FSU College of Medicine 2018 annual report 2019 Annual Report | Page 28

COMMUNITY-BASED MEDICAL EDUCATION
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REGIONAL CAMPUSES AND CLINICAL TRAINING SITES
IMMOKALEE: IMPROVED BEHAVIORAL CARE FOR KIDS
Six years after a life-changing grant from the Naples Children
FSU medical students and residents are being once again hosted numerous activities designed to introduce
& Education Foundation, Immokalee’s behavioral health is on trained on-site so they can experience the students to the virtues of rural medicine. Among them
the upswing, thanks in no small part to the College of Medicine. interprofessional approach and the role of primary were the “rural immersion” of first-year students known as
“The shift to managing behavioral health issues in the primary care providers in prevention and management of Spring Fling; RuLE (the Rural Learning Experience) for
care setting has been successful,” says Elena Reyes, the medical behavioral health issues. PA, Bridge and first-year medical students; and the Summer
school’s regional director in Southwest Florida.
NCEF, founders of the Naples Winter Wine Festival,
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Reyes notes that FSU’s clinical health psychology
Institute for high school students.  
postdoctoral fellowship program has become a pipeline for What continues to make the Rural Program unique is
provided $3.6 million in 2013 to launch the Pediatrics bilingual psychologists who can work in primary care and the Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC). Rather than
Behavioral Health Initiative in Collier County. The concern stay in Southwest Florida. A new affiliation agreement with spending six weeks in one clerkship exclusively, rural students
was that children’s stress, depression and other behavioral Lee Health resulted in doubling the number of fellows to six. engage in all of their required clerkships simultaneously. That
health issues were not being adequately addressed. Six years
later, Reyes reports these positive results:
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Behavioral health visits increased significantly at
curriculum allows them to develop relationships with patients
MARIANNA: PROMOTING
RURAL HEALTH
the Healthcare Network of SW Florida Immokalee
Pediatrics Clinic, the College of Medicine’s clinical
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With Anthony Speights promoted to a new role, the Rural
training partner. The increase was from 319 in Program welcomed Kerwyn Flowers as the new director of
2012 to over 6,000 by September 2018. rural medical education. Flowers, who grew up in Quincy,
Services expanded at all HCN children’s care sites Florida, has spent most of her medical career serving rural and
in Collier County. underserved populations. In addition to teaching first- and
The number of children and adolescents receiving second-year students, she practices at FSU PrimaryHealth,
mental health services in primary care increased the newest branch of the FSU Health Care System.
significantly and, in fact, surpassed the number “Every student should have a basic knowledge of what it’s
of referrals to specialty care. “Pediatricians are like to practice in a rural community,” Flowers said, adding that
managing more of the medications in-house and she’d like rural health to be filtered through the entire curriculum,
referring less,” Reyes says. “There is also success in emphasizing the College of Medicine’s founding principles.
early detection with screenings of risk at well-child
One of the college’s key rural partners is Jackson
visits and same-day interventions. Trajectory for these Hospital in Marianna, and 2019 marked the 14 th year of that
patients is being monitored by FSU researchers at the partnership. With leadership from hospital CEO James
Center for Child Stress and Health.” Platt and Clerkship Administrator Steven Spence, Jackson
over the course of a year and develop their clinical and
professional skills on a deeper level.