Welcome Letter from Dean Pilitsis |
|
|
I am delighted to join the Schmidt College of Medicine family and look forward to working alongside our exceptional students, faculty and staff as well as our many outstanding community stakeholders. I am thankful to President Kelly and Provost Danilowicz for giving me this opportunity and for the support of Mr. Anthony Barbar and the entire FAU Board of Trustees as well as Dr. Michael Dennis and the College of Medicine Advisory Board. We are very grateful and indebted to Dr. Sarah Wood for her leadership and dedication serving as interim dean during one of the most challenging times in our nation’s history. Despite many obstacles encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic, the medical school achieved important milestones and accomplishments under her leadership.
Notably, we had our highest ever number of applications for medical school, a 62% increase with 91 applicants for each spot in the College. We had 100% placement into residencies for the class of 2021. We launched new educational programs including the MD/Research Distinction Track, the Post-Baccalaureate Program with its inaugural graduates in 2021 and a Graduate Certificate in Genomics and Predictive Health. Between the graduate and medical students, we are ranked 24 in the nation in diversity. We developed the concept of FAU Medicine and have begun seeing patients in the Marcus Institute for Integrative Health. Research has grown tremendously over the last five years and we seek to increase our funding and the breadth of our expertise. Our research efforts have propelled us forward with each principal investigator bringing in an average of $265,000 in NIH funding. We have welcomed several new investigators and will further expand into research efforts that are “one step away” from the bedside.
We will continue our focuses in the areas that best serve our region and local community: healthy aging, neuroscience, pain management and precision medicine. Predictive analytics will be employed to develop novel treatments and delivery systems to provide personalized care for each and every patient we serve. Our research activities have created substantial community impact. Research faculty, graduate students and staff, both in Boca and in Jupiter, are integral to these efforts. As I begin in this role, I am honored to continue the medical school’s legacy grounded in a diverse and inclusive environment that fosters teamwork, embraces compassion and patient-centered care, and advances cutting-edge translational research.
Community is at the forefront of my vision as we boldly advance the medical school to the next chapter in its history. Indeed, the College of Medicine has built a strong foundation that has dynamically impacted the care and well-being of our community and region. In recent graduating classes as many as 50% of our women and 30% of our historically underrepresented in medicine students remained in Florida for training. Even more compelling, an average of 50% of our residents and fellows opt to begin their practices in our state. As our state’s population grows, it is essential for the College of Medicine to ensure that we are aiding in the charge to Florida’s medical schools to grow our workforce. Without high-quality healthcare and access to healthcare, the well-being of our community will suffer. Over the next five years, we aim to increase the number of medical students to more than 100 and to train twice as many residents. To reach that goal, we will need to make the necessary commitments to resources and infrastructure. We highly value our hospital partners and look forward to working with these partners within the region to determine how we can best provide value-added education and clinical experiences.
Physicians are but one part of developing the healthcare workforce our community will need in the future. We will work with all colleges at FAU and surrounding universities to ensure that we are nurturing all students who have an interest in healthcare, whether that is in nursing, social work, psychology, biomedical sciences and engineering, data science and/or business. We have opportunities to increase our pathways at FAU and in the community to ensure that the next generations involved in healthcare are, indeed, “Of the community, for the community.”
I leave you with an African proverb that has become a mantra in my life. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” I invite each and every one of you to join me as we embark on a new era for the College of Medicine and accelerate our efforts to build healthier and stronger communities with unbridled ambition. Thank you for your warm welcome to the Owl Family!
|
|
Schmidt College of Medicine Restructures Departments |
|
We are pleased to announce the departmental restructure within the College of Medicine to reflect the ongoing evolution and tremendous growth of our college. The Integrated Medical Sciences Department (IMSD) has been restructured to create five clinical departments: Medicine; Emergency Medicine; Clinical Neurosciences; Population Health and Social Medicine; and Women’s and Children’s Health. Additionally, a chair has been appointed for each department. Allison Ferris, M.D., will serve as chair for Medicine; Lisa Clayton, D.O., will serve as chair for Emergency Medicine; Curtis Whitehair, M.D., will serve as interim chair for Clinical Neurosciences; Anita Fernander, Ph.D., will serve as chair for Population Health and Social Medicine; and the chair for the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health will be determined in the next few months. Our departments of Surgery and Biomedical Science will remain as they have previously with the addition of Larry Lottenberg, M.D., serving as chair for Surgery and Janet Robishaw, Ph.D., serving as chair of Biomedical Science. With seven departments established in the College of Medicine, the objective is to enrich peer to peer interactions and facilitate a clearer understanding of our structure by external stakeholders.
|
|
Lisa Brennan to Receive 2022 ‘Cataract Research Award’ |
|
Florida Atlantic University’s Lisa Ann Brennan, Ph.D., an associate research professor in the Schmidt College of Medicine, will receive the prestigious 2022 National Foundation for Eye Research’s (NFER) “Cataract Research Award.” The award is given annually by the NFER to honor “an emerging scientist who has made significant contributions to lens and cataract research, and who shows promise of developing into an international leader in the field.” Dr. Brennan will receive the award in May at the Lens Business Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) meeting in Denver.
“We are incredibly proud of Dr. Brennan for receiving this well-deserved recognition for her invaluable contributions in the field of cataract research,” said Julie Pilitsis, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., dean and vice president of medical affairs, FAU Schmidt College of Medicine. “For more than 15 years, she has worked in concert with Dr. Marc Kantorow in the medical school to advance research aimed at addressing non-surgical treatments for cataracts and to identify the molecular and genetic mechanisms involved in eye development and disease.”
Dr. Brennan is recognized for her contributions to cell biology and the cellular oxidative stress responses involving mitochondria, the nucleus and autophagy pathways. A long-sought question in the field has been what regulates the elimination of organelles – specialized structures that perform various jobs inside cells – to form the transparent lens organelle-free zone.
|
|
U.S. Falls Short in 'Geriatricizing' Emergency Departments |
|
Researchers from FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine and collaborators explored three high-impact geriatric emergency department clinical conditions (delirium, falls and polypharmacy) to highlight Geriatric Emergency Department (GED) guideline recommendations, challenges, and opportunities, and discuss realistically achievable expectations for non–GED-accredited institutions. Most emergency departments in the U.S. and worldwide do not provide the level of service recommended by the current GED Guidelines. Their commentary has been published in the Journal of Emergency Medicine and will also be published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, as a result of a panel discussion of emergency medicine physicians and geriatricians at the 2021 American Academy of Emergency Medicine’s Scientific Assembly.
“The GED Guidelines make specific recommendations regarding evaluation protocols, nurse and physician education, emergency department infrastructure, quality improvement dashboard metrics, optimal staffing, and follow-up care,” said Richard Shih, M.D., senior author and a professor of emergency medicine, FAU Schmidt College of Medicine.
“These GED guidelines are intended for every adult emergency department to ‘geriatricize’ care; this is not intended solely for those emergency departments designed specifically for older adults, which only exist in a handful of locales,” said Joseph G. Ouslander, M.D., co-author, senior advisor to the dean and a professor of medicine, FAU Schmidt College of Medicine.
|
|
Prescribe Ivermectin for COVID-19 Only in Large-Scale Randomized Trials |
|
In a commentary published in the journal Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science, researchers from the Schmidt College of Medicine and collaborators, urge all health care providers to always prioritize compassion with reliable evidence on efficacy and safety. As such, they recommend a moratorium on prescribing ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19, except to provide the necessary evidence in data from large-scale randomized trials.
“The evidence to support ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19 includes some basic research and inconsistent clinical observations that contribute to the formulation of a hypothesis of efficacy in COVID-19,” said Scott M. Alter, M.D., M.B.A., associate research director, Emergency Medicine residency program and assistant professor of emergency medicine, Schmidt College of Medicine.
“For ivermectin in treatment or prevention of COVID-19, health care providers should reassure all patients that if sufficient evidence were to emerge, then this drug would be considered a therapeutic innovation and regulatory authorities would approve the drug,” said Lisa Clayton, D.O., associate professor and chair, Department of Emergency Medicine, Schmidt College of Medicine.
“Doing more good than harm in COVID-19 requires concerted efforts by competent and compassionate health care providers, who are justifiably the most trusted, to communicate with their patients the therapeutic and preventive measures of proven benefit,” said Charles H. Hennekens, M.D., Dr.PH, first Sir Richard Doll Professor and senior academic advisor, Schmidt College of Medicine.
Other co-authors are Andrea Molnar, M.D., clinical assistant to Nicolas R. Breuer, M.D., affiliate assistant professor, Schmidt College of Medicine; Stephanie Lau, M.D., and Maja Berges, LIV Plastic Surgery; Raymond B. Masa, A.D.N., an intensive care unit (ICU) nurse at Boca Raton Regional Hospital, part of Baptist Health; Joshua J. Solano, M.D., assistant professor; and Richard D. Shih, M.D., professor of emergency medicine, both in the Schmidt College of Medicine; as well as David L. DeMets, Ph.D., Emeritus Halperin Professor and founding chair, Biostatistics and Informatics; and Dennis G. Maki, M.D., Ovid O. Meyer Professor of Medicine, and director of the COVID-19 ICU, both at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
|
|
Anita Fernander Joins Inaugural Leadership Lab |
|
The Palm Health Foundation welcomes Anita Fernander, Ph.D., to its inaugural class of the “Culture of Health Network Leadership Lab,” a nine-month lab dedicated to tackling health and wellness challenges and eliminating disparities by building the culture of a health network in Palm Beach County. The Palm Health Foundation received applications from a diverse pool of individuals, spanning multiple sectors, and with varied professional experiences. Dr. Fernander presented an organizational challenge that stood out among the rest, earning her an invitation to serve in this inaugural lab.
The performance challenge process has been infused into Palm Health Foundation’s place-based grantmaking strategy over the last five years. Through this work, the foundation has gained an understanding of the power of networks and their impact and influence in advancing health for all in Palm Beach County.
|
|
Grants Awarded to the JEDI Office for Student Research |
|
The Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Office has been awarded two grants from FAU’s Office of Community Engagement to support two student-led Community Engaged Research (CeR) projects. Sravya Gurivireddygari and Ria Jain, both third-year medical students, are working with the community partner, Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies (HMHB) Coalition of Palm Beach County, which serves the communities of Belle Glade and Greenacres.
Sravya's project, “Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies, Fatherhood Initiative” seeks to identify resources for local fathers experiencing barriers to involvement in their child's life. HMHB intends to utilize education and programming resources developed as part of this research to create a fatherhood initiative that addresses community gaps in fatherhood support, and offers local fathers opportunities for guidance. Ria’s project, “Measuring Impact of Support Groups on Prepartum and Postpartum Depression Outcomes,” will recruit study participants from three HMHB support groups and assess their levels of depression during pregnancy and postpartum. HMHB intends to use the research findings to improve maternal care services in Belle Glade and Greenacres communities.
|
|
Award Received for Grant Writing Coaching |
|
Congratulations to Henriette van Praag, Ph.D., and Dawei Li, Ph.D., associate professors, Biomedical Science, Schmidt College of Medicine, on their acceptance into the University of Utah’s National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) grant writing coaching research study, funded by an NIH/NIGMS grant. The NRMN is a highly selective program requiring a well-defined study that addresses an important topic pertaining to mentorship. Faculty members, Larry Toll, Ph.D., professor, Biomedical Science and Patrick Grant, Ph.D., associate chair for the Department of Biomedical Science and associate professor will serve as mentors for this study, which will focus on interventions aimed toward refining proposal writing skills of early-stage investigators to increase their success of receiving NIH grants. The interventions being tested are rooted in an intensive group coaching model for investigators who are actively writing, or poised to begin writing a research grant application.
|
|
2021 Teaching Award Recipients |
|
Congratulations to the 2021 Teaching Award recipients who were honored at the College of Medicine’s annual Faculty Recognition Ceremony. We are grateful to all of our university and community-based faculty members for their commitment and dedication to teaching and mentoring our medical students. A special congratulations to Jennifer Foster, M.D., M.B.A., the 2021-22 recipient of the "Michael L. Friedland, M.D., Educational Leadership Award." This prestigious annual award is given to a faculty member who demonstrates the attributes of vision, integrity, leadership, and dedication to teaching.
|
|
Richard Isaacson Participates in the 2022 CareCon |
|
This month, Richard S. Isaacson, M.D., director of the Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic in the Center for Brain Health, Schmidt College of Medicine, participated in the Caring for Brains Panel of the Hilarity For Clarity (HFC) CareCon 2022 conference; an event dedicated to bringing light to Alzheimer’s disease, discussing new developments, and providing resources to help caregivers. The Caring for Brains panel was moderated by Seth Rogen and consisted of actress Amy Poehler, DJ Steve Aoki, and Dr. Isaacson’s colleague, Dr. Eseoda Ighodara.
|
|
Tatiana Pestana Highlights Culinary Medicine |
|
Recently, Tatiana Pestana, M.D., M.P.H., C.C.M.S., a physician at the Marcus Institute of Integrative Health at FAU Medicine, recorded a video segment on choosing healthy foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner based on the Mediterranean diet. Volunteers chose among the many food options to select their preferred breakfast, lunch and dinner items. Dr. Pestana then guided each participant on small changes they could make to improve their diet.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
