kathiriya, a fourth-year PhD candidate in the Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, was enthusiastic about the chance to present his research before student peers and faculty judges Feb. 19 in the Oval Theatre at the USF Marshall Student Center. Even more than that, he appreciated the opportunity to mingle with fellow aspiring young researchers from across all USF Health colleges and disciplines, as well as guest researchers from USF programs studying the science of health.

“I’m excited about being able to get critical input and different ideas from so many different people,” he said.

The energy of aspiring young researchers from across all USF Health colleges and disciplines generated a buzz in the Marshall Student Center Ballroom during the 2016 USF Health Research Day.

A training ground for aspiring researchers, physicians

Charles J. Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine, served as a judge for this year’s Research Day. He said he was impressed by the depth and breadth of the research activities encompassed in the nearly 330 poster presentations.

“I have dedicated a significant portion of my career to my own research and to training physician-scientists – so I may be biased,” Dr. Lockwood said. “But, I strongly believe that, beyond its intrinsic importance in promoting health, research makes one a better provider by disciplining the mind to collect all the requisite data and then carefully and correctly interpret it to make the correct diagnosis and choose the optimal therapy.”

Dr. Charles Lockwood judges the work of Kristen Marcet, second-year medical student.

Phillip Marty, PhD, associate vice president for USF Health Research, agreed.

“Our faculty are engaged in important research, which translates directly to our students, graduate students, residents and trainees who are presenting here today,” Dr. Marty said. “It is a great training ground for the rest of their careers.”

This year’s slate of presenters included more students and trainees and slightly fewer faculty, Dr. Marty said, perhaps a reflection of the event’s return to its roots of showcasing science learners.

Paul R. Sanberg, PhD, DSc, Senior Vice President for Research, Innovation & Economic Development, said USF is committed to providing its students with research and commercialization opportunities to support their growth and development as scientists, leaders and, ultimately, mentors to others.

“The accomplishments of your faculty, students, trainees and staff at celebrated at Research Day are more examples of USF Health’s continued impact in research and innovation,” Dr. Sanberg said.

Nearly 330 students and faculty presented their research projects in a judged competition.

Student contributions to scientific body of knowledge

In Dr. Dave Vrushank’s laboratory, Kathiriya works with cell and animal models to help investigate the contribution of low oxygen levels, or hypoxia, to pulmonary fibrosis of unknown cause, known as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). IPF is an incurable disease in which tissue deep in the lung becomes scarred over time. The prevalence of this incurable disease, which kills up to 40,000 Americans a year, has increased as the aged population has grown.

“We are trying to determine the exact (molecular) nuances of hypoxia in the lung that cause pulmonary fibrosis,” Kathiriya said. “We’ve found that hypoxia is a systemic injurious factor involving a number of signaling pathways that cause fibrosis in nature, but these different pathways have common protein mediators – FAK1 and Galectin-1 – that may be leveraged as therapeutic targets for pulmonary fibrosis.”

Jaymin Kathiriya, MS, MCOM doctoral student in the Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, was among the select group of 11 students invited to give oral presentations at the 2016 USF Health Research Day.

The lab continues to work on developing a mouse model that correlates well with the slow, progressive features seen in IPF patients in the clinic, and on identifying drug candidates to test using in vivo models.

The study that second-year medical student Abby Pribish presented at Research Day was supported by a full-time summer scholarship from the Morsani College of Medicine’s Scholarly Concentrations Program. In the laboratory of Danielle Gulick at the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute, Pribish tested the hypothesis that frequent light cycle alternations disruptive to circadian rhythm, the internal biological clock, would increase alcohol drinking in adolescent mice.

She and her lab colleagues found that breaking the circadian clock of the young mice did not cause them to drink more alcohol; however, the way the mice drank alcohol changed significantly. They consumed the same volume of alcohol in more rapid short bouts during the day.

“Messing up the light cycles caused them to binge drink,” Pribish said. “What we think is happening is that the adolescent mice seem to be intentionally spiking their blood alcohol concentration as a mechanism for coping with circadian desynchrony.”

Second-year medical student Abby Pribish was also invited to speak about her research in the oral presentation session. Her study focused on how circadian desynchrony would affect alcohol consumption in adolescent mice. -Photo by Sandra C. Roa

Pribish plans to continue to pursue her interest in addiction medicine, particularly as it pertains to adolescents — a population she says has not been studied as much as adults when it comes to alcohol use and treatment.

“Eleven percent of the alcohol consumption in the U.S. is by adolescents, and 90 percent of this (under-age) drinking is binge drinking,” she said. “It’s a huge problem… and I definitely want to be part of the solution in my career in research and as a doctor.”

Therapeutic insights from the genetics of ALS

Physician-scientist Robert H. Brown, Jr., MD, DPhil, who is nationally renowned for research on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, delivered the Annual Roy H. Behnke Distinguished Lectureship. He is professor and chair of neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and Medical School.

Research Day keynote speaker Dr. Robert H. Brown has a record of significant discoveries in identifying gene defects that elucidate how ALS causes neurons to die.

Dr. Brown spoke about investigations by his laboratory and others to harness genetics as a pathway to understanding how ALS causes neurons to die and to gain insights into potential therapies for this progressive paralyzing neuromuscular disorder with no effective treatment. In 1993, he led a team that identified the first gene linked to hereditary ALS (copper-zinc superoxide dismutase 1, or SOD1) and mapped the mechanisms for SOD1 neurotoxicity in humans and in cellular and animal models.

Today, more than 50 ALS-related genes showing familial transmission have been discovered, and Dr. Brown’s work provides evidence that genes implicated in inherited ALS also play a role in the more common sporadic form of the disease.

The end goal is to create better models of the disease to probe therapies – everything from small molecules, biologics and antibiodies to tropic factors secreted by stem cells and gene silencing, said Dr. Brown, whose team has engineered an artificial miRNA against SOD1, which is packaged into an adenoassociated virus vector. As in cancer, multiple interventions may be required to overcome the complex patterns of gene expression in ALS, he added.

From left: Dr. Bryan Bognar, vice dean of MCOM Educational Affairs; Dr. Phillip Marty, associate vice president for USF Health Research; Dr. Paul Sanberg, senior vice president for USF Research, Innovation & Economic Development; Dr. Charles Lockwood, senior vice president for USF Health and MCOM dean; Dr. Clifton Gooch, chair of neurology; Dr. Robert H. Brown, USF Health Research Day speaker; and Dr. John Sinnott, chair of internal medicine.

“The genes involved in this disease are not what we expected, and the approaches we will need to treat the disease are yet unknown,” said Dr. Brown. “But there has been substantial progress, so I’m very optimistic that we and others will be able to work toward a treatment in the near term.”

In fact, Dr. Brown said he is he is hopeful therapies that ultimately prove useful in delaying progression and reversing symptoms in ALS may also make a difference in other degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

In addition to Kathiriya and Pribish, the other students selected to present their research at the 7th Annual Joseph Krzanowski, PhD, USF Health Invited Oral Presentations Session were: Ngozichukwuka Agu; Faris Galambo, BS; Krishna Reddy; Alison E Roth, MPH; Stephanie Ciarlone; Jared Tur; April Lussier; Jessica M Gordon; and Rachel G. Sinkey, MD.

This year’s slate of presenters at the 26th Annual USF Health Research Day included more students and trainees and slightly fewer faculty.

Top Awards

MCOM Outstanding Postdoctoral Poster Presentation: Aurelie Joly-Amado, PhD

MCOM Outstanding Fellow Poster Presentation: Liliana Bustamante, MD

MCOM Outstanding Resident Poster Presentation: Anne Mattingly, MD (oncological sciences)

Outstanding Global Pediatric Behavioral Health Poster Presentation: Sophia Zavrou, PsyD

Outstanding Innovations in Medicine Poster Presentation: Rose Tillis

Watson Clinic Award to a Fourth-Year Medical Student: Sriram Velamuri

Dr. Christopher P. Phelps Memorial Fund Annual Morsani COM Graduate Student Travel Award: Krishna Reddy

Second-year medical student Rose Tillis explains her research findings to Joseph Krzanowski, PhD, former MCOM associate dean and professor emeritus in the Department of Pharmacology and Molecular Physiology. Tillis won an Outstanding Innovations in Medicine award for the poster titled “Hydrocolloid Bra for Nipple Sparing Mastectomy.”

Best Graduate Student Poster Presentations:

Doctoral Student Poster Presentation: Allergy and Immunology: Jillian Whelan

Doctoral Student Poster Presentation: Cancer Biology: Stephanie Buttermore

Doctoral Student Poster Presentation: Cardiovascular and Clinical Science Research: Natascha Alves

Masters Student Interdisciplinary Research: Kathryn Fomuke and Andrew McGill

Doctoral Student Poster Presentation: Molecular and Cellular Biology: Jaymin Kathiriya

Kathiriya’s presentation “Hypoxia Exacerbates Pulmonary Fibrosis via FAK1 and Galectin-1 In Vitro and In Vivo” won one of the MCOM Best Doctoral Student Poster Presentation awards. Here he is congratulated by Internal Medicine Chair Dr. John Sinnott.

Best Medical Student Poster Presentations:

Med I Student Poster Presentation: Interdisciplinary Research: Nima Hosseinian

Med II Student Poster Presentation: Interdisciplinary Research: Curtis Gravenmier

Med II Student Poster Presentation: Interdisciplinary Research: Kristen Marcet

Med II Student Poster Presentation, Case Studies and Chart Reviews: Andrew Lai, MPH, Anthony Clark, and Luis Perez-Mena

Med III Student Poster Presentation, Case Study and Chart Review: Kyle Achors

Med III Student Poster Presentation, Empirical Study: Laura Kidd

Med IV Student Poster Presentation Case Study and Chart Review: Cheryl Godcharles

Andie Dodge, a Department of Molecular Physiology and Pharmacology research technician in Dr. Edwin Weeber’s laboratory, was first author on a poster presentation titled “Knock down of Disabled-1 inhibitory neurons reveal novel role in synaptic plasticity.”  Dodge is applying for graduate school.

Best Medical Resident Poster Presentations:

MCOM Resident Poster Presentation: Interdisciplinary Case Studies: Jennifer Divine, MD, and Joanna Robles, MD

MCOM Resident Poster Presenation: Case Study and Chart Review: Karina Vivar, MD

MCOM Fellow Poster Presentation: Case Study and Chart Review: Sangeetha Prabhakaran, MD

Ruisheng Liu, MD, PhD (center), professor of molecular pharmacology and physiology, and Ingrid Bahner, PhD (right), associate professor of molecular medicine, pause from their busy judging schedule to pose for a photo. Some 83 faculty from all USF Health colleges and some affiliates served as judges for Research Day.

Subhra Mohapatra, PhD, (right) associate professor of molecular medicine, with Patricia Askins, a student from Sarasota High School who has been mentored by Dr. Mohapatra for the last year.

Keynote speaker Dr. Brown stopped by to look at the science projects exhibited by middle school students from Berkeley Preparatory School in Tampa. Kennedy Wakefield (left) and Bella Gonzalez-Portillo discussed their poster presentation “The Effects of Over-the-Counter Drugs” with him.

Students retrieve their Research Day award certificates.

Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications & Marketing

History is filled with people who have impacted health professions. In honor of African American History Month, we’d like to highlight some notable pioneers in the fields represented by the four USF Health colleges.

Pharmacy

Julia Pearl Hughes: first female African American pharmacist to own and operate her own drug store (1899 in South Philadelphia), as well as the first to form her own chemical company. She built a dynasty through another company she formed (Hair-Vim Chemical Company) that produced hair care products for black women.

“Julia Pearl Hughes paved the way for countless other pharmacists, African American or not, to provide communities with better trained and knowledgeable pharmacists dispensing safe medications at their corner drug store. While today’s pharmacists provide a much greater range of expertise through a greater variety of careers, that early ambition by Julia Pearl Hughes, in an era of intense segregation, laid the groundwork for many to follow.”

Kevin B. Sneed, PharmD, CRPh
Senior Associate Vice President, USF Health
Dean and Professor, USF College of Pharmacy

Public Health

        Clara C. Frye: founder of Tampa’s Clara Frye Negro Hospital (1923). In 1908, a physician told Frye a local African American patient needed surgery and local white hospitals were not options. Trained as a nurse, Frye offered her home in Tampa Heights to act as a place for the surgery. Her dining room table was the operating table that allowed the doctor to remove a large tumor from the patient, and her own bed allowed the man to recover. From that point forward, Frye opened her home as a clinic for the black community until the Clara Frye Negro Hospital opened in 1923 a few blocks from her house. A year following her death in 1936, the City of Tampa built the Clara Frye Memorial Hospital along the Hillsborough River in her honor.

“Clara Frye is a true hero of the movements to honor and create civil rights. Public health is all about social justice and health equity and early pioneers like Clara Frye faced incredible odds working to make available health care to all individuals. Health is a human right and we have a long way to go before we truly assure to every citizen the right to appropriate and necessary health care.  People like Clara Frye remind us that the road is long but worth walking every day in service to this elemental truth – that we are all created equal and we all deserve the same chance to enjoy a quality of life that enables us to contribute to the betterment of all

Donna J. Petersen, ScD, MHS, CPH
Senior Associate Vice President, USF Health
Dean and Professor, USF College of Public Health

Nursing

     Mary Eliza Mahoney: first black to graduate from an American nursing school (1879). She is known as the first professional black nurse in America. She is also the co-founder of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, which later merged with the American Nurses Association.

“So much of nursing history is filled with passing information from generation to generation. Mary Mahoney exemplifies the stronger foundation of skills and knowledge later generations of nurses need and patients deserve. The fact that she, as an African American, earned her degree in 1879 makes her efforts even more amazing. These were the early days of formalized nursing studies and degrees and Mary Mahoney was at the forefront of it all.”

Dianne Morrison-Beedy, PhD, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN
Senior Associate Vice President, USF Health
Dean and Professor, USF College of Nursing

Medicine

      Charles Richard Drew: physician, surgeon and researcher who developed an improved technique for storing blood, which was used to develop large-scale blood banks in early World War II, helping medics save thousands of lives of the Allied Forces. His work also included the discovery that plasma could replace whole blood transfusions.

“Charles Drew’s work with blood transfusion was huge and, to this day, impacts frontline medicine. It would be impossible to count the number of lives that have been saved around the world because we can store blood. Dr. Drew was a brilliant man. At the top of his class in medical school, he won a prize in neuroanatomy and was a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society.”

Bryan A. Bognar, MD, MPH, FACP
Vice Dean for Educational Affairs
USF Health Morsani College of Medicine

TAMPA, Fla. (Feb. 29, 2016) – The University of South Florida announced today that it has received a $3.5 million gift from Tampa General Hospital for the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. The gift will be used to establish an endowed faculty chair in cardiovascular sciences and to create a neurosciences research fund to examine brain and nervous system diseases through the Morsani College of Medicine and its Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute.

Tampa General Hospital is USF Health’s primary teaching hospital and primary cardiology practice site.

Tampa General Hospital has served as USF’s primary teaching hospital since the medical school first opened in 1971, and hundreds of students from USF’s medical, nursing and physical therapy programs receive clinical training at Tampa General each year.

“Over many decades, USF and TGH have been dedicated partners in medical research and education; this donation underscores how deeply committed we are to improving the health and well-being of our community,” said USF System President Judy Genshaft.

“This gift highlights the continued investment in the Morsani College of Medicine that we’ve seen from the community, state and our philanthropic partners during the USF: Unstoppable campaign,” said Joel Momberg, CEO of the USF Foundation. “There is so much promise and possibility in this transformative project that began with the generosity of Carol and Frank Morsani, and continues with the support from the health care professionals at Tampa General Hospital.”

Dr. Charles J. Lockwood, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine, said we are deeply grateful to Tampa General Hospital for their incredible generosity that will help fund and strengthen our key initiatives in cardiovascular sciences and neurosciences.

“By establishing an endowed chair in our Heart Institute, this gift will not only enable us to explore all aspects of cardiovascular health including sorting out the differences in heart disease between men and women, but also it will provide life-saving preventions and treatments for heart disease and other cardiovascular disorders,” Dr. Lockwood said. “We are also pleased that this gift will advance our research efforts in neurosciences at the Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute.”

Tampa General Hospital has been recognized by U.S. News & World Report as the top-ranked cardiology and heart surgery practice in Tampa Bay, and the specialty is ranked #35 in the nation. Tampa General is USF’s primary cardiology practice site, where most of the university’s inpatient and outpatient cardiac services are provided and all inpatient cardiovascular clinical trials are conducted. The hospital is also the flagship affiliate for USF’s department of neurosurgery and brain repair.

“We’re working with the Morsani College of Medicine every day to improve the heart and brain health of patients across Florida,” said Jim Burkhart, president and CEO of Tampa General Hospital. “With this gift, we want to help USF Health expand its research efforts and help ensure that our patients receive the most innovative care possible.”

The USF Health Heart Institute integrates innovative biomedical research with advanced clinical care to find new ways to prevent cardiovascular diseases, tailor personalized treatments for patients, and improve the heart health of the Tampa Bay community. The institute will be co-located in the new USF Health Morsani College of Medicine building in downtown Tampa. The Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute is another premier academic research center at USF Health, dedicated to the prevention, treatment and cure of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders.

– 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, and the USF Physicians Group. The University of South Florida is a top 50 research university in total research expenditures among both public and private institutions nationwide, according to the National Science Foundation. For more information, visit health.usf.edu.

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The USF: Unstoppable Campaign is a comprehensive fundraising effort by the University of South Florida System to celebrate the energy, vision, and future of one of the country’s most exciting and engaged universities. Our people and programs, our ideas, our research, and our solutions comprise an ambitious plan to enhance healthcare, science, technology, education, business, the arts, and global partnerships.

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

Three USF Health Information Systems (IS) research submissions have been selected for full session presentations at the upcoming 2016 Information Technology in Academic Medicine Conference. The conference, sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Group on Information Resources (GIR), will be held June 1-3 in Toronto, Canada.

Patrick Gall, Alice Wei and Adam Tobias are part of the USF Health IS team selected to present their research.

AAMC research presentations include:

Patrick Gall, assistant vice president of solution development and health applications, will discuss his research findings on “USF Health: Breaking the Epic community connect model, a 450 provider practice live in 7 Months!” The presentation is focused around knowledge gained by implementing Epic for USF Health digital records, both as a large community connect model and in a compressed time frame.

Alice Wei, director of digital innovation, will present research on a newly developed mobile application; “Slaying the lottery dragon in 10 weeks and other stories of agile mobile development.” The presentation will focus on USF Health IS business process automation, using the Appian platform for multiple processes within the Morsani College of Medicine, including the lottery. The lottery application is an automated system of pairing forth-year medical students with their selected courses, providing a high percentage of successful first-choice selections.

Adam Tobias, director BI & analytics, will present on the topic “Data Governance: The building blocks for an effective strategy,” and will share expertise on how to model an effective data governance strategy. Data governance provides the framework which outlines how an organization’s information assets, or data, are defined, stored, and managed and also within the process, who is responsible for governing definitions and use. It provides the consumers of the data a consistent understanding so that there is a single version of truthful outcomes.

Two additional poster submissions were selected for the conference; one by Kristy Andre on the “USF Health IS Relationship management program,” and also by Marcus Session on a “Virtual Desktop computing program,” were also selected for the conference.

New dementia drug discovery efforts get underway this month at the University of South Florida, Tampa, Fla., thanks to £875,000 funding (approximately $1.2 million) from the Dementia Consortium. The U.S. team of academics will work with drug development experts at UK-based MRC Technology, to target the immune system in a bid to halt nerve cell damage.

The investment comes as part of the £4 million Dementia Consortium – a global partnership between Alzheimer’s Research UK, MRC Technology and the pharmaceutical companies Abbvie, Astex, Eisai and Lilly. By uniting expertise, the Consortium is bridging the gap between academic research and the pharmaceutical industry in the search for new drugs to slow neurodegenerative diseases.  The Consortium’s project with the University of South Florida marks their first contract for collaboration with an American University.

The link between the immune system and neurodegeneration is the focus of intense investigation, and a number of drug discovery efforts aimed at reducing inflammation have got underway recently. In this collaborative project, Dr. David Morgan and Dr. Kevin Nash of the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute, University of South Florida, will explore the role of immune system regulator, fractalkine, in neurodegeneration. Their previous work in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease indicated a neuroprotective role for the protein, with increased levels of fractalkine dampening inflammation, halting nerve cell death and reducing tau deposits. The team observed similar benefits in mouse models of Parkinson’s, suggesting that fractalkine receptor agonism could be a treatment approach for a number of neurodegenerative diseases.

David Morgan, PhD, CEO of the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute and Distinguished University Health Professor (left) and Kevin Nash, PhD, assistant professor of molecular pharmacology and physiology, with an image of neurons expressing fractalkine, an immune system regulator with a neuroprotective effect.

As no known small molecule agonists of the fractalkine receptor exist, the Dementia Consortium funding will couple Dr Morgan’s expertise in neurodegeneration and in vivo validation techniques with the MRC Technology’s extensive screening capabilities and medicinal chemistry programmes.

Talking about the new funding, Dr. David Morgan, CEO of the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute, said:

“We’ve been exploring the role of fractalkine in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease for many years now, highlighting a neuroprotective role for the protein. Thanks to funding from the Dementia Consortium, we are now able to shift our focus from pathway characterization to drug development. We’re particularly excited that this approach could have an impact across a number of different neurodegenerative diseases and look forward to coupling our disease knowledge with drug discovery experts in the UK, to help accelerate progress towards treatments.”

Dr. Simon Ridley, Director of Research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said:

“Dementia is our greatest medical challenge, with 46 million people worldwide living with the condition. The Dementia Consortium is one of a range of initiatives by Alzheimer’s Research UK to accelerate the ‘bench to bedside’ journey, ensuring that academic insights are translated into the clinic as rapidly as possible. The high attrition rate in drug discovery means we must invest heavily in promising early stage development projects and the Dementia Consortium provides a unique vehicle for this investment, uniting expertise across the academic, technology transfer and pharmaceutical sectors.”

Close-up of microscopic image: magnified neurons expressing fractalkine.

Dr. Justin Bryans, Director, Drug Discovery at MRC Technology, said:

“Scientists are increasingly looking at the body’s own immune system to fight some of the most challenging diseases of our time. This project will progress promising findings that fractalkine could reduce inflammation and cell death. Drug discovery expertise in our laboratories will now be applied to find small molecules to stimulate the fractalkine receptor so we can move a step closer to finding a new treatment for people with dementia.”

On forming new partnerships, Valerie McDevitt, Associate Vice President for Technology Transfer & Business Partnerships at the University of South Florida, said:

“The University of South Florida places emphasis on building new relationships like this one to help bridge the gap between academic research and industry.  Our collaboration with the Dementia Consortium provides an opportunity to positively impact the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and aligns with our university mission to serve as a highly effective major economic engine.”

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For further information, or to speak with Dr. Morgan or Dr. Ridley, please contact Emma O’Brien, Science Communications Officer at Alzheimer’s Research UK on 0300 111 5 666, mobile or email press@alzheimersresearchuk.org.

USF Pediatrics is ranked #1 in the nation for NIH funding. USF Ob/Gyn is #10.

Two USF Health colleges and many of its basic science and clinical departments improved their ranks in the latest reports from the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research (BRIMR) annual tabulations of total funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

• The Department of Pediatrics ranked #1 in 2015, up from #2 last year.
• The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine ranked #48 among the 139 medical schools with NIH funding in 2015, up from #63 last year.
• The USF College of Nursing ranked #24 among 66 institutions with NIH funding in 2015, up from #43 last year.
• The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology ranked #10 in 2015, with no ranking last year.
• The USF Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology ranked #37 in 2015, up from #49 last year.

Based on the BRIMR methodology, NIH funding to USF Health colleges totaled $87.5 million in 2015. The USF Department of Pediatrics earned its top spot in the latest BRIMR reports because of the work by Jeffrey Krischer, PhD, Distinguished University Health Professor and his team – Dr. Krischer’s NIH-funded research in the BRIMR report totals more than $64 million, making him the #5 highest funded principal investigator in the world.

Dr. Krischer oversees the Data Coordinating Center of the USF’s Health Informatics Institute. The center coordinates, analyzes and maintains research data from several large clinical networks investigating the causes and outcomes of type 1 diabetes, including TEDDY, TrialNet, TRIGR and DPT-1, and of rare diseases.

“These enhanced rankings show solid progress for USF Health in the past two years and are a direct result of our increasingly laser-like focus on, and ongoing success in,  garnering NIH funding,” said Charles J. Lockwood, MD, MHCM, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine. “For our Morsani College of Medicine, this is our best performance on record. We have now increased from #88 in 2013 to #63 in 2014 to #48 among U.S. medical schools in 2015. However, we have much work to do to maintain these gains and advance further.  The opening of the new USF Health Heart Institute in a thriving amenity-rich waterfront location in downtown Tampa proximate to our nationally ranked cardiology and cardiac surgery programs at Tampa General Hospital should accelerate our success in obtaining additional NIH funding.”

“This ranking is a credit to our outstanding scientists, faculty and staff who, together, form an incredible team that is passionate about transforming healthcare through research,” said Dianne Morrison-Beedy, PhD, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN, senior associate vice president for USF Health and dean of the USF College of Nursing. “I am so proud of each and every one of them who devote their energies, creativity, and experience to furthering the science of nursing and making the USF College of Nursing one of the premier institutions in the world.”

The BRIMR rankings provide an annual look at how institutions and science departments fared in attaining much-coveted federal funding from the NIH.

Only about a decade old – around the time the NIH stopped tallying and ranking schools and departments by their funding totals – the Blue Ridge rankings were started. Retired professor of biochemistry and molecular biology Robert Roskoski, Jr., began synthesizing the NIH data tables into an annual set of reports ranking colleges who typically garner NIH funding and the basic science and clinical departments typically found in colleges of medicine who get NIH funding.

Like other national rankings, the annual reports have quickly become a much-used data point for NIH funded programs across the country.

New this year:  Special delivery of Match envelopes

University of South Florida senior medical school students in Tampa, FL, and Allentown, PA — along with thousands of their peers at medical schools across the country — will learn this Friday, March 18, where they will spend their residencies following graduation. The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine Class of 2016 will gather with family and friends for the  National Match Day ceremony at Ulele.

This year’s special delivery of the Match envelopes is sure to generate some buzz!  In addition, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor will visit the USF medical school’s Match Day to give the latest news on her work to improve federal funding for residency slots (graduate medical education) and announce new legislation she will introduce in Congress to help alleviate the projected physician shortage and improve health care.

Residency, lasting three to seven years depending upon the specialty pursued, is the time when licensed medical graduates receive specialized postgraduate training in their chosen medical fields. In the months leading up to Match Day, students apply and interview for residency slots with institutions across the country. Beginning at Noon EST on March 18, U.S. medical students will open sealed envelopes to find out which school among their several selections accepted them.

Some USF SELECT MD senior students will attend the Tampa celebration, but most will participate in a Match Day event on the Lehigh Valley Hospital campus in Allentown, PA, where they conducted their clinical training the past two years.

Students’ family members, friends and others who cannot be at the event in person can watch the celebration on the USF Health LIVE Ustream channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/usf-health-live

Match Day is a life-changing event and exciting milestone for the future doctors. Among the USF students anxiously waiting to find out about their residencies are:

• Viktor Flores: Travels on medical mission trips to Latin America and served as communications director and volunteer for the BRIDGE Clinic, a student-run free clinic serving the uninsured in the University Area Community.
• Jonathan Koscso: Drafted by Major League Baseball, he deferred entry into medical school to play one season with the Tampa Bay Rays. Co-founder of USF TriDocs, a club for medical students training to compete in triathlons, he seeks a couple’s match with wife Monique Konstantinovic, founder of Race 4 Her Life: Ovarian Cancer 5K benefit.

• Julianna Naccarato and Matt Widner: Seeking to match as a couple, Matt and Julianna are aiming for a potential residency programs offering more than a good program for him (orthopedics) and for her (family medicine). The third criteria in their search: a program near a children’s hospital with pediatric heart specialists for their 1-year-old son Luca.

• Nicole Teal: Founded USF Health Nicaragua, a coalition of students and faculty who support Manna Project International, a non-governmental organization working in Cedro Galan to address the community’s limited access to basic health services.

For more on the  National Resident Matching Program^® click here.

Push for excellence in research and education leads to 16 position rise since last year

The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine has upped its game in the latest U.S. News & World Report Best Medical Schools rankings released March 16.  Medicine was among six professional school programs included in the U.S. News 2017 Best Graduate Schools rankings.

Fueled in part by increases in National Institutes of Health funding and average Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores, the University of South Florida’s medical school ranked #63 among the best medical schools for research – a significant rise from last year’s #79 ranking.  In the best medical schools for primary care ranking, USF jumped to #67 — up from #85 last year.

Over the last two years, under the leadership of Charles J. Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine, USF Health has intently focused on driving for excellence in its academic missions – including aggressively pursuing more National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants and raising the bar on scholarly achievements for students and faculty.

The factors U.S. News weighs in ranking best medical schools for research include the amount of funding that faculty receive from NIH and a school’s selectivity in admitting students.  The Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research annual tabulations, considered a gold standard in research metrics for medical schools, recently ranked Morsani College of Medicine #48 among 139 medical schools with NIH funding in 2015, up from #88 in 2013 and #63 in 2014.  Applications have increased 40 percent in the last two years to more than 6,200, and entering student MCAT scores were the highest in the state.

“Our climb in the national rankings shows that the relentless pursuit of academic excellence has begun to yield solid successes in enhancing the quality of our research and in attracting the best and brightest students,” Dr. Lockwood said. “We still have much to do to maintain and advance these gains, but I’m confident that the momentum will be sustained as we work toward opening our new Morsani College of Medicine and Heart Institute in a thriving downtown waterfront district, close to our primary teaching hospital, Tampa General, and the USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation.”

U.S. News surveyed 170 fully accredited medical schools and osteopathic schools of medicine for its 2017 Best Graduate Schools edition; 114 of these schools provided the data needed to calculate the rankings.

As part of the 2017 rankings, for the first time, U.S. News ranked Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) programs, which are rapidly growing to prepare nurses for the highest level of clinical practice.  The USF College of Nursing DNP program (#54) was in the 50th percentile of 149 nursing schools ranked.  This newest ranking was based upon surveys of nursing school deans and deans of graduate studies asked to rate the quality of accredited DNP programs, student selectivity and program size, faculty resources, and research activity.

Gasparilla’s Ye Mystic Krewe pirates and U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor cheer on senior medical students as they learned where they will conduct their medical residencies.
Miss the UStream Live?

Watch the recording here.

Eye patches, beads and the occasional ‘Arrgh!’ filled the backyard of local restaurant Ulele March 18 as the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine Class of 2016 found out where they will spend their residencies, the next phase in their medical education. The theme was played out by members of the local Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla – Gaspar’s Grenadiers – a Tampa civic group based on the City’s famed legend surrounding noted pirate Jose Gaspar and a co-sponsor of the City’s annual Gasparilla invasion and parade.

Dr. Charles Lockwood (center with Match Day shirt), senior vice president for USF Health and dean, Morsani College of Medicine, with the Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla.

Match Day is the annual ritual when senior medical students across the country learn where they will spend their residencies, the next phase in their medical education, which can last from three to seven years depending upon the specialty pursued. They’ve spent the past six months or more interviewing with residency programs and then ranking their picks within the National Residency Match Program (NRMP). Match Day is when students find out which programs chose them.

As the group waited for noon to strike – marking the time when the national match begins – a large birthday cake was presented to Richard Gonzmart, owner of the Ulele and a long-time supporter of USF. Bryan Bognar, MD, MPH, vice dean for the MCOM Office of Educational Affairs, thanked Mr. Gonzmart for his ongoing support and helped lead the crowd of hundreds in singing Happy Birthday.

In thanking everyone, he shared how his appreciation for USF was cemented.

“I’m so thankful to the USF College of Medicine,” Gonzmart said. “My Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1992 at the Cleveland Clinic. We found out that the best surgeon in the country happened to be at USF. Thank you and congratulations.”

Richard Gonzmart with Dr. Bryan Bognar.

Amid the pirate themed fun was concern for the nation’s shortage of residency positions. Pointing to local and national initiatives to grow graduate medical education opportunities and the impending physician shortage for the growing Baby Boomer population, U.S. Representative Kathy Castor spoke to the group of soon-to-be residents.

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor is introducing a new bill that addresses the shortage of residency positions.

“I’ve filed a bill this week that would lift caps on the numbers of residents and create more physician training slots in Florida,” Rep. Castor said. “You have gone to medical school at one the premier health training centers in Florida… Even if you do not match in Florida, we need you to return here to practice medicine to help keep our state healthy and well.”

Taking the stage next was Charles J. Lockwood, MD, MHCM, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine.

“So, can you believe that this is the same person who wanted to wear a suit and tie last year?” he asked with a laugh.

At noon, the first envelope was presented, going to Dusty Nicolay, who matched in an anesthesiology residency at Western Pennsylvania Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA.

First envelope for USF Match Day goes to by Dusty Nicolay.

This year is also the second Match Day for the SELECT students, who spent the past two years in clinical rotations in Allentown, PA – for this Class of 2016, 36 SELECT graduates participated in Match Day in Allentown and six returned to Tampa to open their envelopes at Ulele.

USF Health SELECT students in Allentown, PA.

The entire Class of 2016 is the largest group to match in the history of the USF medical school – 172 students participated in the match this year. An oversized map on the Ulele grounds helps illustrate the class size as it was filled by students placing pre-cut red x’s to mark their residency destinations. And although the lawn of Ulele was full of students and their friends and family, anyone who couldn’t make it to the venue could catch all the action via the live UStream, giving access across the world as each student learned where they would spend the next few years of their medical training as physician residents.

For most students, this day is a defining moment: they find out where they will launch their careers. And for some, Match Day continues paths of determination.

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Like most senior medical students matching as couples, Matt Widner and Julianna Naccarato looked at potential residency programs that offered a good program for him (orthopaedics) and a good program for her (family medicine).

But this couple demanded a third criteria in their search: the destination had to be close to a children’s hospital with pediatric heart specialists for their son Luca.

Now 11 months old, Luca was born with a rare congenital heart condition. Constant monitoring and occasional rushes to emergency rooms are part of life for Luca and his family.

“Really, the biggest issue for us in our match is this guy here,” said Julianna, sitting next to wide-eyed, smiling Luca.

Matt and Julianna met as undergraduates. Each worked in the pediatrics unit at Shands Hospital in Gainesville, FL. Both were accepted into USF’s medical school, but entered in different years. This timetable would mean they wouldn’t graduate the same year, which seems like a small detail to most of us but is a detail that negates their option to match as a couple. So Julianna took a year off from medical school to earn a master’s degree in public health from USF. That deferral put them in the same graduating class and, thus, they could match as a couple.

That’s the kind of planners they are. But planning ahead couldn’t prepare them for the rough third year of medical school they faced together. In addition to having a baby with a rare congenital heart condition, Matt’s father was diagnosed with an aggressive form of kidney cancer and passed away within months of Luca’s birth.

“We’ve learned so much but mostly that there’s a lot you can plan for in life but a lot you can’t plan for – you just have to roll with it,” Matt said.

Matt Widner and Julianna Naccarato with baby Luca.

So the planning and rolling with life continued on Match Day when their trifecta match came through. They are heading to the Hershey Medical Center at Penn State in Hershey, PA, to noted orthopaedics and family medicine programs for Matt and Julianna, and to a children’s hospital with pediatric heart specialists for Luca.

***

Alison Cullinane was well on her way into a marketing career with her MBA when a nagging thought grew louder: she liked her job but it didn’t give her a strong sense of satisfaction. There had to be more, she thought.

“I enjoyed the work,” she said. “But something felt like it was missing. I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

Alison said it was when a friend came right out and told her she should be a doctor that it became perfectly clear.

“As soon as she said it, I knew she was right,” Alison said. “When I told my husband, he was happy, but said he wasn’t surprised, that he’d known all along I would come to that conclusion. Our biggest concern was that we would still have a family.”

And so they did. On the first day of medical school, Alison was 10 weeks pregnant. Across her first year of medical school, she found the environment nurturing and supportive – especially when she had doctor-ordered bed rest in the late part of her pregnancy.

Alison said she was interested in pediatrics from the very start of medical school.

“Having had a baby, I wavered a little and thought about obstetrics,” Alison said. “But I just loved pediatrics. Even though it is difficult to see very sick children, I was so fulfilled with my day’s work and I couldn’t wait to go back the next day. I know pediatrics will allow me to have an impact on kids’ futures.”

Alison Cullinane will stay in Tampa for her residency in pediatrics.

Alison will be doing a residency in pediatrics. Now, with two children, the family of four will be staying in Tampa – Alison matched with the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

***

Armed with a bachelor’s degree in cultural studies and a minor in chemistry, Kristian Johnson von Rickenbach set out to go to medical school – just not right away.

“I wanted to take time off, to grow up a bit and understand more about medical careers,” Johnson said. “I knew in general what medicine was about, but I wanted to see another side of it. I wanted to look at research.”

Kristian got a job at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and she spent three years learning about cancer research and clinical trials. Her next step was to test herself to see if she could handle the rigors of a medical school curriculum. Kristian found USF MCOM’s master’s degree program in medical sciences, which offered her a pre-professional program where she sat alongside medical students for several courses and learned, in essence, content of the first-year of medical school.

At the end of the one-year program, she felt confident she could do well in medical school, and should earned a master’s degree, to boot.

“I figured that, after one year, I would know if I was on the right path,” Johnson said. “I found out I was definitely going in the right direction.”

Kristian entered MCOM as part of the SELECT program, a leadership track that prepares students to be physician leaders who can take active roles in changes to our health care system.

“SELECT had everything I believed medicine should have, plus its second half in Allentown is just 55 minutes away from where I grew up,” she said. “It all seemed right for me from the start.”

For her match, Kristian is aiming for physical medicine and rehabilitation, and is considering a fellowship later on in cancer rehabilitation.

“I feel I could see myself going into cancer rehabilitation,” she said. ““It’s inspiring to me to take patients who are at what might be their lowest point and build them back to their best. It all came from a job I got after college. At that time I didn’t realize how important that job would be and how much it would shape my direction.”

Kristian Johnson is heading to NYC for preliminary internal medicine residency at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and then for physical medicine and rehabilitation residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia and Cornell. Photo courtesy of LVHN.

Well on her way toward her dream, Johnson will conduct her preliminary internal medicine residency at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and her in physical medicine and rehabilitation at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia and Cornell, both in New York City.

***

A sunny day greeted everyone at Ulele, the new Match Day venue. Ulele is named for the daughter of a legendary Native American chief and is located on the site of a former City of Tampa Water Works building, next to the new Water Works Park. The old brick mixed with the newness of neighboring buildings and the Tampa Riverwalk along the Hillsborough River give the event a traditional yet modern urban feel.

Following Dr. Lockwood’s announcement of the first match at noon, Kira Zwygart, MD, associate dean for MCOM Office of Student Affairs, continued calling student names.

One by one, students came forward to accept an envelope, open it, and read to the crowd of classmates and family where they’re headed.

As if the sudden appearance of pirates wasn’t enough of a surprise, a marriage proposal popped out of nowhere when Matthew Wollenschlaeger fell to one knee as Ansley Brown read her Match letter, which had the words “Will you marry me?” added at the bottom. A gasp and a quiet nod ‘yes’ along with tears and a huge smile gave Matt his answer.

Matthew Wollenschlaeger pops the questions at USF Match Day. She said yes!

The student names were called in random order, a tradition at USF because each student called up drops a dollar bill in a box. The last student called to open his or her Match envelope wins the cash. This year that winning student was Nikki Freedman, who matched in preliminary internal medicine residency at Cleveland Clinic in Weston, FL, and diagnostic radiology residency at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, FL.

Nikki Freedman collects her prize — the Match box filled with cash — with help from her parents and Rocky!

Then the crowd of newly matched students gathered together for what might be their last photo as a class. Everyone cheered in unison, thrilled to have matched.

The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine Class of 2016.

From the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine: 41 students (24%) are staying at USF; 64 (37%) are staying in Florida; and 83 students (42%) chose primary care as their specialty (internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatrics).

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Photos by Eric Younghans, video by Sandra C. Roa, USF Health Office of Communications.

University of South Florida neonatologist Akhil Maheshwari, MD, and his team advance research to understand, detect and identify novel treatments for necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, a life-threatening inflammatory bowel disease that may afflict premature newborns.

“As we’ve become better at controlling lung disease in premature infants, NEC has emerged as the single largest killer of premature babies,” said Dr. Maheshwari, a physician-scientist who holds the Pamela and Leslie Muma Endowed Chair in Neonatology in the Department of Pediatrics,  USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

Akhil Maheshwari, MD, holds the Pamela and Leslie Muma Endowed Chair in Neonatology in the USF Health Department of Pediatrics.

   Listen to Dr. Maheshwari talk about the impact of NEC.

The serious gastrointestinal disorder happens when the small or large intestine becomes inflamed and the lining of the intestinal wall starts to die off.  In the United States, it affects up to 10 percent of extremely low birth weight infants (less than 3.5 lbs.), with a mortality rate of 50 percent. Among premature infants in developing countries, such as India or China, NEC is more common.

With advances in technology and best clinical care practices, more extremely preterm infants are surviving with fewer complications, but NEC remains one of the most challenging diseases confronting neonatologists and pediatric surgeons. The causes of the dreaded condition remain unclear, and there is no treatment.

Translational research enlightened by clinical experience

Caring for tiny, fragile patients in Tampa General Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit adds perspective to the research Dr. Maheshwari conducts in his laboratory at the Morsani College of Medicine. “The vantage point I have as a neonatologist lets me observe NEC in the clinical setting, and I strive in the laboratory to translate this information to understand its pathophysiology,” said the USF Health professor of pediatrics, molecular medicine, and public health.

Over the last decade, Dr. Maheshwari’s group, and others, have found that a third of all instances of NEC in extremely premature infants occurs within 48 hours of receiving a blood transfusion.  He was recently awarded a five-year, $1.5-million R01 grant from the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute, National Institutes of Health, to understand how blood transfusions may cause bowel injury in premature infants and develop new ways to prevent or treat this condition.

The newborn patients treated at Tampa General Hospital’s Muma Neontal Intensive Care Unit by Dr. Maheshwari are the among the most fragile and sickest.

In the U.S., necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, affects up to 10 percent of extremely low birth weight infants (less than 3.5 lbs.), with a mortality rate of 50 percent.  Causes of the life-threatening inflammatory bowel disease, a focus of Dr. Maheshwari’s research, remain unclear.

   Dr. Maheshwari discusses his latest NIH grant.

Supported by the latest NIH grant, Dr. Maheshwari will use a newborn mouse model to test whether red blood cell transfusions induce intestinal injury, whether the underlying anemia present in almost all premature newborns aggravates this injury, or whether both play a role in causing NEC. The USF researchers will also evaluate whether several standard blood bank practices — longer red blood cell storage, red blood cell washing to remove potentially hazardous electrolytes, and irradiation of transfused blood to help reduce risk of infection — can alter the severity of intestinal injury.

While many critically ill premature infants are stabilized within their first two weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit, within the second to third week a small proportion experience rapid onset of NEC without warning. “I see infants in the unit who were doing well and then die suddenly,” Dr. Maheshwari said. “The impact of this disease can be devastating, both emotionally and in terms of health care costs.”

There is no definitive diagnostic test to identify the disease in its earliest stages; abdominal X-rays can only diagnose when NEC has progressed to severe intestinal damage, including sometimes bowel perforation or peritonitis, Dr. Maheshwari said. Consequently, clinicians err on the side of caution if they suspect NEC — monitoring the condition with X-rays and extensive bloodwork, halting regular feedings, administering IV fluids and antibiotics and counseling an anxious family about what to expect if a NEC diagnosis is confirmed.

“The number of infants in the NICU who undergo testing for NEC is about 10 times more than the number who actually have the disease,” he said.

Half of the babies with confirmed NEC require surgery to excise the damaged intestinal tissue, and 50 percent who go to the operating room die, Dr. Maheshwari said. “The other half who survive end up with anatomically short intestines, so they depend on IV nutrition and often develop nutritional and developmental deficiencies that can affect brain growth.  They are at risk for lifelong complications.”

Mohan Kumar Krishnan, PhD, a research associate in Dr. Maheshwari’s laboratory, uses quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to monitor amplification of gene expression. The technique helps the researchers determine how the immune system is responding to bacteria in the gut.

Key findings of Dr. Maheshwari’s laboratory

Researchers now believe that three things must all be present in the premature infant’s gut for NEC to occur:  bacteria, inflammation, and a unique signature of white blood cells (monocytes and macrophages) not found in adults with inflammatory bowel diseases.

In addition to the study of red blood cell transfusion-associated NEC, Dr. Maheshwari’s team focuses on two other lines of investigation — determining whether modifying the premature infant’s feedings can alter the immature, hyper-inflammatory nature of macrophages and identifying how the bowel’s inflammatory response in a premature infant differs from that in an adult, so the macrophages might be modified to prevent or treat NEC. The researchers hypothesize that the aggravated inflammatory response seen in the bowels of preterm infants happens because these very small babies with immature immune systems have not yet formed the adaptive mechanisms needed to tolerate the bacteria in their guts.

Dr. Maheshwari (center) with his research team, from left to right: Mohan Kumar Krishnan, PhD, research associate; Tanjing Song, PhD; senior biological scientist; Chitra Palanivel, PhD, postdoctoral research scholar; Kopperuncholan Namachivayam, PhD, research associate; and Thais Queliz Pena, MD, neonatology fellow.

Among some of their most significant findings:

• First to show that premature infants may be at risk of NEC because of a lack of the protein known as transforming growth factor-β2 (TGF-β2), which suppresses inflammatory responses.

• Demonstrated that infants whose bowel injury escalates to NEC have low blood levels of TGFβ2 since birth. “TGFβ2 is the first biomarker that can be obtained on day 1 to help predict which infants are most likely to develop NEC. Its 60-percent accuracy rate is still a six-fold improvement over the way we predict NEC now – by degree of prematurity,” Dr. Maheshwari said.

• While mothers who deliver preterm infants produce breast milk containing a large amount of TGF-β2, Dr.Maheshwari found that the beneficial growth factor in the mothers’ milk is largely biologically inactive. The USF researchers are investigating ways to activate the mother’s milk-borne TGFβ2 – in essence stimulating the milk to undergo the maturation needed to suppress unnecessary inflammation and protect the baby against NEC.

• Discovered that an acute drop in monocyte count in premature infants could be used as a diagnostic test to differentiate NEC from more benign causes of feeding intolerance like prematurity itself. A study led by Dr. Maheshwari found that 70 percent of premature infants with NEC experienced more than a 20-percent drop in monocytes in their blood.

• Recently identified a unique subtype of monocyte, formed in the newborn’s liver, which infiltrates the intestine of premature infants and may promote bowel injury. The subtype could be a new target for treating NEC.

   Dr. Maheshwari gives an example of how a laboratory discovery may change clinical practice.

Dr. Maheshwari was recently awarded a five-year, $1.5-million R01 grant from the NIH’s National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute to study how blood transfusions may cause bowel injury in premature infants and develop new ways to prevent or treat this condition.

In addition to his NIH-supported NEC research, Dr. Maheshwari has a $143,000 American Heart Association grant to study ways to block systemic inflammation and multi-organ dysfunction in very ill babies put on a treatment known extracorpeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), which uses a heart-lung bypass machine.

Endowment key to  research benefitting tiniest newborns

The endowment by Pam and Les Muma to advance USF-TGH research and care for the sickest newborns helps support the infrastructure of Dr. Maheshwari’s highly specialized laboratory, including a machine that can measure a drop of a blood so tiny it fits on the head of a pin.

“Endowments are so critical,” Dr. Maheshwari said. “The equipment needed for the type of research we do is very specific for premature newborns, and doesn’t exist in most universities.”

Dr. Maheshwiari came to USF in 2014 from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where he was an associate professor pediatrics and chief of the Division of Neonatology. Prior to his tenure at UIC, he was an assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and received several young investigator awards, including the American Gastroenterological Association Research Scholar Award and the Procter and Gamble GI Scholar Award.

The Muma endowment supports highly specialized equipment in Dr. Maheshwari’s neonatal research laboratory, including a machine that can measure a drop of a blood so tiny it fits on the head of a pin.

Dr. Maheshwari is a member of the editorial board of Maternal Health, Neonatology and Perinatology and several other professional journals and served on several grant review panels. He holds six provisional patents for new anti-inflammatory agents.

He earned his medical degree from the Institute of Medical Sciences, Varanasi, India, completed a pediatrics residency at the University of Florida, and received fellowship training in neonatology at USF.

Dr. Maheshwari with research associate Kopperuncholan Namachivayam, who works at a hematology analyzer that counts and separates various blood cell types including immune cells the researchers are interested in studying.

Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications

In preparation for an upcoming mission trip to the Dominican Republic in October 2016, students in the Latino Medical Student Association (LMSA) are working to raise awareness about their continuing efforts.

The student-run LMSA is a USF Health Morsani College of Medicine organization developed to promote the improvement of health care for underprivileged communities internationally.

This year’s group will be traveling to medically underserved communities in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic, where the multidisciplinary team will provide acute medical care, health education, and preventive medicine to patients lacking access to basic medical services.

“Going to the Dominican Republic last year and serving the people there by providing necessary medical care was a great experience and a privilege,” said Eric Hasenkamp a second-year medical student. “I’m excited to return in October to provide continual care to people who really need it.”

A group of USF Health students and faculty take some time for a picture with new friends following the completion of Clinic Day 1 in October 2015.

During last year’s trip, the team set up six clinics over a three-day period and provided medical care to over 1,500 patients. They also provided a hygiene kit to each patient in order to assist with preventive health measures.

“The Dominican Republic trip last year was an eye-opening experience of how different the culture of health care can be in different parts of the world,” said Hannah Shin a third-year medical student. “I loved being pushed to think outside of the box, and I’m excited to return to the communities to continue their care!”

The outstanding efforts earned LMSA the 2015 Student Humanitarian Organization Award presented by the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and the success of the trip is a direct result of help from generous donors. Due to the support, the care the students provided benefitted a community that would not have otherwise received these medical services.

The LMSA is collecting supplies and support toward their upcoming trip to the Dominican Republic, hoping to make it an even greater success. The team will be collecting medications, toiletry items, and other supplies from businesses, organizations, and individual donors, as well as holding multiple fundraising events throughout the year in order to subsidize the cost of the trip.

The experience offers medical students and faculty the chance to apply their training in the field. “I’m excited to meet new people and experience a different culture while putting my doctoring skills to practice,” said Michelle Lippincott a second-year medical student.

Any support that can be provided to LMSA for their trip to the Dominican Republic will help make their trip possible, but it will also make a tremendous impact on numerous patients’ lives.

“The most memorable part about my experience in the Dominican Republic was working with ‘los niños’ because they stole my heart,” said Katherine Woo a third-year medical student.

Corley Rachelle Price and Eric Hasenkamp, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine Class of 2019, contributed to this article.

Tampa, FL (April 6, 2016) — Meredith Rosenthal, PhD, professor of health economics and policy and associate dean for diversity at Harvard School of Public Health, will lead a panel discussion about the impact of the Affordable Care Act on communities and their health care organizations at 8 a.m. Wednesday, April 20, at the USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS), 124 S. Franklin St., Tampa, FL 33602.

Dr. Rosenthal will engage in the discussion with health care and policy experts from USF Health and the community. The event is free and open to the public.

Meredith Rosenthal, PhD

Panelists will include Charles Lockwood, MD, senior vice president of USF Health and dean, Morsani College of Medicine; Mayor Bob Buckhorn, City of Tampa; Jessica Cooper, executive vice president, Delos Solutions; Mark Anderson, DSc, senior vice president of ambulatory services, Tampa General Hospital; and Jay Wolfson, DrPH, JD, associate vice president of health law, USF Health. Catherine Lynch, MD, associate vice president for women’s health, USF Health, will moderate.

Dr. Rosenthal’s research focuses on policies to help slow growth in health care spending while improving quality of care (value-based health care), including changes in payment incentives, benefits design and behavioral “nudges” to both patients and providers. She has advised federal and state policy makers in health care payment policy and implementation.

While in Tampa, Dr. Rosenthal will also meet with USF Health faculty and students as the 2016 Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) Visiting Professor, hosted by the Morsani College of Medicine’s chapter of AOA, a premier national medical honor society.

For more information, please contact Leslie Lowe at llowe1@health.usf.edu.

Senior USF pharmacy students were surrounded by classmates as they celebrated their Match Day April 8. The special gathering was a culmination of the several weeks needed to finalize this year’s match results, at both USF and for graduating pharmacy students across the country.

USF College of Pharmacy students did well in their matches: 77 percent of those seeking to match succeeded in filling positions for their first year of residency (PGY1), the next step in their pharmacy education. Nationally, roughly 66 percent of pharmacy students who participated in the Match for PGY1 were successful. This is the second year for the USF College of Pharmacy to participate in the match – its charter class just graduated last year.

“I’m very pleased with how our students placed,” said Kevin Sneed, PharmD, dean of the USF College of Pharmacy and senior vice president for USF Health. “The strong programs our students filled reflect the strength of our program.”

At USF, 13 pharmacy students of the 53 in the graduating class opted to pursue residencies through the national Match, which is coordinated by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP).

While Match Day for medical students covers a tighter timeframe with a peak moment that reveals how almost all of the graduating group matched, pharmacy students experience a more drawn out process as programs and students try to connect. Phase I fills most positions but it’s during Phase II, which lasts several weeks, when the remaining positions get filled.

Even so, many pharmacy students will not match at all during PGY1 simply because there are not enough pharmacy residency positions, Dr. Sneed said.

“Because there are so few openings, some of students won’t match in this first phase,” he said. “But things need to change and more residencies need to open. Highly qualified students are being denied opportunities to excel and offer their talents to residency programs and the patients they serve.”

For the national ASHP 2016 Match, there were 4,609 senior pharmacy students vying for 3,312 PGY1 positions (and 829 students vying for 678 second-year PGY2 positions). And the demand for residencies is only going to increase as the number of graduates choosing residencies also increases, said John Clark, PharmD, assistant professor and director of Experiential Education, and of Pharmacy Residency Programs for the USF College of Pharmacy.

“The message for students who seek to go into a pharmacy residency is to prepare, prepare, and prepare,” Dr. Clark said. “More employers seek pharmacists who have one to two years of advanced and more specialized training beyond graduation – which might give them a competitive edge in the job market.”

That is the case for Ivonne DeValle, one of USF’s fourth-year pharmacy students. DeValle said she knew residency training was a must.

“My pharmacy rotations really opened my eyes for the impact pharmacists have on patient care through team-approached care,” DeValle said. “I knew that, in order to reach that level of success, I would need to pursue a residency.”

Ivonne DeValle

DeValle matched at Bay Pines Veterans’ Hospital in Pinellas County, a position that perfectly matches her career goals of caring for the elderly, working on a health care team, and helping veterans.

“This residency offers a perfect balance for what I was looking for,” DeValle said. “Veteran health care facilities across the country have been ahead of the curve by incorporating pharmacists into ambulatory care teams.”

This year’s Match also helped fulfill goals for Benny Yau.

Originally from California, Yau is headed back west for a residency at Stanford University, which helps meet his hope for a residency filled with variety.

Prior to attending USF, Yau spent a year with a family-run pharmacy group in the San Francisco area, which exposed him to many pharmacy-centered settings – retail, out-patient at hospitals, health clinics, and even mail order and nursing home settings.

Benny Yau

“Across all these areas, the pharmacists really got to know their patients and were able to help the people they served,” Yau said. “Stanford was able to provide a residency that offered similar experiences, including the acute care and critical care found in hospital settings, but also ambulatory, out-patient care, too.”

The College of Pharmacy offers several opportunities for students to learn more about pharmacy residencies: Dr. Clark directs an elective course called Introduction to Post Graduate Residency Training that aims to help the interested students to prepare for residency training, residency topics are incorporated throughout the Pharmaceutical Skills course, and a Residency Showcase invites residency programs from around the Tampa Bay area, as well as out of the region, to exhibit their programs to USF pharmacy students.

USF College of Pharmacy Class of 2016 Match results

Steven Cindric, Bay Pines VAMC, St. Petersburg, FL
Ivonne DeValle, Bay Pines VAMC, St. Petersburg, FL
Rania Elmaddawi, Coram Healthcare, Jacksonville, FL
Alexandria Hatzileris, St. Anthony, Tampa, FL
Suzanne Huber, Haley VAMC, Tampa, FL
Stephanie Hughes, Florida Hospital, Celebration, FL
Lukose Joseph, Wolfson Children’s Baptist Hospital, Jacksonville, FL
Jose Leon-Burgos, Florida Hospital, Celebration, FL
Sullivan Lynch, Haley VAMC, Tampa, FL
Sandra Martin, Florida Hospital, Winter Haven, FL
Lauren Nardelli-Briggs, St. Joseph Hospital, Tampa, FL
Jerica Singleton, Mercy Family Health, University of Iowa, Dubuque, IA
Benny Yau, Stanford Medical Center, Palo Alto, CA

Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Office of Communications

The 13-month trial begins with Tampa Fire Rescue this month and will expand to fire departments in St. Petersburg and Hillsborough County

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The University of South Florida and Tampa Fire Rescue have launched a randomized controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of a worksite exercise regimen targeted to reduce the risk of low back injury and disability in firefighters — a physically demanding occupation particularly prone to back problems that can lead to chronic pain and early retirement.

If this pivotal trial proves successful, the exercise training program could be implemented across the country to improve the health, safety and preparedness of the nation’s firefighters.

At the recent press conference, Dr. John Mayer of the USF School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences, shares details about the new $1.3 million back injury prevention study enrolling local firefighters. Behind Dr. Mayer, all with Tampa Fire Rescue, from l to r, are Chief Tom Forward, Tiffany Kline, RN, COHN, occupational health nurse supervisor, and Edward Ortiz and John Cannon, both firefighters.

The full-scale prevention study is supported by a $1.3-million Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Assistance to Firefighters Grant, including a 5-percent extramural funding match from the Florida Chiropractic Foundation for Education and Research. It marks the third and most comprehensive project of ongoing FEMA-funded research by John Mayer, DC, PhD, Lincoln Endowed Chair of Biomechanical and Chiropractic Research at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine’s School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences.

Tampa Fire Rescue Chief Tom Forward and study lead investigator Dr. Mayer stood with firefighters April 11 in the City of Tampa Fire Station #1 in downtown Tampa to announce the study and demonstrate the exercises for local news media.

“This study is the largest that’s ever been funded by FEMA looking directly at back injury prevention in firefighters,” Dr. Mayer told reporters and videographers. “Back injuries don’t kill people but it’s the #1 cause of opioid use in the population of firefighters, and we’ve all heard the horror stories about opioid use. We hope this study helps prevent things like that.”

From a frontline perspective, firefighter John Cannon summed it up another way for reporters.

“A healthy back is a healthy firefighter,” Cannon said.

Firefighter John Cannon demonstrates the heavy protective clothing and gear that must to donned  to fight fires, including an air tank weighing 35 pounds.

Starting next week with participants recruited from Tampa Fire Rescue, the study will roll out to St. Petersburg Fire Rescue and Hillsborough County Fire Rescue over the next four months.  More than 300 firefighters from these three fire departments – the Tampa Bay region’s largest – will join the 13-month trial. Results of the study are expected in Fall 2017.

“Assuming positive results,” Dr. Mayer said, “this study will deliver the first evidence-based exercise intervention to prevent low back injury in firefighters, so that they can more effectively and safely carry out their duties to protect the community.”

“Career preservation is our goal. The current study provides an excellent platform to achieve this and serves as an impetus to expand our firefighter wellness initiatives,” said Charity L. Lane, MS, project manager, USF Health.

Back injuries are the leading cause of permanent disability and early retirement among firefighters, who often carry more than 50 pounds of protective gear in their jobs, haul heavy fire hoses and lift and maneuver stretchers around tight corners or contort themselves to extract accident victims from cars.

“We are pleased to partner with USF on this study, which aims to improve the quality of life for our firefighters and enhance their readiness to serve our citizens as first responders,” said Tampa Fire Rescue Chief Thomas Forward.

The standardized exercise protocol being tested was specifically designed to strengthen back and core muscles, including training on a specialized machine that isolates lower back muscles.

Tampa Fire Rescue Captain Jeremy Finney demonstrates the exercise routine designed to strengthens back and core muscles, while firefighter John Cannon counts the prescribed pacing.

Cameras surround an explanation of the exercises by USF study project manager Charity Lane, MS, CPT.

The USF researchers will compare the clinical outcomes in three groups of randomly assigned firefighters — one receiving a directly supervised exercise regimen at the fire station two times a week for one year, another guided through the same worksite exercise regimen, but as a remote, web-based interaction (a telehealth system that encourages exercise adherence), and a control group given brief instruction on general exercise principles. All study participants, whether undergoing the exercise intervention or not, will continue their usual physical fitness routines.

To assess the exercise program’s effectiveness, the researchers will measure such factors as low back injury incidences and illness data, validated physical fitness tests, lost work days and costs.

The new study builds upon Dr. Mayer’s earlier FEMA-funded studies, demonstrating:

– A link between weak back muscle endurance and increased prevalence of low back pain in firefighters.

– Supervised worksite exercise training targeting back and core muscle endurance in firefighters was safe and appeared to work, indicating the intervention could protect against future low back pain. The preliminary study was reported in the American Journal of Health Promotion.

If this new study confirms the investigational exercise protocol’s benefit in Tampa Bay firefighters, the findings could also have implications for countering substantial adverse consequences of chronic back pain and injury in the general population, including health care and work-related costs, Dr. Mayer noted.

Lead study investigator Dr. John Mayer is interviewed by Fox 13 News health reporter Dr. Joette Giovinco.

Firefighter John Cannon demonstrates the loads and weight of their required gear.

In addition to more than 50 pounds of gear, firefighters might also need to lift heavy equipment, like this Jaws of Life hydraulic apparatus used to pry apart the wreckage of crashed vehicles to free people.

Fire Chief Tom Forward is interviewed by Bay News 9.

Jeremy Finney answers reporters’ questions about the risk of lower-back injury for firefighters.

                                                                      -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, and the USF Physician’s Group. The University of South Florida is a Top 50 research university in total research expenditures among both public and private institutions nationwide, according to the National Science Foundation.  For more information, visit www.health.usf.edu

                                                           -About Tampa Fire Rescue-
Tampa Fire Rescue’s 647 sworn firefighters and paramedics provide fire protection, fire suppression, and emergency medical services throughout the City of Tampa. Tampa Fire Rescue operates out of 22 fire stations providing aircraft rescue and firefighting (ARFF) services at Tampa International Airport, hazardous materials response, marine firefighting, and fire and life safety education to the public. The Fire Marshal’s office, a division of Tampa Fire Rescue, investigates causes of fire, conducts building code reviews and enforces fire and life safety codes.

Video by Sandra C. Roa and photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Office of Communications
Sarah Worth contributed to this story.

A newly formed Family and Patient Advisory Council is helping the USF Physicians Group hear directly from patients on ways to improve patient experience at USF Health.

Made up of about a dozen current patients, the group will meet quarterly to provide input and perspective on USFPG initiatives, including sharing ideas directly with USFPG leaders and members of the health care team, who also attend meetings.

Top row, from left: Phil Cox, Ray Morganti, Norman Williams, Mike Bates, Rich Sobieray (CEO, USF Physicians Group), Walter Niles, Hiram Green. Bottom row, from left: Maureen Murray, Shoukry Maged, Joyce Becker, Ellen Gross, Gary Hunt

“Often times, patients are the most knowledgeable people on health care teams,” said Phillip Cox, Esq., LHRM, associate vice president for Quality, Safety and Risk. “And it’s that perspective – the patient viewpoint – that will help us identify more precisely the needs of patients and their families. Collectively, this board will act as a catalyst for change and its feedback on our processes and systems will be invaluable for helping us create a better, caring patient environment.”

The Council is in tandem with several efforts for gauging patient opinion, the largest of which is a patient satisfaction survey through Press Ganey, a national firm specializing in measuring patient satisfaction and patient delivery. At the group’s first meeting, members were introduced to more detail about the USF Physicians Group that they might not be aware of, including the breadth of the practice in regard to specialties and locations, said Maria Garces, MT(ASCP), MBA, director of Operational Efficiency for USFPG.

Garces said the first two questions put before the new Council were “What is a ‘wow’ patient experience?” and “What is the #1 thing we need to do as an organization to create a ‘wow’ patient experience for our patients?” This early feedback already revealed three key characteristics of a positive experience: access to doctors, good bed-side manor, and a great overall patient visit. Several solutions were proposed for helping USFPG better and more uniformly attain those components.

“Our goal is to start fairly small and build across time with the practice,” Garces said. “As the USF Physicians Group rolls out facilities, programs and initiatives, this council will be tapped into for feedback on a range of areas, like the flow of new spaces and usefulness of signage.”

The USFPG Family and Patient Advisory Council meets again in June, when it will assign a chairperson and co-chairperson of the group, and look into options for communicating and discussing proposed improvements among themselves and with USFPG leaders and providers.

Photo by Eric Younghans, USF Health Office of Communications

Tampa, FL (April 15, 2016) — Older African American adults incur substantially more medical debt compared to older whites, reports a new study by researchers from the University of South Florida College of Public Health, the University of Massachusetts Medical School and St. Louis University.

The findings appeared online yesterday in the American Journal of Public Health.  Study lead author was Jacqueline Wiltshire, PhD, MPH, assistant professor of health policy and management at the USF College of Public Health.

“As out-of-pocket expenses continue to rise and older adults face the prospect of shrinking income, medical debt represents a major threat to the economic security of older African Americans,” the authors said in the paper. “Understanding the racial and ethnic disparities in medical debt and financial consequences may inform policy on health care affordability for a large and growing proportion of our aging population.”

Jacqueline Wiltshire, PhD, MPH, of the USF College of Public Health was the study’s lead author.

The researchers examined nationally representative data from the 2007 and 2010 U.S. Health Tracking Household Survey — which collected information on access to care, health care experiences, health expenses and bills, insurance coverage, health status and socioeconomic characteristics — and created population-based estimates of medical debt attributable to economic and health factors. The sample included non-Hispanic whites and African Americans ages 65 and older.

Results showed that African American adults were greater than two times more likely to have medical debt than whites. Health status, income and insurance accounted for more than 40 percent of the racial and ethnic disparity in debt. African Americans were also more likely to be contacted by a collection agency and to borrow money because of medical debt, while whites were more likely to use savings to pay off medical bills.

In light of recent proposed changes to Medicare to reduce the national debt and maintain the program’s solvency, the authors concluded: “Although changes are necessary to sustain Medicare for the future, policymakers need to explicitly consider the impact that cost-cutting strategies will have on African American beneficiaries.”

The research was supported by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Connecticut Program and the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities.

Article citation:
Jacqueline C. Wiltshire, Keith Elder, Catarina Kiefe, and Jeroan J. Allison.  Medical Debt and Related Financial Consequences Among Older African American and White Adults. American Journal of Public Health. April 14, 2016. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2016.303137. [E-pub ahead of print].