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.

Judy Mikovits, Ph.D.

A newly identified virus has been found to be linked to chronic fatigue syndrome and might also provide clues about how to prevent prostate cancer, according to a report this month in the journal Science. Called XMRV, the virus is transmitted in blood and body fluids and might be a significant public health threat.

Judy Mikovits, Ph.D., senior author of the paper, described the research during grand rounds at the University of Florida College of Medicine Thursday, Oct. 20. She was a guest of the division of hematology/oncology.

“This discovery opens a new area of medical possibilities for people who have a condition that has baffled doctors and researchers for years, and gives an insight into potential prevention and cures of cancer.”

Chronic fatigue syndrome is a multi-system disorder that is the subject of much controversy surrounding whether it is a true medical condition. Its cause is unknown and there are no diagnostic tests. It affects an estimated 17 million people worldwide.

Mikovits, who is research director at the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Nevada, and colleagues, found that 67 percent of 101 patients who had chronic fatigue syndrome also had the virus. In contrast, the virus was present in about 4 percent of 218 controls who did not have the syndrome.

XMRV, short for xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus, affects the immune system. It exists in blood and body fluids and is readily transmitted.

Chronic fatigue syndrome sufferers’ relatives who had been diagnosed with neuroimmune diseases such as atypical multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia and autism also tested positive for the virus, though these data were obtained after the publication and are still preliminary.

Sequences of the virus had previously been found in men who have prostate cancer. Mikovits also showed preliminary data that CFS patients in the study who subsequently developed cancer, primarily lymphoma, all tested positive for the XMRV. That raises the possibility that treating the virus could ultimately prevent many cancers, she said.

“It opens a new path for understanding the pathogenesis of cancer,” said Carmen Allegra, M.D., chief of hematology/oncology at UF College of Medicine.

Researchers say the level of XMRV infection revealed in the study is not just a concern among people who have chronic fatigue syndrome, but is a public health issue as well.

“This is the discovery of a new virus that doesn’t have any treatment, affects 4 percent of the population and has a transmission that seems to be easy,” Allegra said.

Researchers continue to seek answers to many unanswered questions about the virus, including how it got into the human population, how it acts to cause disease and whether the virus alters the risk of cancer development in people who have chronic fatigue syndrome.

“There’s quite a bit of work to do to understand the risk associated with this,” said Nam Dang, M.D., Ph.D., deputy chief of hematology/oncology.

The Shands Cancer Hospital at the University of Florida, located at the new Shands at UF South Campus, across the street from the existing medical center on Southwest Archer Road, shines inside and out. The variety of materials that make up the new medical tower are reflective of the number of specialties represented by health-care professionals collaborating to optimize patient treatment and care.

“This is the creation of a home where expertise and care come together,” said Dr. Michael Good, interim dean of the UF College of Medicine.

Last week, Shands and UF employees, members of the media and residents from Alachua County and the surrounding area received their first look at the 500,000-square-foot, 192-bed Shands Cancer Hospital and Shands Critical Care Center at UF. Events included an employee open house, a press conference and media tours, a public open house and health fair. The weeklong introduction culminated Sunday afternoon with a candlelight celebration and blessing of the Hands of Hope to honor the caregivers who serve their patients.

The medical tower, designed to meet the area’s growing need for cancer services, will serve a variety of inpatients, including those receiving diagnostic and therapeutic oncology care. It will also house the Shands Critical Care Center for emergency and trauma services.

“The new hospital reflects a high-tech, high-touch approach to care, which will be carried out by interdisciplinary healing teams focused on treatment of the whole patient: body, mind and spirit,” Good said.

The facility officially opens on Nov. 1.

Twelve high-tech operating rooms are designed to accommodate anticipated evolutions in robotics and 3-D imaging; as are the surgical intensive and intermediate care units, a bone marrow transplant unit, outpatient clinic and stem cell lab.

A full-spectrum radiology department features a $2.5-million diagnostic tool, the Aquillion ONE 320-detector row CT scanner. This scanner, the second acquired by Shands HealthCare, helps physicians diagnose cancer, and it can detect stroke and heart disease in minutes. Shands at UF is one of only a few health centers in the nation to have this technology.

The design team of the $388-million building, led by Brad Pollitt, Shands HealthCare vice president for facilities, is stingy on power use and friendly to the environment.

With Leadership in Environmental Education and Design, or LEED, certification, the Cancer Hospital increases operational efficiencies while its construction makes it an environmentally sustainable building. Shands and Gainesville Regional Utilities partnered to establish the GRU South Energy Center to provide 100 percent of the hospital’s energy needs. The onsite power plant will ensure uninterrupted power, independent of the city’s energy grid. The overall energy savings is estimated at 27 million kilowatts per year, enough to power about 3,000 homes.

Other sustainability features include the use of reclaimed water, insulated glass windows, white heat-reflecting rooftops, special parking for hybrid cars and plenty of bike racks and showers to encourage employees to bike to work.

Input and donations from hospital staff were key to the design of the new building. Not only are nursing and medical staff responsible for $1.5 million dollars in funding for the project, but many features of the building reflect their insight: nurse stations that improve the line of sight to patients, and patient rooms with remotes that allow patients to adjust the lighting and window shades. Lighting is positioned in hallways so patients aren’t subjected to blinding glare when they are transported on gurneys.

With one in seven adults treated at Shands at UF for cancer-related ailments, the theme of hope is gently carried out through the choice of artwork on the walls and the views of the indigenous flowers and foliage in the Garden of Hope. The calming and positive healing environment is created by the enveloping natural light beaming from oversized windows, the water feature in the Sanctuary of Silence meditation room and the warmth of the Sanctuary of Peace chapel.

The hospital spans five of the 27-acre south campus, which is prime for development, said Timothy Goldfarb, CEO of Shands HealthCare.

“This is a glimpse of the future of our south campus,” he said. “It’s the first phase of an expanded medical center.”

Goldfarb said the 25-year vision for expansion includes an increase in capacity of the current tower to 1,200 beds and replacing Shands at UF with a cluster of buildings and towers that allows for a grouping of specialty care.

“The expansion allows UF to maintain its leadership as Florida’s flagship hospital,” said Dr. David Guzick, senior vice president for health affairs and president of the UF&Shands Health System.

“The construction of the hospital is a shift in the center of gravity for campus.”

Photos by Sarah Kiewel

Dr. Seeger, an internationally recognized leader in the field of vascular surgery, devoted his career to advancing patient care, educating future surgeons, and conducting research to solve medical and surgical problems. Committed to the success of the UF College of Medicine, he dedicated all but one year of his medical practice to Shands at UF and the UF Health Science Center.

“The UF College of Medicine has lost a great leader, skilled surgeon, compassionate physician, gifted teacher, inquisitive scientist and good friend,” said Dr. Michael L. Good, interim dean. “Jim’s dedication and contributions to UF, his patients and students were unparalleled, spanning decades, touching and improving the lives of thousands.”

Though he was passionate about all aspects of vascular surgery, his brilliant analytical mind and his obsession for details were gifts that allowed him to be an innovative leader in the business practice of surgery, said Dr. Kevin Behrns, chairman of the department of surgery.

Dr. James M. Seeger, professor and chief of vascular surgery and endovascular therapy.

“His determined work behind the scenes led to many changes in surgical practice and improvements in the care of patients,” Behrns said.

Dr. Thomas S. Huber, professor of vascular surgery for the College of Medicine and acting division chief said Seeger’s colleagues admired him for his work ethic, honesty and commitment to patient care and education.

“Dr. Seeger was the consummate academic surgeon in all aspects,” Huber said.

Dr. Seeger joined the University of Florida in 1982 as an assistant professor of surgery and rose rapidly through the academic ranks, serving most recently as associate chairman of the department of surgery. In 1989 he established the division of vascular surgery, serving as its first and only chief, leading a dynamic team of surgeons and staff committed to improving patient care and advancing surgical science. In 2008 Dr. Seeger was appointed the Cracchiolo Professor, a professorship position endowed by the Cracchiolo Foundation.

He also served as chief of vascular surgery for the Malcom Randall Veterans Affairs Medical Center from 1982 to 1999. He contributed as a Research Career Development program specialist in surgery for the Veterans Administration Central Office in Washington, D.C. from 1989 to 1991.

Dr. Seeger contributed widely to advances in the field, including the areas of lower extremity disease, arterial occlusive disease and endovascular stent grafts. He performed the first endovascular stent graft repair of an abdominal aortic aneurysm at Shands at UF and through his leadership fostered a team of vascular and cardiovascular surgeons who currently rank in the top 10 nationally in performing minimally invasive repairs in both the abdominal and thoracic aorta.

His greatest passion was the vascular surgery fellowship program. Under his tutelage as director, more than 25 physicians went on to become accomplished vascular surgeons, many of whom are current leaders within the field. While devoting himself to training future surgeons graduating from UF programs, he also made an impact on the national level, maintaining an active presence in the Association of Program Directors in Vascular Surgery and most recently serving as chairman of the Clinical Curriculum Committee.

Dr. Seeger’s research interests included peripheral arterial disease and aortic surgery. He worked for several years on the postoperative inflammatory response associated with major aortic reconstruction, and the role of this inflammatory response in the development of single and multi-organ failure after aortic repair. Past investigations, in conjunction with the UF Center for Biomaterials in the College of Engineering, sought to develop new techniques for use of endovascular stents for drug delivery. Dr. Seeger held an adjunct professor position in the UF Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

He was a member of more than 20 professional organizations, including the American Surgical Association, Society of Vascular Surgery and the American College of Surgeons. His leadership roles within medical societies were extensive, serving as president of the Southern Association for Vascular Surgery, Florida Vascular Society, and the Association of Program Directors in Vascular Surgery. He served for six years on the Vascular Surgery Board of the American Board of Surgery. He was serving his second term on the Society for Vascular Surgery’s board of directors.

Dr. Seeger wrote numerous book chapters and published and presented extensively on his work. From 2002 to 2008 he served as co-editor of the Journal of Vascular Surgery. For more than 15 years, he served as Associate Editor of the Yearbook of Surgery, which provides a selection of published research articles that represent significant advances and statements of important clinical principles in surgery.

Dr. Seeger received his bachelor’s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia. He completed his general surgery residency training at the University of Utah Affiliated Hospitals. Between completing his internship and general surgery residency, he served as a General Medical Officer in the United States Navy. Following his residency, he completed a Vascular Surgery Fellowship at the Eastern Virginia Graduate School of Medicine.

Dr. Seeger is survived by Carolyn, his wife of more than 36 years.

As the University of Florida Medical Guild celebrates its 50th anniversary, its foundation strengthens for the next 50 years of friendship and service. We serve by awarding scholarships, grants and special project funding to health-related projects. To help support these projects, the guild now partners with The Gift Stop, including the new shop in the Shands Cancer Hospital at the University of Florida scheduled to open Nov. 1.

From left, the 2008 Medical Guild board officers: Keri Steele, Nicole Scagnelli, Jennifer Postoak, Janice Nelson and Kathryn Seagle

How does The Gift Stop support the guild’s donations? When guild members or friends volunteer their time working in The Gift Stop, Shands Volunteer Services tracks those hours. At the end of the year we divide the profits from the shop among the co-owners (Medical Guild and Shands Auxiliary). Each organization receives a share based on its volunteer hours. The money is used to benefit the UF Health Science Center and Shands at UF. A few guild members volunteer more than 700 hours a year, which this past year translated to more than $4,500 as their personal contribution toward the profit check returned to the guild. Some members only work a special sale, but even those 10 hours add up to more than $60 in profit.

Where does the money go? Last year the funds the guild received from The Gift Stop were donated to special projects. Each year, the guild requests proposals for funding. A guild committee thoughtfully reviews the proposals and recommends funding projects. Some recently funded projects include: Condition H Display Holders for each room at Shands at UF that identify early warning signs of a serious problem and provide directions for calling the Rapid Response Team ($3,440); supplies to decorate six rooms and help with psychosocial needs for chronically or critically ill adolescents in the Teen Zone Project ($5,500); replacement communication boards for patient rooms so family and patients can easily view nurses’ names and plans for the day ($2,500); transplant discharge kits for pediatric organ transplant patients containing supplied for use when they return home ($1,507). To have your project considered for funding, send your contact information to the address at the end of this article.

How do you help? Every time you purchase a snack or thank-you bouquet or Gator shirt from The Gift Stop, you are a part of this circle of giving. Every time your student earns a guild-sponsored award, you are a part of the action. When you identify a worthy project for guild support, your action aids the process. And when you refer a new HSC faculty member or spouse to the guild, we supply an immeasurable portion of friendship that welcomes them to our community.

During the past 50 years, the guild has donated more than $1 million to health-related projects. On our golden anniversary, wish us continued financial health and renewable volunteer energy. To contact us, write to the UF Medical Guild Inc., P.O. Box 100215, Gainesville, FL 32610-0215 or e-mail me for a personal response at kseagle@cox.net.

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.

Paul Okunieff, M.D.

Dr. Paul Okunieff has been named director of the University of Florida Shands Cancer Center and chairman of the UF College of Medicine department of radiation oncology, effective Dec. 1.

A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Okunieff is currently the Philip Rubin professor in radiation oncology and chair of the department of radiation oncology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, where he leads a successful radiation oncology clinical practice and research program. He also is director of the university’s Robert A. Flavin Radiosurgery Center. Prior to his appointment at Rochester in 1998, Okunieff served as branch chief of radiation oncology at the National Cancer Institute, overseeing clinical-translational research for the intramural NCI program.

Okunieff is board-certified in therapeutic radiology and is among the pioneers of in vivo nuclear magnetic resonance imaging of tumors. In addition to his experience in building a large and highly collaborative clinical oncology program, he will bring with him tens of millions of dollars in active federal and other extramural grant funding. Many members of his research team will join him in Gainesville.

Okunieff succeeds Dr. Joseph V. Simone, an internationally recognized leader in cancer care, research and education who headed the Cancer Center and helped to advance an alliance with UF, Shands HealthCare and the Moffitt Cancer Center that was forged in 2008, and Dr. Robert J. Amdur, a professor and interim chair of the department of radiation oncology since 2006.

“Dr. Okunieff is a perfect match for the University of Florida and Shands HealthCare,” said Dr. David S. Guzick, senior vice president for health affairs at UF’s Health Science Center and president of the UF&Shands Health System. “At a time when we are opening a new Cancer Hospital, developing our already world-renowned Proton Beam Therapy Institute in Jacksonville with a plan to add a radiosurgery center at that site, enhancing our research program with a focus on translational and clinical research, and establishing a National Cancer Center consortium arrangement with Moffit Cancer Center, Paul’s extensive background in all of these areas and his extraordinary record of achievement are just what we need in Florida.”

Okunieff’s research includes a novel method to measure radiation-induced DNA fragments in the bloodstream to estimate radiation exposure, and the identification of molecules that provide genetically based protection against radiation hazards. In addition, he has planned and active protocols to study the treatment of metastatic cancers with radiosurgery, with plans to establish radiosurgery protocols using proton therapy.

UF’s Proton Therapy Institute is one of six proton beam facilities in the country.

He holds three patents, one for a method of predicting and treating brain tumor spread using MRI and external beam radiation, one for Esculentoside A, an agent that has been studied for its anti-inflammatory effects and one for the use of certain drugs that block interleukin-1 activity in the prevention of and therapy for radiation toxicity of normal tissues.

“One of the main reasons I’m coming to Florida is that there is a unique opportunity — with the scientists and clinicians that are at the University of Florida both in Gainesville and Jacksonville, and with the proton beam and the cooperative cancer venture with Shands HealthCare and the Moffitt Cancer Center — to actually identify categories of patients with metastasis who are still curable, and identify approaches to following patients with cancer so as to have early detection of any metastatic disease,” Okunieff said. “The notion that together we can identify opportunities to cure people that currently are not given that hope and actually achieve that in a fairly substantial number of patients because we have technologies like the proton beam, because there is so much excellence in clinical care and such a history of that at UF, and because the university is so broad in scope and has so many facets that can be brought to bear to achieve the needed technologies, to do the breakthrough science needed to implement a new paradigm for the treatment of cancer … that’s the main reason I wake up in the morning and why I want to come to Florida.”

Okunieff’s arrival is expected to help build additional opportunities for UF, Shands HealthCare and Moffitt Cancer Center to collaborate across the spectrum of cancer patient care, research and educational activities. That includes offering new clinical trials to large numbers of Floridians that will likely speed discoveries that benefit these patients, he said.

“It will be an unparalleled opportunity; there won’t be any other cancer center collaboration with that scope,” Okunieff said, adding that he also has an interest in the centers’ mutual interest in cancer survivorship programs.

Okunieff will further invigorate UF and Shands’ cancer programs, said Dr. Michael Good, interim dean of the UF College of Medicine.

“His approaches to radiation treatments will save lives for our patients, particularly those with multiple metastases, and shape the treatments prescribed in the future,” Good said. “He and his research teams are working in exciting areas to better understand how to measure the effects of radiation — both intended and unintended — on humans. Because they are genetically based, the technologies he is developing have the potential to diagnose not just cancer, but other diseases as well.”

Okunieff is an outstanding clinician and health-care provider as well as a world-renowned researcher, said Timothy Goldfarb, Shands HealthCare CEO, who added, “He will help us bring the most innovative and unique therapies to the patients and communities we serve through our Gainesville and Jacksonville academic medical centers. This is an exciting time for the UF and Shands HealthCare system as we open the Shands Cancer Hospital at UF and further our resolve in the fight against cancer.”

Okunieff completed a postdoctoral fellowship in medicine at Harvard Medical School, followed by a fellowship in radiation medicine at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. He also holds bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering and computer science and in biological science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He was an assistant professor in radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School from 1988 to 1993.

Okunieff has published widely in the literature and is a member of numerous professional societies, including the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Society of Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology. He is radiation oncology chair for the Southwest Oncology Group, one of the largest of the NCI-supported cancer clinical trials cooperative groups in the United States. He also is a diplomate of the National Board of Medical Examiners and serves on several committees that oversee the safety and quality of therapeutic radiation delivery.

In addition, he is a past president of the International Society on Oxygen Transport to Tissue. He also is past a member of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group’s executive committee and a past chair of its translational research program. He is a sought-after speaker in his field and has delivered dozens of lectures nationally and internationally.

“I particularly enjoy growing people’s careers, that is, identifying stars and helping them to achieve their best,” Okunieff said. “That’s one of my drives for wanting to be the Cancer Center director — having academic children, if you will.”

Public Open House
Date: Saturday, Oct. 24
Time: 9 a.m. to noon
Location: Shands Cancer Hospital at UF

Parking: Please park in the Shands at UF South Campus parking garage, located off Southwest 13th Street (follow event parking signs).

Details: The Public Open House will showcase the Shands Cancer Hospital and Shands Critical Care Center at UF to Alachua County and surrounding area residents. Attendees can take tours of the new medical center and enjoy family-oriented activities such as photos with Albert and Alberta, face painting, Shands SafeKids safety games, a fire truck and ambulance. We will also offer a health fair to promote cancer awareness, preventative healthcare, and trauma and accident prevention, among other services. For more information, please call Shands HealthCare Marketing and Public Relations at (352) 265-0373.

Candlelight Celebration & Blessing of the Hands of Hope
Date: Sunday, Oct. 25
Time & Locations:
6:30 p.m. Meet at Shands at UF Atrium (optional)
7 p.m. Event starts outside Shands Cancer Hospital at UF

Parking: Please park in the Shands at UF South Campus parking garage, located off Southwest 13th Street (follow event parking signs).

Details:If you’d like to start out from the Shands at UF Atrium, please meet there at 6:30 p.m. to hear opening remarks, receive battery operated candles, and walk as a group across the street to the Shands at UF South Campus. The event begins at 7 p.m. outside the Shands Cancer Hospital, and candles will also be distributed there. A short program will be followed by Shands chaplains providing the Blessing of the Hands of Hope to honor our caregivers who serve our patients. Light refreshments will follow the event.

For more information, please contact the Shands HealthCare Office of Development at (352) 265-7237 or Heather Gavan at gavanh@shands.ufl.edu.