This new partnership will offer comprehensive pediatric surgical services for patients in the Tampa Bay community.

Tampa, FL (July 14, 2020) – Tampa General Hospital and USF Health are teaming up with Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg to expand pediatric general surgery services at Tampa General Hospital’s Children’s Medical Center. This collaboration will serve to enhance the comprehensive pediatric services already offered at TGH and will provide expanded access to pediatric general surgery interventions for patients and their families.

“We are excited to partner with a world-class pediatric care partner like Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital,” said John Couris, Tampa General Hospital’s president and CEO. “By partnering, we are bringing pediatric general surgery experts from Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital together with the TGH Children’s Medical Center team and the pediatric specialists from USF Health and our private practice physicians to create a collaborative environment in which innovative ideas and best practices are shared, our students learn, and our youngest, most vulnerable community members benefit.”

In the new agreement, pediatric general surgeons from Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital will provide services to TGH in the areas of pediatric general surgery consultations and procedures, pediatric trauma surgery and prenatal counseling and intervention. In addition, the pediatric general surgeons will work with the TGH team to develop clinical protocols to ensure the highest degree of quality and patient safety related to pediatric general surgery. “We are honored to serve Tampa Bay area families who have pediatric general surgery needs,” said Thomas Kmetz, president of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. “This collaboration with TGH not only expands our specialized pediatric general surgery services but improves access for children throughout Hillsborough County and beyond using the expertise of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital’s pediatric general surgeons.”

In addition to the partnership around pediatric general surgery, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital pediatric general surgeons will open a comprehensive Pediatric General Surgery Clinic on the campus of Tampa General Hospital – inside the USF Health South Tampa Campus – where patients and families can be seen for pre and post-surgical care and other necessary follow-up appointments.

“When a family hears their child must have an operation, pediatric general surgeons are not only counted on to provide unique expertise and quality care for little ones, but also to comfort the families who are understandably stressed and worried,” said Paul Danielson, M.D., Chair of the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Department of Surgery. “The Johns Hopkins All Children’s team has extensive experience in pediatric surgery and trauma care and expanding our relationship with TGH will bring great benefits to children in need throughout the community.”

The new partnership provides additional learning opportunities for medical students and graduate medical education trainees to learn from the pediatric general surgeons from Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital while consulting with and treating patients at Tampa General Hospital.

“The new relationship ties us closer together and will help demonstrate the power of academic medicine to the Tampa Bay community,” said Dr. Mark Moseley, Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs at USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. “We are all committed to delivering world class care through the academic medical center at TGH, but also to train the next generation of healthcare professionals and make discoveries through research that translate to the bedside.  Our shared commitment to academics makes us unique.”

The partnership between Tampa General Hospital, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital allows for the continued pursuit of excellence in clinical outcomes, quality and patient satisfaction in the field of pediatric surgery. Tampa General Hospital and Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital both earned recognition in U.S. News & World Report’s best hospital rankings. TGH was named the top hospital in the Tampa-St. Petersburg Metro Area and Johns Hopkins All Children’s had the most children’s specialties ranked in Florida for the 2020-2021 list.

U.S. News & World Report ranked Tampa General Hospital as one of the nation’s top 50 hospitals in six adult medical specialties led or co-led by USF Health physicians

Tampa General Hospital, the primary teaching hospital of USF Health Morsani College of Medicine (MCOM), was recognized this week by U.S. News & World Report (USNWR) as the No. 2 best hospital in Florida and No. 1 again in the Tampa-St. Petersburg metropolitan area.

In addition, TGH was ranked one of the nation’s top 50 hospitals in six adult medical specialties that are led or co-led by USF Health physicians:

– Diabetes and Endocrinology: No. 24 (Falls under Internal Medicine, Robert Ledford, MD, department chief)
– Gastroenterology and GI Surgery:  No. 25 (Patrick Brady, MD, section chief; Rene Gomez Esquivel, MD, vice chief)
– Nephrology: No. 18 (Elias Doumit, MD, section vice chief)
– Orthopedics: No. 39 (Roy Sanders, MD, department chief)
– Pulmonology:  No. 46 (Mark Rumbak, MD, section chief)
– Urology: No. 28 (Lucas Wiegand, MD, section vice chief)

Moffitt Cancer Center, a critical contributor to MCOM’s teaching and research programs, was ranked No. 8 among best cancer hospitals in the nation. Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, a pediatric hospital partner, ranked nationally in five pediatric specialties: neonatology, cardiology and heart surgery, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, and orthopedics.

The USNWR 2018-19 rankings compared more than 4,500 medical centers nationwide across 25 specialties, procedures and conditions. This year, a total of 158 hospitals were nationally ranked in at least one specialty. Criteria such as patient survival and safety data, adequacy of nurse staffing levels and other measures largely determine the U.S. News rankings in most specialties.

For more information, visit https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/rankings.

Dr. Jolan Walter, recruited by both institutions, leads first national genetic screening study for WHIM syndrome, a rare and potentially deadly primary immunodeficiency

From left: Krisztian Csomos, PhD; Jolan Walter, MD; Vicki and Fred Modell

USF Health immunologist Jolan Walter, MD, PhD, was recently visited by Vicki and Fred Modell, co-founders of the Jeffrey Modell Foundation, a global non-profit organization dedicated to diagnosis, treatments and, ultimately, cures for primary immunodeficiency diseases through research, advocacy, patient support and newborn screenings.

The Modells came to St. Petersburg May 24 to tour USF Children’s Research Institute laboratories of pediatrics faculty members Dr. Walter, Jennifer Leiding, MD, Larry Dishaw, PhD, and others. They also rededicated a space in the nearby Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital infusion center, naming the space the Jeffrey Modell Diagnostic and Research Center for Primary Immunodeficiencies. The new center is led by Dr. Walter, the Robert A. Good Endowed Chair and division chief of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology at the University of South Florida and Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.

Like the Modells’ foundation, the new center honors the memory of the their son Jeffrey, who died at age 15 from complications of primary immunodeficiency – a genetic condition that is chronic, serious, and often fatal.

Dr. Walter, who holds the Robert A. Good Endowed Chair in Immunology, has spent her entire medical career seeking to better understand the genetic mechanisms that cause babies to be born without functioning immune systems or with severely impaired immunity.

Beginning in July, Dr. Walter will lead the first national genetic screening study to aid in diagnosis of patients with WHIM syndrome, a rare, chronic and potentially deadly primary immunodeficiency. Sponsored by the Jeffrey Modell Foundation and clinical stage biotechnology company X-4 Pharmaceuticals, the study will screen up to 300 patients, referred from private offices, community hospitals and academic medical centers, and link clinical signs of the syndrome with the targeted genetic testing needed to confirm a mutation in the set of genes (C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4) causing WHIM.

“The journey for patients with WHIM is long and winding, and can take them to numerous pediatric and adult specialists before specific genetic diagnosis and treatment may be offered. This study aims to establish a systematic approach for the early diagnosis of WHIM patients among physicians working in different fields,” said Dr. Walter, an associate professor of pediatrics at USF Health.  “Most importantly, if the disease is confirmed genetically, patients can begin targeted CXCR4 receptor agonist treatment promoting personalized medicine. We have ongoing clinical trials to help patients receive the medication.”

The Modells co-founded the Jeffrey Modell Foundation in 1987 in memory of their son who died at age 15 from complications of primary immunodeficiency. They recently toured the laboratory of Dr. Walter and other pediatric faculty members at the St. Petersburg-based USF Children’s Research Institute.

Dr. Walter was still a high school student in Hungary when the Jeffrey Modell Foundation was established in 1987. She was not even born when Dr Robert Good, the physician-scientist regarded as the “father of modern immunology” and whose endowed chair Dr. Walter now holds, performed the first successful human bone marrow transplant in 1968 between persons who were not identical twins.

But, her work has been inspired by both.

She has spent her entire medical career seeking to better understand the genetic mechanisms that cause babies to be born without functioning immune systems or with severely impaired immunity — all in pursuit of discovering more accurate diagnoses and better treatments that will allow children to grow into healthy adults.

Dr. Csomos, who promotes basic and translational immunology research in Dr. Walter’s laboratory, speaks with Fred Modell.

An expert in combined immunodeficiencies and immune dysregulation, Dr. Walter was recruited to USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital from Harvard Medical School in 2016.  At the USF Children’s Research Institute, just a two-minute walk from the hospital, she continues to build a team to revive in-depth molecular research in primary immunodeficiencies, which affect one in every 2,000 people. These deficiencies can range from life-threatening as in the case of the “boy in the bubble” who suffered from severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) to milder forms where patients experience frequent pulmonary, sinus or other chronic infections, but also may present atypically with treatment-resistant autoimmune disorders such as cytopenias.

Dr. Walter is a collaborator on a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases grant investigating immune repertoire and function in typical and atypical SCID.

.

The Pediatric Allergy and Immunology team trains fellows on both sides of Tampa Bay working closely with the USF Department of Internal Medicine’s Allergy and Immunology Division led by Richard Lockey, MD.  Dr. Walter’s St. Petersburg-based team members include:

• Leiding, who has been instrumental in the clinical research and care of patients with a wide selection of primary immunodeficiencies.
• Mark Ballow, MD, nationally recognized in diagnosis and management of antibody deficiencies.
• Panida Sriaroon, MD, a clinical expert in primary immunodeficiencies and leader of the Allergy and Immunology Fellowship Program.
• Krisztian Csomos, PhD, recruited by Dr. Walter from Harvard, promotes basic and translational immunology research for Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital as part of the Walter’s laboratory.
• Mandel Sher, MD, and Nathan Tang, MD, community physicians specializing in allergy and immunology, also support the team.

The research collaboration between USF Health and Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital has promoted multidisciplinary connections with specialties in hematology/oncology (including bone marrow transplantation), cardiology, rheumatology and neonatology.

-Photos by Ryan Noone, University Communications and Marketing

Oct. 26, 2017 — Jennifer Leiding, MD, an associate professor of pediatrics at USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and pediatric immunologist and allergy specialist at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, led a global study on a rare and often deadly type of immune dysregulation disorder. The study, published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, resulted in new research which could set the stage for life-saving treatments in the future.

Patient Nicholas, 8, with Jennifer Leiding, MD, USF’s medical director of the Multidisciplinary Immunology Service at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. Thanks to Dr. Leiding’s research, Nicholas is the healthiest he’s ever been.

Dr. Leiding’s accurate diagnosis of a young patient who had suffered with a mysterious illness prompted her to begin the study. Once the patient was confirmed as having a rare mutation in his immune system, called STAT1 Gain of Function (GOF-STAT1), Dr. Leiding began collaborating with specialists around the world who had treated patients with the same rare diagnosis who had undergone hematopoietic stem cell transplants. The researchers learned that bone marrow transplant as a potential therapy for GOF-STAT1 had not been studied.

“We are only beginning to understand how this mutation impacts patients’ immune systems, and what treatments and modalities can make a difference for them,” Dr. Leiding said. “More research in this area can surely help solve this puzzle.”

The findings reveal that while the risk is high, in some patients the transplant can provide a cure. The group of researchers hope to launch more in-depth studies later this year. Investigators are initiating a much larger prospective study to understand the strategy of transplant in patients with this rare disease and others like it.

Read more about the patient that prompted the global study on this autoimmune disorder.

The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development.  The authors also received support from the Jeffrey Modell Foundation.

-Story and photo courtesy of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital

Tampa General Hospital named one of top 50 hospitals nationally in six medical specialties by U.S. News & World Report

TAMPA, Fla. (Aug. 8, 2017) — U.S. News & World Report (U.S. News) has ranked Tampa General Hospital, USF Health’s primary teaching hospital, as one of the top 50 hospitals nationally in six medical specialties and second among hospitals in Florida for 2017-18.  For the second consecutive year, TGH was also named the top hospital in the Tampa Metro area, which includes Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, and Hernando counties.

Morsani College of Medicine physicians hold leadership positions and/or serve as attendings in all six nationally recognized TGH medical specialties:

• Cardiology and Heart Surgery  (TGH is USF’s primary cardiology practice site for inpatient and outpatient services.)
• Diabetes and Endocrinology
• Gastroenterology and GI Surgery 
• Nephrology
• Pulmonology
• Urology

Two of the six specialties have rapidly climbed the ranks.  Diabetes and Endocrinology advanced 14 spots to No. 13 this year, while Pulmonology jumped 20 spots to No. 28.

“This winning recognition exemplifies our joint commitment to elevating the level of care in our region through excellence in academic medicine, and is a testament to the great pride our physicians take in providing high-quality, team and evidence-based care,” said Charles J. Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine.

In addition, Moffitt Cancer Center, where USF continues to have a longstanding relationship and strong scholarly presence, continues to rank in the nation’s Top 10 Best Hospitals for Cancer.

Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, USF’s primary pediatric hospital partner, was ranked nationally by U.S. News in three specialties for children:  cardiology and heart surgery, neurology and neurosurgery, and orthopedics.

The annual Best Hospitals rankings, now in its 28th year, are part of the U.S. News patient portal designed to help patients make informed decisions about where to receive care for life-threatening conditions or for common elective procedures.

Risk-adjusted survival and readmission rates, volume, patient experience and safety, quality of nursing care and other care-related indicators were among the factors weighed.  For the 2017-18 rankings, U.S. News evaluated more than 4,500 medical centers nationwide; only 152 were nationally ranked in at least one of 16 adult specialties.

The full rankings are available at health.usnews.com/best-hospitals.

At Tampa General Hospital, USF faculty physicians play leadership roles in the six medical specialties that made the Top 50 list.

 U.S. News & World Report (U.S. News) has ranked Tampa General Hospital, USF Health’s primary teaching hospital, as one of one of the top 50 hospitals nationally in six medical specialties and the number one hospital in the Tampa Metro area for 2016-17.   The Tampa Metro area includes Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, and Hernando counties.

Dr. Charles Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine is a member of TGH’s senior executive team, and TGH President and CEO Jim Burkhart, DSc, is a member of USF Health’s senior leadership team.  USF faculty physicians often hold leadership positions as division chiefs or medical directors in the nationally ranked TGH medical specialties.  Five of those six medical specialties received higher U.S. News spots this year:

• Cardiology and Heart Surgery ranked #30, climbing five spots from last year.  TGH is USF’s primary cardiology practice site for inpatient and outpatient services.
• Diabetes and Endocrinology jumped from not ranked (NR) last year to #27 this year.
• Gastroenterology and GI Surgery ranked #26, up 13 spots from last year.
• Urology ranked #18, up 11 spots from last year.
• Nephrology ranked  #18, rising 6 spots from last year.
• Pulmonology ranked # 48, remains in the top 50.

In addition, Moffitt Cancer Center, where USF continues to have a longstanding relationship and strong scholarly presence, was ranked the sixth best hospital for cancer in the nation — up from its 18th place spot last year.

Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, USF’s primary pediatric hospital partner for training of medical students and residents, was ranked nationally by U.S. News in six pediatric specialties:  cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, neonatology, orthopedics, pulmonology, and urology.

The annual U.S. News Best Hospitals ranking,  now in its 27th year, recognizes hospitals that excel in treating the most challenging patients.

U.S News sifts through data from nearly 5,000 medical centers and survey responses from more than 30,000 physicians to rank hospitals in 16 adult specialties. Death rates, patient safety and hospital reputation were among the factors weighed. Only 153 hospitals were nationally ranked in a specialty in 2016-17.

The full rankings are available at http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals.