PRESS RELEASE MED3OOO Group Inc., a privately-held national health care management and technology company with a regional operation center in Pensacola, has established the MED3OOO Fund for Excellence in Medical Education with a $50,000 gift to the Florida State University College of Medicine.

PRESS RELEASE An award-winning family physician with roots in rural Gadsden County has been appointed chair of the department of family medicine and rural health at the Florida State University College of Medicine.  Dr. Alma Littles will be responsible for directing the development and implementation of the college's family medicine education program.

Since the first stirrings of interest in adding a College of Medicine to FSU, the focus has revolved around the politics of developing the first new medical school in the US in 20 years. Nearing the end of their first year, those students are now a visible force when the critics set to work.

PRESS RELEASE Florida State University is putting out an unusual casting call, and it’s not coming from the schools of film or theater. The FSU College of Medicine is looking for people of all ages who can be trained to feign a variety of medical conditions – from Alzheimer’s disease to tennis elbow to a stroke -- for the sake of education.

PRESS RELEASE Leaders in the development and use of virtual reality technology, the Internet and other multimedia resources for medical education are among the recently hired faculty at Florida State University’s new College of Medicine.
  The college’s most recent hires include:
Dennis Baker, Ph.D., Dr. Anthony Costa, Graham Patrick, Ph.D., Philip Posner, Ph.D

PRESS RELEASE Dr. Anthony Costa, the newly appointed assistant dean for the FSU College of Medicine’s Regional Medical School Campus – Orlando, joined the college’s 30 first-year students for a tour of Florida Hospital and Orlando Regional Medical Center March 2. Costa will lead the development of the third- and fourth-year clinical training program for those FSU medical students who are assigned to Orlando beginning in July 2003. Costa, who currently serves as associate dean for clinical education at the Barberton campus of the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, will officially begin his new duties July 1.

PRESS RELEASE Dr. Charlotte Edwards Maguire, a distinguished pediatrician and supporter of the Florida State University College of Medicine, will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree in a ceremony at 5 p.m. Feb. 14 in the College of Medicine Administration Building.

PRESS RELEASE A family physician from rural Milton, Fla., will serve as the assistant dean for the FSU College of Medicine’s regional campus in Pensacola. The college announced Monday that it has appointed Dr. Paul McLeod to lead the development of the first of several regional medical campuses it will establish throughout the state.

PRESS RELEASE Florida State University's new medical school dean envisions a future where patients correspond with their doctors by e-mail - even in rural Florida. And those same doctors, says Dr. Joseph Scherger, will be able to tap into the most up-to-date research to treat their patients, thanks to information provided by FSU's medical school via video feed or the Internet. "Patients deserve the best care no matter who they go to, even in the small towns in the Panhandle," said Scherger, who was chosen to lead the school Tuesday. Scherger's appointment by Provost Larry Abele is the result of a national search that took several months. He begins work July 1.

Students from Florida State University and Florida A&M University represent the first results of a new inter-institutional program linking them with University of Florida in a new pathway for medical education.

A new study led by FSU College of Medicine Professor Antonio Terracciano, Ph.D. and published in the Journal of Affective Disorders , sheds light on the connection between neuroticism and the risk of mortality from a variety of causes. Data collected from nearly a half million participants in the UK Biobank was used to provide a more detailed understanding of the link by examining specific causes of death.

There is a contract dispute between BayCare Health System and UnitedHealthcare. The fight between the two affects 400,000 patients and thousands of physicians, which makes it a matter of public concern. It all started when BayCare Health System, a network of 10 major non-profit hospitals, notified United that it was ending their contract early because, according to the hospital system, United had failed to pay bills totaling $11 million. Marshall Kapp, director of FSU’s Center for Innovative Collaboration in Medicine and Law, is quoted in the story.  Bay United Depth

First-year medical students Gabe Lowenhaar and Harielle Deshommes traveled to Immokalee during spring break for FSUCares' annual medical outreach and served as interpreters.

Loneliness raises a person’s risk of developing Parkinson’s disease within 15 years, a long-term study of nearly half a million U.K. residents found, supporting calls into the therapeutic benefits of personally significant social bonds.

This work adds to evidence “that loneliness is a substantial psychosocial determinant of health,” the researchers wrote in the study “Loneliness and Risk of Parkinson Disease,” published in JAMA Neurology
.