The American Geriatrics Society chose Dr. Niharika Suchak, associate professor in the FSU College of Medicine Department of Geriatrics, as its latest Clinician of the Year.

Martin Wood, assistant director of the Charlotte Edwards Maguire Medical Library, is the new president of the Florida HealthSciences Library Association (FHSLA).

Elena Reyes is the College of Medicine’s new regional director for Southwest Florida.

Pediatrician Fawn Harrison, who was a member of the FSU College of Medicine’s first graduating class, has practiced primary care since 2008 in rural Arcadia.

Sanjay Kumar, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, discovered a new type of NMDA receptor whose physiological properties had been overlooked.

Suzanne Bennett Johnson, Distinguished Research Professor at the FSU College of Medicine, has received a 2012 Distinguished Alumni award at her alma mater – Stony Brook University.

eather Flynn, associate professor in the Department of Medical Humanities and Social Sciences, received a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to research depression.

Kimberly Driscoll, assistant professor of medical humanities and social sciences at the FSU College of Medicine, was awarded a four-year, $655,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to pursue a study designed to improve insulin pump adherence in adolescents with Type 1 diabetes.

Zarko Manojlovic has had a long journey from Bosnia’s civil war to a College of Medicine lab, where he now researches liver fibrosis with the aid of an NI H grant.

The painstaking work of setting up the Clinical Research Network (CRN) and the Translational Science Laboratory is about to pay off for the College of Medicine.

FSU College of Medicine student Shermeeka Hogans-Mathews has received a Minority Scholars Award from the American Medical Association Foundation.

Dennis Tsilimingras, M.D., director of the FSU College of Medicine’s Center on Patient Safety, is studying rural patients and their transition from hospital care to home life.

Twice in a seven-month span medical students from FSU made the cover of Academic Medicine, the journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Ken Brummel-Smith, M.D., chair of the Department of Geriatrics at the FSU College of Medicine, has been selected as a 2012-13 Health and Aging Policy Fellow.

The medical school, working with local physicians, trains future doctors in area hospitals and doctor offices in hopes of them returning to the area or state to practice. About 60 percent of FSU College of Medicine graduates from all its campuses are practicing in Florida.

The Florida State University College of Medicine pediatric psychologist, Kimberly Driscoll, PhD, is studying the way children use insulin pumps trying to understand why kids don’t always get the most out of the high-tech devices. With the help of an American Diabetes Association grant, Driscoll will collect a year’s worth of data from the insulin pumps of young people from 10 to 16 years old then give the  kids intensive coaching on how best to use the insulin pump. 

Archbold Memorial Hospital is proud to welcome family physician Elving Colon, MD.

Marshall Kapp, director of the Center for Innovative Collaboration in Medicine and Law at Florida State University, comments on the Supreme Court's ACA ruling.

UF CTSI’s collaboration with Florida State University to create Health IMPACTS for Florida to integrate medical practice and community-based translational science. UF and FSU are partnering with primary care practices in Gainesville, Jacksonville, Orlando and Tallahassee to conduct two pilot studies focused on concussions and health risks among youth.

The director of a Stuart clinic, Dr. Howard E. Voss, serving Martin County residents without access to traditional medical care has received national acclaim for his volunteer work and compassionate attitude in mentoring area medical students. He was was inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society.

Shermeeka Hogans-Mathews, a formerly under served Medicaid patient who has just completed  her first year at the Florida State University College of Medicine, is one of 13 recipients of a 2012 Minority Scholars Award from the American Medical Association Foundation. She will receive a $10,000 scholarship.

FSU College of Medicine Ft. Pierce Regional Campus recently honored its fourth graduating class. 18 members of the class of 2012 are moving on to their residency programs.

After more than 50 years of practicing medicine, Dr. Howard E. Voss, medical director of the Volunteers in Medicine Clinic, has a wall full of honors and accolades. But the one he cherishes most is the Gold Humanism Honor Society he recently received for “exemplary service, integrity, clinical excellence and compassion.”

Nation’s youngest medical school offers more than just a degree to U.S.’s future physicians

Thanks to a new $20,000 grant from Florida State University's medical school, the local nonprofit's youth bereavement services will be able to help about 300 young people this year who are coping with a loss.

An alumnus from the College of Medicine’s Class of 2007 is right in the middle of a prominent news story. Stephen W. Patrick, M.D., was the lead author of a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association about the increasing number of babies born addicted to opiates. He’s doing his fellowship now in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital/University of Michigan Health System. Dr. Patrick discussed the study with Ray Suarez on  “PBS NewsHour.”

The FSU College of Medicine is a major economic force in Tallahassee and Florida because of its direct mission to get its students training in communities throughout the state while developing a base for biomedical and biotech research. Having such a prominent institution in this community is important, not only for its commitment to helping to provide training for the next generation of medical professionals locally and statewide, but also for the economic benefits it generates for the local economy.

During the past two weeks, Dr. Julie Jacobson, the senior program officer in the Global Health Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has spent time in Haiti, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Switzerland. Oh, and don't forget to add Tallahassee to the mix. Jacobson arrived here Wednesday afternoon in advance of a noon-hour lecture she will give today at Florida State University's medical school. Without question, she chose the path less traveled after completing the Tallahassee Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program in 1998. The University of South Florida graduate didn't enter the program at TMH the traditional way, either.

Speaking Tuesday morning at the Health Care/ Health Sciences Roundtable of the Economic Development Council of Tallahassee-Leon County, Dr. John Fogarty, dean of the college, gave highlights of its first decade. He drew upon statistics about the graduates, the areas of medical practice they have pursued, and the college’s economic impact on the region. Having remained true to its original mission, the College of Medicine at Florida State University today can see the results of its efforts to train physicians for communities that desperately need them.

PRESS RELEASE Dr. Niharika Suchak, an associate professor in the Department of Geriatrics, has been named Clinician of the Year by the American Geriatrics Society (AGS). She will receive the award in May at the group’s annual scientific meeting.

Dr. Curtis Stine, associate chairman and education director in family medicine at the Florida State University College of Medicine, said the emerging data shows that detecting cancer early doesn't always translate into fewer cancer deaths.

The 117 graduating students at Florida State University's medical school had plenty to celebrate on Match Day, the primary system for pairing physicians with available positions at teaching hospitals in the United States. It is a joyous occasion for students who have spent at least eight years earning undergraduate and medical degrees. FSU, which is more focused on training primary care doctors than most medical schools, had 72 (62 percent) of its 117 fourth-year students go into primary care programs, about 50 percent above the average medical school.

Today, the 117 members of the Florida State University College of Medicine Class of 2012 found out where they will receive residency training - a defining moment in their medical careers - during a Match Day ceremony, but one young man proposed a more permanent match during the ceremony. Patrick Mickel asked Kristina Seeger to marry him during the match ceremony. She will do her residency at MAYO Clinic in Jacksonville. Seeger said yes.

PRESS RELEASE Few events hold more drama, or have more impact, in the life of a medical student than Match Day. For many, the sealed envelope holds the key to the future.

• Class of 2012 Match Results
• College of Medicine Residency Match Day results from 2005-2011
• Where are they now?  Updated information about College of Medicine alumni .

The Florida State University College of Medicine, one of the nation’s leading educators in geriatric medicine, now also has the nation’s top geriatrician of 2012.

Dr. Niharika Suchak, an associate professor in the Department of Geriatrics, has been named Clinician of the Year by the American Geriatrics Society (AGS). She will receive the award in May at the group’s annual scientific meeting.

Doctors in Florida are increasingly getting some legal training to more effectively address all the health carerelated needs their patients may have. FSU created a Center for Innovative Collaboration in Medicine and Law to help improve collaboration between the two professions. The center provides training to medical and law students on such issues as patient confidentiality, end-of-life medical decisions and informed consent for disabled patients. "Our aim is not to make doctors into lawyers," said Marshall Kapp, a law school professor who directs the FSU program. "Our aim to create doctors who are sensitive to the law and understand the importance of interacting with lawyers."

With people living longer than ever before, the need for new discoveries to promote health and quality of life in old age has never been greater. FSU’s new Institute for Successful Longevity addresses the 21st century challenge of unlocking the secrets of aging well.

1945 alumna Louise Cason, M.D., remembers her alma mater with a $500k gift. The gift, the M. Louse Cason M.D. Endowment, will equally fund two named endowments, one of which is in the College of Medicine.

John Thomas, a second-year medical student at Florida State University, has big plans for spring break. Thomas, president of FSUCares, is one of dozens of Tallahassee college students traveling as far as El Salvador and Ghana and as near as the Gulf Coast and South Florida this week to immerse themselves in different cultures and provide goods and services to people in need.

Across the Spectrum

Florida State University medical students are going to give back to those less fortunate over spring break. On Saturday March 3 through Saturday March 10 students will travel to Immokalee Florida, the Texas-Mexican border or the country of Panama. Students at Florida State in the college of medicine and the group FSU Cares will be practicing medicine and bringing much needed medicine and other items that many Americans take for granted.  Watch video

The ninth induction into UF’s chapter of the national Gold Humanism Honor Society, the Chapman Society, also included an announcement that will stand for generations. A classroom in the medical education building now in the works will be named for neurologist Dr. Robert Watson, a former senior associate dean of the UF College of Medicine who was instrumental in starting the Chapman Society.

Lisa Phelps played four square on Friday night and paid absolutely no attention to the score, or even to the rules of
the playground game. She and her three other friends were just passing time during Florida State University’s 17th annual dancemarathon. Phelps, an 18-yearold FSU sophomore, was at the event with Alpha Chi Omega Sorority and said she
was confident she could keep her energy up throughout her 20-hour shift. Funds from the marathon are donated to Shands Hospital for Children in Gainesville, the Children’s Miracle Network and FSU’s College of Medicine.

Florida State University has selected a physician who previously practiced law to take over its proposed internal medicine residency program at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare. Dr. Gregory Todd, senior associate program director of the Department of Medicine & Internal Medicine Residency Program at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., is expected to arrive in Tallahassee in May — one month before the first medical school graduates arrive to begin their residency.

Dr. Kenneth Brummel-Smith, the Charlotte Edwards Maguire Professor and chair of the Department of Geriatrics at the Florida State University College of Medicine, discusses why he thinks that qualified pharmacists should be allowed to administer vaccinations for pneumonia and shingles.

Erwin Jackson and his parents, Stefanie and Erwin Jackson, are sponsoring a Valentine's Day dinner and show at the University Club to raise money for the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation.

University of Florida officials say they want to expand the existing self-insurance plan that covers Shands employees and their dependents, GatorCare, to include all UF employees and their dependents. The change would allow GatorCare to be tailored to the particular needs of the UF and Shands workforces, UF officials say. Dr. Les Beitsch, an associate dean for the Division of Health Affairs at Florida State University's College of Medicine, comments on UF’s plan to administer its own health-care insurance program for its employees.

The Council on Graduate Medical Education reports that fewer than 20 percent of all U.S. medical school graduates are choosing primary care specialties, but 55 percent of the 450 graduates of FSU's College of Medicine have gone into primary-care residency programs. FSU includes obstetrics-gynecology when it reports primary-care numbers, arguing that the battle to improve infant mortality in North Florida falls under primary care. Laura Davis is a third-year medical school student at Florida State University. She is, by all accounts, a poster child for the still-young College of Medicine and its particular mission to produce primary-care physicians working in under-served areas.

Dr. Alma Littles, Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education and Academis Affairs, career profile.

Medical errors during hospital stays make headlines, but far more common are problems that occur after patients — especially older ones – go home. Dennis Tsilimingras, M.D., M.P.H., Director, Center on Patient Safety and Assistant Professor of Family Medicine & Rural Health at the Florida State University College of Medicine, has been awarded a two-year, $908,000 grant from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. With the participation of the Tallahassee Memorial Hospitalist Group, this study will monitor approximately 600 patients – half of them rural – for three weeks right after they’re discharged. “Ultimately the goal is to recommend ways to reduce post-discharge problems, which often involve medications,” said Dr. Tsilimingras.