The research teams will use Immertec’s live virtual reality (VR) platform to train USF Health resident physicians in critical emergency scenarios as a part of their overall graduate medical education, measuring learning outcomes and user experience.

TAMPA, Fla. (August 17, 2021) – Immertec, a medtech startup company, and the USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS) were recently awarded a $150,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) to examine the effectiveness of training emergency medicine physician residents using Immertec’s virtual reality (VR) platform.

The NIH-funded research will allow Immertec to conduct an experiment in collaboration with USF Health CAMLS to assess the feasibility of live VR training for specific medical tasks carried out by emergency medicine residents from the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. The immersive experience will allow remote professionals from any location to wear the VR headset and train as if they are in the room, with access to timely medical feeds, including X-rays, vitals, and endoscopic cameras.

Medical simulation training with an expert instructor is known to improve patient outcomes, yet expertise and resources are not always available at the point of need. And with limitations on face-to-face instruction, educators previously relied on 2D teleconferencing technology for telementoring, which is limited by lack of depth and field of view.

Immertec’s technology enables medical professionals to train immersively from a remote location by streaming real-time stereoscopic video of the clinical setting to a VR headset. The stereoscopic video provides additional visuospatial information, including multiple medical feeds, compared to 2D displays, providing a greater feeling of immersion while training.

This study will compare Immertec’s live VR training platform to traditional 2D teleconferencing technologies and determine how it impacts the quality of learning, training outcomes, and user experience of remote learning.

The research effort will be led by Shannon Bailey, PhD, human factors scientist at Immertec and principal investigator on this grant, and will be in collaboration with USF Health CAMLS, led by Haru Okuda, MD, executive director of CAMLS, assistant vice president of the USF Health Office of Interprofessional Education and Practice, and professor in the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

“The research conducted in collaboration with USF Health CAMLS will provide empirical evidence on how immersive remote technologies compare to traditional telementoring methods in medicine. We look forward to leveraging the extensive knowledge of the USF Health team and CAMLS’ state-of-the-art facility to better understand how to improve our technology to train medical professionals,” Dr. Bailey said.

Such collaborations between industry and academic medicine have the potential to accelerate innovations for improving healthcare education and ultimately patient outcomes.

“We’re excited to collaborate with an innovative startup like Immertec,” Dr. Okuda said. “We believe strongly in the potential of immersive training technology and now have the opportunity to conduct research to better understand how virtual reality can change the way medical professionals learn in today’s climate.”

Immertec’s platform includes a desktop portal that allows companies and organizations to schedule training events, a mobile app that allows attendees to register for events and request a VR headset, and a hardware camera cart present in a clinical setting to stream live content. Immertec’s platform allows medical professionals to be immersed in a live clinical setting, communicate with attendees, and view multiple medical feeds while wearing a VR headset from a remote location.

USF Health CAMLS, located in downtown Tampa, Florida, is one of the world’s largest, free-standing simulation facilities exclusively dedicated to training healthcare professionals. The CAMLS facility is a 90,000-square-foot, three-story facility that provides a state-of-the-art, high-fidelity clinical environment that includes surgical skills labs, operating trauma suites, and patient exam rooms.

The first phase of the research project will validate Immertec’s immersive technology in medical training and provide empirical evidence of the technical and scientific merit of this remote training approach for future commercialization in the health care field.

Images highlighting the technology that will be used in the study, courtesy of Immertec:

On-site at CAMLS, Dr. Luis Llerena demonstrates a procedure on a mannequin while camera and audio equipment record and send the info to trainees on the program.

A trainee uses the VR headshot and controls to participate in Dr. Llerena’s demonstration.

The viewpoint within VR headset include visual, data, and interactivity options.

Click here for Match Day 2021 results.

About 170 senior medical students from the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine were successfully matched today and learned where they will spend their residency training after graduation from medical school in May.

Called Match Day, the annual event is held at all medical schools across the country to reveal where senior medical students will spend their residencies, the next step in their medical education – which can last from three to seven years, depending on the specialty.

After a cancellation last year due to COVID-19, this year’s Match Day for USF Health students returned to a format more like those in years past, with mostly in-person presentations of sealed envelopes and students announcing and celebrating their matches with classmates. This hybrid approach included some students streaming in virtually to share their matches with classmates.

At the in-person event, held outdoors at the downtown Tampa restaurant Ulele, public health measures were followed: the senior medical students remained socially distant, wore masks and, as health care providers in training with direct patient interaction, had already been vaccinated against COVID-19.

But some traditions remained on pause, like including friends and family at the event. To help keep them connected, the event was live-streamed so relations across the globe could see matches unfold.

Kicking of the program was U.S. Representative Kathy Castor, who offered good wishes in a prerecorded message shown to all in attendance and across the live-stream.

“From Washington DC, a big shout out and congratulations to everyone who is matching today,” Rep. Castor said. “Congratulations USF College of Medicine and all the fantastic folks who are on the way to their residencies. I know how important it is to have residency slots across the state of Florida. We’re behind. So, wherever you match, just know we want you to return to the Tampa Bay area, return to the state of Florida to practice medicine and serve your neighbors. And you can count on me here in Congress to work to expand the number of residency slots so future graduates can match and serve in the state of Florida. Go Bulls!”

Then came in-person congratulations from Charles Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine.

“It’s incredibly thrilling to me to be at this live event,” Dr. Lockwood said. “You’re an amazing group of people who have put up with a year that is unlike any in our history. I thank you for your patience, your tenacity, and your grit. This was an incredibly complex year, from an educational standpoint, and was emotionally draining on all of us. We’re all a little better, as physicians, for it. We dealt with a planetary pandemic, the likes of which we haven’t seen for over a hundred years, and came through it, particularly this state, incredibly well. We’re not done yet, but we’re close. So, it’s great to see you off to your residencies and the next phase of your careers. Congratulations, thank you all, and good luck.”

And then the matches began!

The national match process is handled through the National Residency Match Program (NRMP). In the months leading up to Match Day, students apply and interview for residency slots with institutions across the country, and then rank their preferences. Match Day, which begins at noon (ET), is when students learn which residency programs chose them and where they will train for the next three to seven years.

This year’s NRMP’s main match was the largest in NRMP history: a record-high 48,700 applicants submitted program choices for 38,106 positions, an increase of 3,741 (8.3%) applicants over 2020 (the largest single-year bump in recorded history).

For this year’s Match Day, the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine Class of 2021 includes 171 senior students, of which 46 are in the SELECT MD program, who have spent the past two years in clinical rotations in Allentown, PA.

Stats: From the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine Class of 2021: 171 students matched; 37 students (22%) are staying at USF; 79 (46%) are staying in Florida; and 57 students (33%) chose primary care as their specialty (internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatrics). Click here for more details about the nationwide Match from the National Residency Match Program.

Photos by Allison Long, video by Torie Doll, USF Health Communications and Marketing

The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine Class of 2018 will celebrate National Match Day beginning at Noon this Friday, March 16, at Ulele. 

Students, family members, friends and others who cannot attend the event in person can watch the celebration on USF Health’s Facebook Live: www.facebook.com/usfhealth/

This year, 158 USF senior medical students in Tampa, FL, and Allentown, PA — along with thousands of their peers at medical schools across the country – are participating in the Match to learn where they will spend their residencies after graduation.   Residency 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 Noon EST this Friday, U.S. medical students will open sealed envelopes to find out which school among their several selections accepted them and where they will train over the next three to seven years. Match Day is an exciting, life-changing event for these future doctors.

Most of the 47 USF SELECT MD senior students will attend the Tampa celebration at Ulele, but some will participate in a Match Day event on the Lehigh Valley campus in Allentown, PA, where they conducted their clinical training the past two years. The USF Match Day theme is based on Game of Thrones, a perfect fit for soon-to-be physicians who are trained to always be prepared.

This year’s Main Residency Match by the National Resident Matching Program is expected to be the largest in history.

Cuc Mai, MD, assistant dean for Graduate Medical Education (GME) and program director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program, has been appointed senior associate dean for GME at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine (MCOM).

Dr. Mai, an associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, will lead GME in an interim capacity until the senior associate dean appointment becomes permanent on March 1.  She assumes the role held by Charles Paidas, MD, who left USF Health Jan. 17 to join Nemours Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del.

Cuc Mai, MD

Kellee Oller, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, has been selected as the new program director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program effective March 1.

“Dr. Mai has been strongly committed to improving the learning environment for all our residents and fellows,” said Charles J. Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine.  “I am confident in her ability as proven leader to strengthen our training programs during this time of dynamic change in GME.”

Since Dr. Mai became the internal medicine residency program director in 2012, the program has increased in size by 30 percent, expanded its rotation offerings, and improved its national recognition with a more competitive match. It has also achieved a 100-percent board pass rate, and a 100-percent fellowship match rate.

“She has been an outstanding leader with exceptional creativity who has brought national prominence to our residency,” said John Sinnott, MD, chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Mai received her MD degree from USF in 2000 and completed her residency in internal medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. She joined the faculty of MCOM as an assistant professor of internal medicine in 2005, and was advanced to associate professor in 2012. In 2015 she was appointed Assistant Dean for GME.

She has been instrumental in GME curricular design and innovation at Tampa General Hospital and other teaching affiliates. Most recently, Dr. Mai helped develop the GME Patient Safety Workshop to help USF residents across various specialties to better identify potential causes of medical errors, as well as to develop protocols and enhance communication to avoid such errors.

A fellow of the American College of Physicians, Dr. Mai received the ACP Florida Chapter’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award in 2016.  She has been a two-time recipient of the Roy H. Behnke Residents’ Faculty Award and three-time recipient of the Tampa General Hospital Outstanding Teacher Award.

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Click here for Match Day 2017 results.

Click here for more photos in Flickr

Clear skies, the Hillsborough River and the downtown Tampa skyline helped set the stage for this year’s USF Match Day, held March 17. The open grass yard behind the local restaurant Ulele was filled with senior medical students from the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine (MCOM) as they gathered for Match Day, the annual ritual of finding out where they will spend their residency training after graduating from medical school next month.

The celebratory vibe had a glimmer of green this year – spring green, USF green and St. Patrick’s Day green – with students and family members also wearing specially designed shirts that helped raise $2,500 toward MCOM scholarships. Working with USF’s creative design team, the medical students designed this year’s shirt to reflect St. Patrick’s Day, using the phrase Luck o’ the Match!

The USF MCOM Class of 2017 includes 162 students who matched with residency programs. On Match Day, senior medical students across the country learn where they will spend their residencies, the next step in their medical education, which can last from three to seven years depending upon the specialty pursued. The big reveal follows several months of applying for and interviewing at residency programs and ranking their picks within a formal match through the National Residency Match Program (NRMP).

It is on Match Day that all U.S. medical students find out which programs chose them. The news is available at the same time across the country – at high noon on the east coast and at 6:00 a.m. in Hawaii.  This year, the NRMP’s main match was the largest on record.

At Ulele, the festivities began with a surprise visit by City of Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, offering encouraging words to the senior medical students.

“All of us are very proud of what you have done and how you have gotten to this point,” Mayor Buckhorn said. “But more importantly, what I want you to know is that, whether you match at USF or whether you go on to some other great university or medical school in this country, I want you to do one thing for me: I want you to come back to Tampa when you’re done. I think you’ve seen we’re building an amazing city for you. This is that place in America where the best and the brightest want to be. We want you to come home here. We want you to become part of our community. You are part of us. Good luck to all of you. Go Bulls! and Go Tampa!”

Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn joined the Match Day festivities with Dr. Charles Lockwood and Dr. Kira Zwygart.

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

“I want to thank our mayor, probably the biggest supporter of this medical school and its relocation downtown on the waterfront with the Heart Institute,” Dr. Lockwood said.

“And I especially want to thank the support system of our graduates, the family members here, and a big hand for all of them.

“If you are feeling the same level of nervous energy that I did – I won’t mention how many years ago – I can only imagine what’s going through your minds,” he continued. “You’re going to be great doctors. Just keep in mind to put the patient first every day, and you’ll have a successful career and outstanding professional life.”

At noon, Mayor Buckhorn announced the first match and presented an envelope to Jewel Brown, who matched to an obstetrics and gynecology residency at USF.

First envelope for USF Match Day goes to Jewel Brown, who will be doing her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

Each medical school has its own tradition for releasing the match information: some simply hand out envelopes and students open them en masse. The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine has a long-standing tradition for handing out envelopes one at a time, in random order, and allowing each student to open and announce to their classmates where he or she is headed. The additional attention to each student and the additional time for sharing their news creates a festive atmosphere that, over the years, has offered generations of USF students an opportunity to savor the moment that defines their future.

This year’s group includes 50 students in the SELECT MD program at MCOM, who spent the past two years in clinical rotations in Allentown, PA. Ten of the 50 returned to Tampa to open their envelopes at Ulele.

USF Health SELECT students in Allentown, PA. Photo courtesy of LVHN.

The Class of 2017 also includes seven students matching through the U.S. military, the largest group in MCOM’s history. As happens in military matches, these students already learned where they’re conducting their residencies, but join their classmates at Match Day as part of the Class of 2017.

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 learns where they will spend the next few years of their medical training as physician residents.

Names continued to be announced by Kira Zwygart, MD, associate dean for MCOM Office of Student Affairs. One by one, senior students came forward to accept an envelope, open it, and discover their futures.

As MCOM tradition goes, each student places a dollar into a box – this year a ‘pot-o-gold’ to stay with the St. Patrick’s Day theme – and, because the student names are called in random order, the final envelope holder gets the cash. This year that winning student was Jennifer Carrion who matched in ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­family medicine residency at Florida State University Lee Memorial in Fort Myers, FL.

Jennifer Carrion collects her prize — the Match Pot-o-Gold filled with cash — with help from family and friends.

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.

Stats: From the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine: 162 students matched; 37 students (23%) are staying at USF; 70 (43%) are staying in Florida; and 56 students (35%) chose primary care as their specialty (internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatrics). Click here for more details about the nationwide Match from the National Residency Match Program.

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For many students, Match Day is a defining moment

Student narratives by Rachel Pleasant

They find out where they will launch their careers. For some, Match Day continues paths of determination. Here are some of their stories.

***

For Mayssan Muftah, becoming a doctor means being able to help rebuild her patients’ health — while also breaking traditions and stereotypes.

“I had a patient tell me once that I had totally changed his ideas of what Muslims are like,” said Muftah, 23, a Syrian-American who lives in Tampa. “I like breaking down people’s ideas of what a woman in a head scarf should be doing.”

Muftah, a third-generation physician, will specialize in gastroenterology, just like her father and grandfather, but in many other ways, she is forging her own path.

“In the Arab culture, not very many women become doctors. They might go to medical school — my grandmother did — but they rarely go into practice,” Muftah said.

Muftah is intent on having a career and a family. This spring, she will marry her finance, Ammar Nassri, an internal medicine resident who starts his fellowship this summer. Because of their impending nuptials, Nassri was unable to attend Match Day. Muftah chose to open her envelope privately a few moments before the match ceremony commenced, so that she could share the news with Nassri via a FaceTime call.

While her fiancé finishes his gastroenterology fellowship, Mayssan will be doing her internal medicine residency. Her future plans include finding a balance between her career and being a mother. She wants to show young Muslim women that they can pursue their dreams and not to give into stereotypes.

Mayssan Muftah shares the good news of her residency match in internal medicine at Emory University School of Medicine with her fiance via FaceTime.

“If you want something, you have to go for it,” she said. “You can’t let anyone stop you. You can be everything — and it’s worth it,” she said.

Unlike her father and grandfather who work in private practice, Muftah plans to practice in an academic setting. There, she will encounter patients from all walks of life, and in all likelihood, certain prejudices, too. Muftah is undeterred.

“I can break down misconceptions about the Muslim faith,” she said, “and change ideas about what someone like me should be like.”

Muftah matched in internal medicine at Emory University in Atlanta.

***

Like most children, SeQuoya Killebrew and her two siblings made frequent visits to their pediatrician’s office as they were growing up, and with every runny nose and fever, she became more certain that one day, she too would become a doctor.

“I really admired my pediatrician,” said Killebrew, 26. “My parents trusted her wholeheartedly to care for their children, to help them and to look out for their best interests.”

The goal of becoming a pediatrician sustained Killebrew for years, throughout high school, undergraduate studies at Florida A&M University, where she earned a degree in biology, and her first two years of medical school.

SeQuoya Killebrew announces that she will be doing her residency in internal medicine at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville.

In her third year, her first clinical rotation just happened to be in internal medicine, and soon, Killebrew was rethinking her professional aspirations.

“I realized I really like internal medicine. It’s a challenging field. You have to study all the time. You can’t be complacent,” Killebrew said.

Later that year, during her pediatrics rotation, Killebrew made her decision. She would become a hospital-based internist rather than a pediatrician.

“I realized that kids aren’t fun when they’re sick, and when they’re better and more fun, it’s time to send them home,” she said. “I like the dynamic of working with adult patients.”

Killebrew aims to work in a hospital setting because of the impact she’ll be able to make on patients when they’re at their sickest.

“When your patients are in the hospital, there is something seriously wrong. I’ll be able to be their advocate, to sit down with them, hear their stories, coordinate their tests, make sure everything gets done, and then send them home healthier and with the tools to live a better life,” she said.

Though she will be treating adults rather than children, Killebrew will still strive to emulate the compassionate care her pediatrician delivered each time she and her brother and sister had a stomachache or needed an immunization.

“People trust you wholeheartedly to take care of them. You’re a counselor and a confidant, as well as a doctor,” she said.

Killebrew hopes to be matched with the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. And she did, in internal medicine.

***

As the son of a beloved USF Health faculty member, one might think Sam Slone is merely following his father’s footsteps into medicine.

Not so, said Slone, who like his father, Frederick Slone, MD, will specialize in gastroenterology.

“I was always good in math and science. I wanted to use that to help people at the same time. By the time I was in middle school, I had decided that I would become a doctor, too,” said Slone, 26.

In fact, it wasn’t until his son was applying to college that he heard him say he wanted to become a physician, Dr. Slone said.

Dr. Fred Slone and son Sam Slone, who will be staying at USF for an internal medicine residency.  Sam plans to specialize in gastroenterology.

During his clinical rotations, Slone explored a variety of specialties, but gastroenterology “just felt right.”

“You have to do something you like. With gastroenterology, I’ll see inpatients and outpatients. I can specialize, but also provide a wide range of services. It’s the area in which I feel I can have the biggest impact for patients,” Slone said.

During medical school, Slone participated in research involving the use of fecal microbiota transplants to treat autism, taught Basic Life Support to members of the public and volunteered with Tampa Bay Street Medicine, an organization that serves Tampa’s homeless population.

All the while, Slone felt his confidence as a medical provider growing.

“At the beginning of medical school, you think, ‘There is no possible way I can learn everything I need to,’ but little by little, you do, and then you realize, ‘I can do this,’ ” he said.

After he graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1978, Dr. Slone matched to the University of South Florida for his residency. Like the vast majority of medical school residents, Tampa is where he stayed after his graduate education, building a life in tandem with his practice.

The younger Slone was born and raised in Tampa, graduating from Jesuit High School. He completed his undergraduate degree in biochemistry at the University of Florida — to have the away-from-home college experience — but after graduating in 2013, came right back to Tampa for medical school. This is where he hopes to stay; he ranked USF as his top residency location.

Regardless of where his career takes him, Slone is eager to begin his life’s work — and his dad is eager to watch his son make a name for himself.

“This is one of the proudest moments of my life, to see him achieve this goal,” Dr. Slone said. “Whatever he sets his mind on doing, he will do the work it takes to not only do it, but to excel.”

Slone fulfilled his hopes – he is staying in Tampa in an internal medicine residency at USF.

***

He won’t be there to cheer them on as they open their envelopes.

He can’t wrap them in congratulatory hugs after they cross the stage.

But somehow, Sean and Shaara Argo hope, their dad will be watching this Match Day, and he’ll be proud.

“I’m sure he will be,” said Shaara, 26, of Don Argo, who died of cancer in 2008.

“He always held us to very high expectations.”

Added Sean, 30: “He always said that if you weren’t using your head, you might as well have two rear ends.”

Siblings Sean and Shaara Argo will specialize in emergency medicine and pediatrics, respectively. Sean is headed to Florida Atlantic University Schmidt College of Medicine in Boca Raton, while Shaara will stay at USF for her residency.

Though he won’t be there to celebrate with them, their accomplishments, Sean and Shaara agreed, have everything to do with their dad, as well as their mom, Kathy, who lives in Rockledge.

Don taught calculus at what is now Eastern Florida State College. Some of his courses were broadcasted on public access television, earning him the nickname, “Math Man.”

“People would just come up to us and say, ‘Hey, it’s the Math Man,’” Shaara said.

Ever the “Math Man,” Don had his children doing linear algebra by the time they were 5 and calculus by middle school.

“We couldn’t go out to dinner without the napkins and placemats being covered in math problems,” Sean said.

Meanwhile, their mother, a former software engineer turned stay-at-home-mom, was the nurturer, the one who instilled in them the importance of doing for others.

“She is just that type of person,” Shaara said. “She taught us empathy and compassion.”

With these two perfectly balanced influences in their lives, Shaara and Sean grew. Shaara gravitated toward medicine early in life. She recalls a photo taken when she and her brother were 3 and 6. They each held stethoscopes to the other’s chest.

“She was very serious about it,” said Sean.

Shaara earned a bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences and a master’s degree in medical sciences from the University of South Florida before enrolling in medical school.

Sean, on the other hand, began his higher education as a physics major at USF, but changed his mind during the last years of his father’s life.

“He was in and out of the hospital,” Sean said. “He would schedule his surgeries for over his winter breaks from school, so we had Christmas in the hospital many times. Sometimes he had really good doctors, and sometimes he had doctors who lacked that human element.”

Those experiences led Sean to change his major. He also earned a bachelor’s in biomedical sciences and master’s degree in medical sciences. Afterward, he went to work for a Florida Department of Health laboratory. There, he tested blood samples for diseases, day in and day out, day after day.

“The same things happened at the same time every day. I realized it wasn’t for me,” Sean said.

“I had these skills, and the experiences we went through with my dad being sick. That’s when I decided medical school was the best fit for me.”

Shaara had headed straight into medical school, which is how she and Sean, four years apart in age, ended up in the same graduating class.

“We’ve answered the same three questions ever since: Are we twins? No. Do we live together? No. Do we study together? No,” Sean said.

Although, his last answer isn’t completely true.

“I taught you how to make flash cards in med school,” Shaara said to Sean one warm afternoon a few days prior to Match Day. “I remember. It was amino acids.”

As they progressed in their studies, Sean and Shaara each chose specialties that perfectly reflect their personalities.

Shaara, the organized, flashcard-making sibling, has chosen pediatrics.

“She is the one with the calendar. There are timetables for immunizations and developmental milestones. She’ll be the one to make sure that every kid is progressing on time,” Sean said.

Sean, who so detested the predictability of the laboratory, will specialize in emergency medicine.

“He is very spur-of-the-moment and spontaneous. He will definitely be able to jump from task to task in a way that makes sense to him,” Shaara said.

Shaara is hoping to match at USF, while Sean is crossing his fingers for the University of Florida or Florida Atlantic University.

Wherever their careers take them, Sean and Shaara will be carrying their parents with them.

“I want them to know that everything they did for us our entire lives, all the sacrifices they made, it made this easier,” Shaara said. “They had such a perfect balance. We hope to embody them both as physicians.”

Both got their preferred matches! Shaara matched in pediatrics at USF. And Sean matched in emergency medicine at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

***

He knows how it feels to be a stranger in a foreign land.

He can still recall the heartbreak of his parents’ divorce.

He’s watched his home burn down, and he’s spent his summers counseling children battling for their lives. Now, Ariel Peñaranda is ready to put these and many other experiences to work for others.

“I have an understanding of what it’s like to go through these things. I know the struggle, and I know that if someone is there for you and there to listen to you, it can get better,” said Peñaranda, 27, who entered the USF Morsani College of Medicine through SELECT, a leadership track that prepares students to take active roles in changes to our health care system.

A native of Colombia who immigrated to Miami when he was 11, Peñaranda first considered becoming a medical doctor when he was in middle school, but that was mostly because both his parents are lawyers and he wanted to take a different path in life.

Ariel Peñaranda, who entered Morsani College of Medicine through the SELECT MD program, was glad to match in psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, NY. He plans to pursue a child psychiatry fellowship after residency.

During his undergraduate years at the University of Miami, he veered away from medicine, earning a bachelor’s degree in motion pictures and psychology. As he progressed in his studies, however, he found that he was more inspired by the time he’d spent volunteering at an Orlando camp for children diagnosed with cancer, heart disease and other life-threatening conditions than the prospect of editing movies behind a computer screen all day.

“Medicine was a way to combine my love of people and science,” he said.

His undergraduate degree, unusual as it may seem for a future doctor, actually represents what he aims to achieve in his medical career.

“I like listening to people’s stories,” he said.

Peñaranda, the oldest of four siblings and a slew of cousins, has always loved children, and long planned to specialize in pediatrics, but changed his mind after his psychiatric rotations.

By specializing in psychiatry, Peñaranda will be able to spend his days doing what he likes best — listening — in order to devise a course of care that incorporates individual and group therapy, role modeling, and other patient-centered interventions. After his residency, he plans to pursue a child psychiatry fellowship.

“When I walk into the room, I’m not going to be asking for the chief complaint and then writing a prescription,” he said.

In all of his patient interactions, Peñaranda will dig deep, using his personal experiences to relate to those under his care. He gave the experience of being displaced from his Allentown apartment after a fire late last year.

“People have been so kind and have helped me through that,” he said. “I’ve been through that and now I can help others going through the same things.”

Peñaranda added he is especially interested in working with children whose behavioral and emotional issues are affecting their academic performance. He hoped to be matched with Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y. And he was.

***

Communications team supporting Match Day 2017: Anne DeLotto Baier, Grace Beck, Freddie Coleman, Vjollca Hysenlika, Mark Leaning, Tina Meketa, Ryan Noone, Elizabeth Peacock, Rachel Pleasant, Sandra Roa, Ashley Rodriguez, Emily Wingate, Sarah Worth, Eric Younghans. Technical support by Andy Campbell.

The MCOM Class of 2017.

A heartfelt welcome, some good advice for navigating USF Graduate Medical Education program, and a glimpse of the hard realities found in today’s health care system were part of the morning for 225 new resident physicians taking part in their orientation, held June 30 at the Embassy Suites on the USF campus.

The orientation precedes the July 1 start day for when resident physicians across the country begin their training and when USF residents are deployed to the many clinical facilities and hospitals throughout the Tampa Bay area affiliated with the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

Setting the stage for the greater demand for providing higher quality care over total costs, residents were urged to be cautious in their expenditures and more cognizant of individual patient outcomes by Charles Paidas, MD, professor of surgery and vice dean for Graduate Medical Education (GME) at MCOM.

“So for 10 minutes we’ve been talking about (improving the use of health care) money, but really we’re talking about culture,” he said. “Transformation of how we take care of patients is no longer ‘I have to see a whole bunch of patients’ but is now ‘each patient that I see has to be a quality, grand slam, homerun hit.”

USF’s residency program has more than 80 residency and fellowship training programs with more than 700 trainees.

This year’s entering group includes 225 physicians, with 145 residents and 80 fellows. Of the residents, about half are entering their first year of residency. Called PGY1s (post graduate year 1), these physicians are experiencing the first day of their medical careers – they just graduated from medical school a few months ago. In residencies, newly graduated medical doctors transition to the next phase of their education. Unlike in medical school, when decision making was ‘virtual’ and practiced in the shadows of the care team, residencies have the responsibility shift to these new doctors.

The other incoming residents are beginning the next step in their residencies, transitioning to a narrower focus within their specialty. Fellows have finished their residencies and are now conducting additional, more specialized training within their specialty. Fellowships are typically highly competitive positions in superior programs. While most of the new resident physicians are from MCOM (41), the rest are graduates of schools and programs from farther afield, including China, India, Japan, South Korea, Spain, and Thailand, among others.

One new resident didn’t have to travel far; Neil Manimala, MD, is an alum of USF Health MCOM and is specializing in urology. He said his choice for USF’s urology residency was easy.

“I chose to stay at USF because I believe it is one of the best urology programs in the country,” Dr. Manimala said. “Our residents are thoroughly trained to be both quality-driven clinicians and effective educators of patients and junior physicians alike.  From the high-tech robots to the more basic tools of the field, we are empowered to deliver what is truly the best urological care that the region has to offer. From TGH to the VA to Moffitt, our faculty are among the best. I’m excited to work with the USF Urology family in the years to come.  Furthermore, in my time in this city, I have been a witness to the unstoppable growth and development in Tampa Bay.  As we move our college to the heart of this city, I’m honored to be a part of that growth.  The sand, sun, and diversity don’t hurt either. I’m looking forward to giving all the people in this community — from my co-residents and our faculty to my patients and their families — my absolute best.”

Dr. Paidas concluded his orientation remarks with three words he asked the room full of new doctors to remember across their residencies, along with the lesson on value from earlier in the morning: Safe, team, and commit.

“These are the three words I want to leave you with besides value,” he said. “We want to graduate as a safe doctor, be able to work in a team, and commit to your obligations of lifelong learning, to your patients, to your peers and students, your department, and the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.”

This year’s residents and fellows totaled 225. About 45 percent are starting at Tampa General Hospital, 25 percent at the Haley VA Hospital, 15 percent at Moffitt Cancer Center, and the remaining are at various other sites. Internal medicine welcomed the largest number of new residents and fellows, with 86, followed by surgery, with 25.

Here is a breakdown of the entire group:

Dermatology, 5

Family Medicine, 9

Cardiology, 7

Internal Medicine, 86

Neurology, 13

Neurosurgery, 4

Obstetrics and Gynecology, 8

Ophthalmology, 3

Orthopaedics, 7

Otolaryngology, 2

Pathology, 7

Pediatrics, 17

Plastic Surgery, 3

Psychiatry, 9

Radiology, 20

Surgery, 25

Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Office of Communications

USF senior medical student Alicia Billington spoke at a congressional briefing after the Association of American Medical College (AAMC) announced record-breaking medical school enrollment and the need to expand graduate medical education (GME) support.

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The AAMC hosted the briefing Oct. 24, shortly after its release of this year’s medical school applicant and enrollment numbers.   Billington shared her perspective as a medical student about the increasing national demand for more physicians.  The solution, she said, must address the shortage of residency training slots for the growing pipeline of MD graduates.

“Quite frankly, I could go into engineering or a variety of other fields with my MD degree.  I’m here because I want to help patients, but if I don’t have a job in a residency program it will be impossible for me to do that,” said Billington, who is also a PhD candidate at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. “We need to increase the number of residency positions so that our patients can have doctors.”

Alicia Billington, MD-PhD candidate at USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, with Atul Grover, MD,PhD, AAMC chief public policy officer

Billington joined panelists Atul Grover, MD, PhD, chief public policy officer, AAMC, and Suanna Bruinooge, director of research policy, American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Her concerns that graduating students will not be able to match to residencies, despite the impending shortfall of physicians across various specialties, were also highlighted by Dr. Grover in his widely-read AAMC column Second Opinion. 

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