Organized by the office of UF Medical Alumni Affairs, the Alumni Reunion weekend began Friday, Nov. 6 with a class party held at the UF Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine Institute where more than 200 alumni from the classes of 1964, 1969, 1974, 1979, 1984, 1989, 1994, 1999 and 2004 came together.

The weekend events continued Saturday afternoon with a late lunch catered by Hill’s BBQ at Wilmot Gardens. Alumni and their families were outfitted in “Beat Vandy” stickers and professionally painted Gator-themed faces as a prelude to the Florida-Vanderbilt game. More than 600 alumni, faculty, staff and students turned out for the event and enjoyed music by Bella Luna – some of whom are COM faculty by day and jazz musicians by night.

On Sunday, alumni and their families were bid a fond farewell with a big breakfast before returning to homes as far away as Oregon and Maine and some from right here in Gainesville and Ocala.

During November, the University of Florida will shine a “blue” spotlight on diabetes during Diabetes Awareness Month, which  Shannon Lyles, a registered nurse in the pediatric endocrinology department at UF, says is a very good idea.

“Diabetes is a disease that everyone seems to have misconceptions about, like only older people get diabetes and diabetes is caused by eating too much sugar,” said Lyles, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 16.  “Education and awareness are necessary to help people understand type 1 diabetes and why we need research to help find a cure.”

Lyles knows firsthand what her patients go through as they live with type 1 diabetes and how hard it can be for children to constantly check their blood sugar, count carbohydrates and take insulin shots. Her own experience as a teen coping with diabetes led her to her career path.

Shannon Lyles, a registered nurse in the pediatric endocrinology department at UF, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 16.

“I never looked back once I decided that I wanted to be a diabetes nurse,” she said. “My patients continually motivate me to find ways I can help them in their personal fight with diabetes.

“I hope people can begin to see that diabetes is a very important issue that needs attention,” Lyles said.

This year’s Diabetes Awareness Month kicks off next week at UF and in Gainesville with free diabetes screenings, a festival for children with diabetes and their families, a ceremony at which the Century Tower on the UF campus will be lit blue and even a chance to win airline tickets for two to anywhere Southwest Airlines flies.

Events are sponsored by the University of Florida Diabetes Center of Excellence, Health Gators 2012, the department of pathology, immunology and laboratory medicine, pediatric endocrinology at UF, the Rotary Club of Gainesville, GatorWell and the College of Medicine.

Diabetes Awareness Month Activities

Free Blood Sugar Screenings
When: Tuesday, Nov. 10, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Reitz Union Colonade
Thursday, Nov. 12, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Shands at UF Atrium
Details: The UF Diabetes Center of Excellence encourages you to “Know Your Numbers.”All UF faculty, staff, students, and community members are encouraged to join us at one of these events for free blood sugar screening.

Type 1 Diabetes Screening
When: Friday, Nov. 13, 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Location: Children’s Medical Services – building A , 1701 S.W. 16th Ave.
Details: Free screenings will be offered for moms, dads, siblings, and cousins of people with type 1 diabetes.

Century Tower Lighting Ceremony
When: Friday, Nov. 13, 5:30 p.m.
Location: University of Florida campus
Details: Join Gainesville Mayor Pageen Hanrahan, Rep. Chuck Chestnut and the rest of the Gator Nation as we light the Century Tower in recognition of World Diabetes Day.

Fall Festival for Children with Diabetes and their Families
When: Saturday, Nov. 14, 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Location: Westside Park, 1001 N.W. 34th St.
Details: Meet and greet with families who live with diabetes while enjoying carnival games, arts and crafts and sports. Speak with medical professionals and directors of the Florida Diabetes Camp.

First Annual World Diabetes Day Walk
When: Saturday, Nov. 14
Location: Begins at the Kirby Smith Administration Building

The initiative, which became effective on Nov. 1, prohibits the use of cigarettes or other tobacco products in any of the Health Science Center, Shands or UF Physicians buildings and parking lots, or in vehicles in these areas. UF plans to implement the policy on its main campus in July 2010.

“Going tobacco-free on our health-care campuses is the right thing to do for our patients and visitors — and for each other,” said Dr. David S. Guzick, UF’s senior vice president for health affairs and president of the UF&Shands Health System. “Coinciding with Tobacco-Free Together will be the opening of the Shands Cancer Hospital at UF, which reflects our commitment to the prevention and treatment of cancer.”

The new rule mainly affects a few designated outdoor smoking and tobacco-use areas and the properties surrounding Health Science Center and Shands HealthCare facilities. Smoking and tobacco use are already prohibited indoors.

“The decision to have tobacco-free campuses systemwide supports our commitment to providing a healthy environment for our patients and to improving health in our communities,” said Tim Goldfarb, chief executive officer of Shands HealthCare. “We not only provide outstanding medical treatment and patient care, but also work hard to promote wellness and disease prevention.”

Tobacco dependence is the nation’s most preventable cause of death and disease, including cancer, heart disease and stroke. Nationally, tobacco use is responsible for nearly one in five deaths or an estimated 440,000 deaths per year, according to the Florida Hospital Association. That’s approximately 1,200 people each day – more than deaths caused by alcohol, cocaine, crack, heroin, homicide, suicide, car crashes, fires and AIDS combined. Currently, one of every seven adult patients hospitalized at Shands at UF comes to us for a cancer-related condition.

Throughout Florida, more than 70 hospitals support the Florida Department of Health’s “Tobacco Free Florida” campaign and have tobacco-free campuses. Shands Jacksonville and the UF Health Science Center-Jacksonville went completely tobacco-free last November.

The Health Science Center and Shands HealthCare are providing information and resources to assist employees, patients and visitors who would like to break the habit. A wide selection of counseling services, self-help materials and medicines are available to help smokers and tobacco-users quit successfully. More information is available at tobaccofree.health.ufl.edu.

But while these common questions are important, they’re not necessarily concerns that justify rushing a baby to the emergency room. To help answer common questions parents have, a group of UF College of Medicine pediatric residents put together a small brochure, which was passed out at UF pediatrics clinics. Last year, then third-year pediatric resident Sara Slovin, M.D., took parent education a step further, teaming up with a community group for new moms to offer the class “Babies Don’t Come With Instructions.” Basically, Newborn 101.

“It was to improve parents’ knowledge base about normal newborn care and improve their comfort level,” said Slovin, who finished her residency in July and is now a fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

For pediatric residents, teaching parents is just one facet of an important role they are learning to play as pediatricians — patient advocate. While most doctors and specialists are advocates for their patients, the role of advocacy in pediatrics is even more pronounced, says Michele Lossius, M.D., a assistant professor of pediatrics at the UF COM. Why? Children are too young to vote for policies that affect them and cannot advocate for themselves.

“As pediatricians, we are constantly doing advocacy, it’s almost a role residents don’t feel like they’re doing,” Lossius said. “You’re affecting each child who comes in your office, but you’re also trying to create local awareness and health change.”

To better prepare residents to advocate for patients, UF COM pediatric residents in Gainesville spend one month during their second year in an advocacy rotation. During this time, the residents work on projects they are passionate about — for Slovin it was the newborn class — as well as visit legislators in Tallahassee and learn about local issues that affect their patients. Each year, at least two residents also get the opportunity to attend a legislative day in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Jacskonville pediatric residents are also extensively involved in advocacy work.

“Because kids don’t vote, politicians who decide where the money goes don’t always worry about them,” said Jay Roberson, M.D., a third-year resident who attended the AAP Legislative Conference in April with fellow resident Karen Bodnar, M.D. “They should. (Children) are the future of the country and world but they get thrown on the backburner by a lot of larger groups, even by some hospitals and health-care systems because they are not necessarily a profitable sector as far as inpatient medicine goes.”

In recent years, pediatric residents have worked with the Florida chapter of the AAP to advocate for more stringent safety belt laws, have helped organize UF’s first Sports Medicine Jamboree to educate young athletes and have stood outside in the rain to protest the possible veto of extending funding for the State’s Children’s Health Insurance Plan. And this is just a taste of their involvement.

Last year, Lossius, who oversees the advocacy rotation and is a graduate of UF’s pediatric residency, added a new component to the program to beef up the advocacy residents do during their time here. Instead of only working on a project during their monthlong rotation, residents now start a long-term project in their first year.

But it doesn’t always take a giant project for residents to make a difference. Writing letters to the editor and taking the time to call a congressman to voice an opinion on a health-care bill that affects children can effect change, too.

“It can be little tiny things, like fliers to parents or calling to give an opinion on legislation,” Roberson said. “It takes minutes and ultimately makes a huge difference.”

Although she’s no longer a UF resident, Slovin still thinks about ways to improve “Babies Don’t Come with Instructions.”

“A lot of residents may not realize the impact they can have on their community,” said Slovin, who plans to stay in community pediatrics and continue her advocacy work. “This advocacy rotation gives residents the opportunity to develop skills and tools to take with them when they practice so they can advocate for their own patients and teach parents how to advocate for their children.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

The department of psychiatry’s double-boarded experts Herbert Ward, M.D., vice chair and director of the department’s clinical services (left), and Richard Shriner, M.D., director of the new eating disorders and obesity division.

The University of Florida College of Medicine’s department of psychiatry recently added a seventh division, extending its commitment to patient care, research and education to the national obesity epidemic.

Researchers and faculty of the new eating disorders and obesity division will expand on years of work within the division of addiction medicine in the area of food, manufactured foods and addiction. The expansion is complemented by UF’s Springhill Health Center’s inpatient, outpatient and residential programs which will include binge eating and obesity and eventually anorexia and bulimia. UF faculty and staff at the facility have been addressing the national public health crisis since its opening in May.

A July report released by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows that adult obesity rates in the U.S. have doubled since 1980 and, in just the past year, rates have increased in 23 states. There has been no decrease in obesity rates in any state in the past 30 years. Meanwhile, the 2008 Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance Survey found that 60 percent of Floridians are overweight while 24 percent of Floridians over age 18 are obese.

UF researchers have been working to learn more about what causes obesity and eating disorders. One approach that some experts view as controversial is that these disorders are a type of psychiatric disease – such as gambling and sex addictions. Food addiction as a disorder builds on the basic science addiction model, said Mark S. Gold, M.D., Dizney distinguished professor and chairman of the department of psychiatry at the UF College of Medicine. Gold formed a group with Henry Baker, Ph.D., Hazel Kitzman professor and chair of the college’s department of molecular genetics and microbiology which is collaborating with experts from Yale and Princeton universities on research into food as an addiction.

“We have also done clinical trials and worked closely with clinical colleagues to improve patient care and outcomes at the Springhill facility,” said Gold.

The advancement of this work led to the creation of the new division.

“We had the opportunity to expand our clinical efforts and recruit an experienced, double-boarded internist-psychiatrist to lead the way,” Gold said of the division’s new director, Dr. Richard Shriner.

“Dr. Shriner is a great example of a psychiatrist ideally trained to deal with the complexities of eating disorders and obesity,” Gold said.

Shriner, who joined UF in September following years spent in private practice evaluating and treating patients with disordered eating, overeating and obesity in Sarasota, Fla., is approaching patient care with a ‘living with food’ concept.

“Our goal is to help patients live with food — instead of being ashamed of eating — in the healthiest way possible,” Shriner said.

“Weight psychiatry, or bariatric psychiatry, and expertise in treating the full spectrum of disordered eating will be one of the most exciting and challenging pioneer zones in health care in America,” Shriner said. “UF Psychiatry, working with other divisions in our institution, will not stop until this mission is fulfilled.”

Christopher R. Cogle, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine in the division of hematology and oncology.

Shands at the University of Florida has been recognized as a center of excellence for cancers known as myelodysplastic syndromes that strike the bone marrow.

The designation by the Myelodysplastic Syndrome Foundation recognizes outstanding research efforts as well as superior clinical care for patients.

“This validates our efforts on an international scale and will alert patients, physicians and researchers of our MDS expertise and cutting-edge options for diagnosis and treatment,” said Christopher R. Cogle, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine in the division of hematology and oncology and a 1997 graduate of the UF College of Medicine.

Cogle, who also serves as research director of the Shands at UF medical center clinical stem cell lab, cited several developments in recent years that supported the foundation’s designation:

•Inauguration in 2007 of a specimen bank for blood and bone marrow samples that now houses more than 400 rare samples;

•Ongoing research into various strategies for bone marrow-related disorders, including clinical trials for relatively less-toxic chemotherapies that can be administered by mouth;

•A broader array of therapeutic options for patients diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndromes; and

•Doubling of the number of patients seen in the past five years.

Official estimates put the number of new MDS cases each year in the United States at 10,000. On the basis of an examination of Florida cancer registry data, Cogle and colleagues from the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa suggest that the actual number is much higher. With the designation, Shands at UF becomes one of 59 centers of excellence in the United States recognized by the foundation.

Gone are their days of wearing “regular clothes” as they have been replaced with new uniforms and accoutrements: university-issued scrubs and their own personal stethoscopes. These symbols of medicine are definitely making the medical school experience a reality for first-year medical students.

“The stethoscope has always been such a symbol of medicine to me growing up that to actually receive one of my own to use was very humbling,” said Chloe Russo, who received her undergraduate degree from Emory University. Russo and her classmates received stethoscopes during a presentation sponsored by the COM Office of Medical Alumni affairs on their first official day of classes, Monday, Aug. 17.

“It was the first tangible thing that brought me into the realm of medicine, a veritable badge of honor and duty,” Russo said.

The group of 135 medical students, newly equipped with their tools and uniforms, embark on their next four-year journey; one that will result in a special bond as they share life-changing experiences and challenges such as anatomy lab and late-night study sessions.

For now, most of the 135 students are still new to each other. While 72 students received their undergraduate degrees from UF, the remaining 63 students graduated from universities such as Auburn, Boston, Cornell, Duke, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest and Washington. They arrive equipped with majors ranging from animal biology to art.

The students were selected from a pool of more than 2,600 applicants and come to the COM with an average GPA of 3.78 and include 75 males and 60 females.

“You are special,” said Dr. James B. Duke, a 1985 graduate from the COM and alumni board member, who addressed the medical school recruits at the stethoscope presentation. “To have overcome the hurdles needed to attend this prestigious college of medicine is evidence of that.”

Armed with laptops and stethoscopes and outfitted to withstand the hazards of lab work, the new students have immersed themselves in their new lives as medical students. They also carry with them the words of COM interim Dean, Dr. Michael Good:

“Listening is perhaps the greatest diagnostic skill of a physician,” he said. Every time you see or touch a stethoscope, ask yourselves, ‘Am I listening carefully to my patients and their families?’”