May 20 , 2004
| In this issue: |
COPH reaccredited for full seven years |
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The USF College of Public Health received full seven-year reaccreditation from the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH), the national accrediting body for schools of public health. Seven years is the maximum period of continuing accreditation that CEPH awards. "This is incredible news," said Stanley Graven, MD, interim dean of the college, who was notified of reaccreditation by CEPH on May 17. "Our accreditation is continued for seven years with no contingencies – that's the highest vote of confidence a college of public health can get." Dr. Graven said the successful reaccreditation was a "college-wide" accomplishment led by Betty Gulitz, PhD, RN, associate dean for academic affairs, and Barbara Kennedy, MPH, ARNP, who worked with faculty, staff and students to help prepare the college's self-study report. "Well over 50 of our 60-plus faculty members were involved in some aspect of the reaccreditation process," he said. "We're thrilled," said Ann DeBaldo, PhD, associate dean of research and international affairs. "This is tangible evidence that the site visit team was thoroughly impressed with our comprehensive self-study report and with all the college's teaching, research and service activities, including our innovative initiatives in distance learning, public health practice and global health." The announcement of reaccreditation culminates a process that began in spring 2003, with the creation of a self-study report detailing the college's governance, demographics, strategic plans, research, education and service programs. Last October, a 4-member team from CEPH visited the college and met with the administration, faculty, students, alumni and community representatives. "The commitment and passion of the faculty for public health is evident in the classroom, in the research arena where there is a good balance of traditional and community-based research, and in the community where the school has garnered widespread support," the team wrote about the college's strengths in its report. CEPH commended the "cultural richness" brought to USF by its diverse population of public health students, and recommended that the college strengthen its efforts to attract an equally diverse faculty. The college recently adopted a formalized plan for recruiting and retaining more minority faculty members, Dr. Graven said. The USF College of Public Health is the only accredited college of public health in Florida and one of only 34 accredited public health schools nationwide. Return to top |
Give online to charitable campaign |
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The 2004 Faculty & Staff Charitable Campaign is underway and this year you can make your pledge online. |
Construction online with Ajax web cam |
| Want to check out the progress of the new USF College of Nursing? Go to www.hsc.usf.edu for a link to the Ajax Building web site. Then select web cam and you'll see a string of images that make a short movie showing the construction. Return to top |
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Community Links |
Mobile environmental health lab rolls into area high schools |
Heidi Kay, PhD, knows a lot about analyzing chemicals. It's driving a van packed with nearly $100,000 worth of high-tech environmental science equipment that takes some getting used to. "We get a lot of looks from passers by," said Kay, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health. Dr. Kay and doctoral students in the USF College of Public Health staff EnviroVan, a shuttle bus converted into a mobile environmental health laboratory. USF mechanical engineering students helped customize the van as part of a capstone class project last fall. A Congressional Award for Innovations in Technology and Teaching and a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency supported the project. |
 Heidi Kay, PhD, (right) assistant professor of environmental and occupational health, demonstrates the EnviroVan's computerized chemical analysis equipment for Wharton High School senior Alan Freeman. Dr. Kay took the environmental health laboratory on wheels to nine Tampa Bay area high schools this spring. Photo by Eric Younghans. |
| This spring, Dr. Kay took the EnviroVan on an educational outreach tour, visiting nine high schools in Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties. High school science and health teachers helped USF develop the pilot public health curriculum and competed for the chance to bring the laboratory on wheels to their schools. Students in the nine selected schools participated in a weeklong session covering water quality, toxicology or hazardous materials. For one day of the session, students and their teachers used the state-of-the-art EnviroVan equipment to conduct experiments and learn how samples are analyzed in modern laboratories. "It's a neat opportunity for students to be exposed to the real world applications of public health," said Ken Wood, a science teacher at Wharton High School. "They don't usually get to see the use of high-tech equipment like this." On a Friday in April, nearly a dozen students from Wood's honors zoology class squeezed into EnviroVan to watch Dr. Kay demonstrate how an instrument called a high pressure liquid chromatograph separates the chemicals used in paint solvents. Then she used dyes like those in cosmetics and food coloring to illustrate how a spectrophotometer measures wavelengths of light to identify compounds in samples. Meanwhile another group of students from the same class gathered outside the EnviroVan to test water samples for chlorine. Alan Freeman, 19, held up a test tube in which a swirl of pink indicated the presence of chlorine in tap water. "It was a good experience," said Alan Freeman, a senior who plans to apply to dental school after college. "It's good to get out of the classroom and do some hands-on experiments." The goal of the EnviroVan project was to spark student interest in the sciences and explore the relationship between the environment and health, Dr. Kay said. "Science has reputation for being dull and boring, but it's not. Look at all this cool equipment we get to use." This fall, the EnvironVan will continue to be used at USF for courses, training, field testing and research, such as monitoring power plant smokestack emissions or toxic gases from ponds. Students from all colleges will have access to the mobile lab. Dr. Kay is a principal investigator of the EnviroVan project, and Ellen Kent of the USF Area Health Education Center, is co-principal investigator. Return to top | |
USF study to test potential of asthma drug in helping reduce risk of severe allergic reactions to peanuts |
| Allergic reactions to foods like peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, egg and milk are uncommon, but can be life-threatening, especially for children. Avoiding the food that triggers the reaction is the only treatment. This can be especially tricky for peanuts, a cheap source of dietary protein that is finding its way into more food products. This happens either directly or occasionally by indirect contamination of food products during the manufacturing process, said Dennis Ledford, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Allergy and Immunology at the USF College of Medicine and James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital. "For highly sensitive people, this is typically an allergy that persists beyond childhood. Even trace amounts of peanuts can cause a serious allergic reaction, which can be fatal." Dr. Ledford is heading a local clinical study to test whether the drug omalizumab can reduce the severity of peanut-induced allergic reactions. Omalizumab, approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of moderate to severe allergy-related asthma, has not yet been proven safe or effective for the treatment of peanut allergy. All members of the USF Division of Allergy and Immunology are involved in the study. USF is one of approximately 20 sites in the United States, Canada and Europe enrolling people in the double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Peanut allergy is the second most common food allergy in the United States (behind shellfish) affecting approximately 8 percent of children age 6 or under and 1 to 2 percent of adults. Despite parents' best efforts, children may be accidentally exposed to peanuts when they swap snacks, consume an unsuspected ingredient in food or even use a utensil with microscopic bits of peanut butter. "Right now all a physician can do is tell patients to avoid peanuts and advise them to carry around a syringe with epinephrine (adrenaline) so they can inject themselves if they have an unintended severe allergic reaction," Dr. Ledford said. "A new therapy would give parents greater reassurance that their children could avoid potentially life-threatening reactions from inadvertently eating foods containing peanuts." The 38-week USF study seeks to enroll eligible individuals ages 6 to 75. For more information, please call the USF Asthma, Allergy and Immunology Clinical Research Unit at 813-631-4024, ext. 201. Return to top |
HSC student bring cheer to patients |
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| Members of the Health Sciences Center Service Corps, a new student-led service group sponsored by the Area Health Education Center, organized and held a picnic April 20 for 35 patients and their family members staying at Hope Lodge. Forty students from Medicine, Nursing, Public Health and Physical Therapy helped plan the picnic, attended the event and provided entertainment. Pictured above, students and patients spent some time getting to know one another while enjoying a barbecue dinner in the area near Lake Behnke. The American Cancer Society's Tampa Hope Lodge, adjacent to Moffitt Cancer Center, is a short-term residential facility offering free housing, counseling and referral services to cancer patients who travel to the Tampa Bay area for treatment. Photo by Ellen Kent. Return to top |
In the News |
| The week of April 25, Bruce Lindsey, PhD, professor of physiology and biophysics, spoke about his nationally recognized research on how nerve cell networks regulate breathing for 89.7 WUSF-FM's University Beat. Dr. Lindsey won a $3.5-million Jacob Javits Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke — the first time a USF researcher has won the highly competitive award. Senior medical student Katie Carpenter and her triplet siblings Heather and Natalie were profiled in the April 30 St. Petersburg Times. Katie, who graduated in May, will enter a neurosurgery residency with USF at Tampa General Hospital in July. She shares a home and an enthusiasm for medicine with her siblings. Heather will start medical school at USF this fall, and Natalie has studied psychology. A USF College of Medicine research team investigating gene therapy for heart attack prevention was featured in the Tampa Tribune May 5. The team, led by Ian Phillips, PhD, DSc, vice president for research and professor of physiology and biophysics, developed a biosensor that switches on protective genes when reduced blood flow to the heart indicates a heart attack and turns off once the oxygen level returns to normal. USF medical student Jennifer Underhill appeared in a photo with a story on the Brandon Outreach Clinic that ran in the May 12 Brandon News. As part of their community-based clinical training, USF medical and nursing students rotate through the volunteer free clinic, which serves the working poor. A column by Ernest Hooper in the May 16 St. Petersburg Times described the collaborative effort of the USF Health Sciences Center in providing physicals for children enrolled in USF's National Youth Sports Program, a summer sports camp. USF undergraduate and graduate nursing students and medical students help provide the faculty-supervised exams. The column mentioned COM's Deanna Wathington, MD, and CON's Janet DuBois, ARNP, who helped coordinate the students' participation. In the last five years, Patricia Burns, PhD, FAAN, dean of nursing, has helped build the health services component of USF's program into nationally recognized models among nearly 200 NYSP programs. Jay Wolfson, DrPH, professor of public health and medicine, was featured in a May 16 front-page St. Petersburg Times article on the Tampa Bay area hospital industry's surge in construction. Many hospitals are learning to how to deal with managed care and are better off financially than they were several years ago, Dr. Wolfson said. Return to top |
COPH alum writes on couples and diets |
| COPH alum Cynthia Sass is getting good reviews on her first book, "Your Diet Is Driving Me Crazy" (Marlowe & Co.), which she co-authored with Denise Maher. As a licensed dietician, Sass helped many clients gain control over their eating. This book is a collection of stories and takes a look at the many ways couples fight over food, including how people are being driven nuts by a significant other's eating sounds, how they resent being policed about what they eat, and how they are getting angry about a partner's diet, since it might mean the end of joint binges. Devin Rose of the Chicago Tribune had this to say in an April 25 review about the book: "Sass, a licensed dietitian, recounts how she has helped clients through the years. She advised one couple who complained they never ate together to at least sit together while one eats, or eat parts of their meal separately and the rest together. She has suggested that vegetarian/meat eater couples do takeout twice by ordering at a veggie place, then hitting the barbecue joint. Sass is especially insightful about how emotional the whole topic of food can be. Best yet, her solutions and expectations are bite-sized; a little change, she teaches, can go a long way. To the food cop: 'There's a fine line between helping your partner eat healthfully and driving him or her insane.' " Sass graduated from USF with an MPH in Health Education. Return to top |
State and national groups tap into USF pediatric expertise |
| Rani Gereige, MD, FAAP, associate professor of pediatrics and associate director of the pediatric residency training, has been appointed to the Governor's new School Health Advisory Council. The Department of Health, along with the Department of Education, collaborated with the Florida Pediatric Society to form this council in order to address health related issues that affect children and education. Dr. Gereige currently chairs the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics section on School Health. Lynn Ringenberg, MD, FAAP, associate professor of pediatrics, was elected to chair the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Committee on Residency Scholarships, effective July 1. Dr. Ringenberg is currently a District V Regional Representative of the Florida Chapter of the AAP. At USF, she is associate chair for Graduate Medical Education, where she also is director of the pediatrics residency program and co-director of the combined internal medicine and pediatrics residency program. Return to top |