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College of Medicine to host first-of-its-kind conference on AI |
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This April, the UF College of Medicine will host its inaugural AI4Health: Improving Health through Artificial Intelligence conference, designed to explore how AI-enabled discoveries will change clinical practice and improve patients’ health. The conference, which will provide continuing medical education, or CME, credit to qualifying attendees, will showcase the exceptional AI expertise at UF and attract clinicians from across the state and nation to discuss the application of AI research advances in the realm of patient care.
Held in Orlando at Disney’s Yacht Club Resort from April 20-22, the event will highlight some of the most accomplished researchers in AI and health. Over the course of three days, the conference will feature more than two dozen speakers, covering a wide range of topics pertinent to the application of big data and new technologies, including AI and the future of medicine, using AI improve to health outcomes and emerging ethical and legal frontiers.
“Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the way we approach health care and we’re excited to bring experts in the field together with practicing clinicians at what we hope will become the nation’s foremost conference on health and AI,” said Azra Bihorac, M.D., M.S., the senior associate dean for research affairs and co-director of the Intelligent Critical Care Center at the UF College of Medicine. “This conference will be a unique opportunity for health care providers to learn about the latest advancements in AI and how they can be applied to improve patient outcomes.”
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Department spotlight: Department of psychiatry builds community engagement cornerstone |
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Since the early 1980s, community engagement has been a key tenet of the department of psychiatry. The late Richard C. Christensen, M.D., a beloved faculty member who championed medical ethics and health care access for underserved populations — particularly people experiencing mental illnesses and homelessness — led the department to provide free psychiatric care to community members through the Helping Hands Clinic and Equal Access Clinic Network.
Decades later, his legacy is carried on by the department’s faculty, staff and trainees, who serve the community through a growing number of educational and therapeutic outreach programs.
“Because mental health and psychiatric disorders are so stigmatized, it is critical that we as a department actively work to engage the community, decrease stigma and identify new ways to increase access to care and engage folks in seeking out and obtaining needed care,” said Carol Mathews, M.D., DLFAPA, chair of the department of psychiatry at UF. “Community engagement is a critical piece of what we do as professionals. It is an important part of our mission and keeps us anchored to why we went into medicine — to help the people around us.”
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From white coats to wedding bells |
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Although late-night studying and scrubbing up for clinical rotations might not appear romantic, several alumni at the UF College of Medicine found love during the years they spent training to become health care professionals.
From meeting at orientation or during a class in Communicore to bonding during a study session or finding the way to another’s heart through a home-cooked meal, couples at the college strengthened their connection through a mutual calling to care for patients.
Read about four UF Medicine alumni, including several current faculty members, who found love on campus.
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STAND UP AND HOLLER |
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UF to host fifth annual Gator Nation Giving Day Feb. 16 |
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Join the Office of Development and Alumni Affairs as they give out donuts for donors beginning at 9 a.m. on Giving Day in the Harrell Medical Education Building Scott Commons. Support the fund of your choice by stopping by the Donut Forget to Give event or by making a gift online during Giving Day. |
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COLLEGE ROUNDUP |
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Dr. Emery Brown to deliver keynote at College of Medicine Celebration of Research |
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The Celebration of Research Feb. 27-28 will include a poster session, awards ceremony, art displays and more. Emery Brown, M.D., Ph.D., of Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will deliver a keynote address on Feb. 27 from 1-2 p.m. in Communicore C1-011. |
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Scientists gain insight about how brains create memories |
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Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology researchers discovered that sets of proteins undergo experience-dependent changes while forming short- and long-term memories. Findings were published in eNeuro, an open-access journal of the Society for Neuroscience. |
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View strategic plan initiatives dashboard |
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Track progress of initiatives under the strategic plan’s seven pillars. |
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UF’s work using AI in health care featured on NBC Nightly News
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Azra Bihorac, M.D., M.S., and Parisa Rashidi, Ph.D., co-founders and co-directors of UF’s Intelligent Critical Care Center, were recently featured on NBC Nightly News for their work on developing an intelligent ICU, an autonomous and highly detailed patient-monitoring system driven by artificial intelligence.
Interviewed by NBC News’ John Torres, M.D., Bihorac and Rashidi discussed how using AI to monitor patients will help develop algorithms that can soon provide real-time recommendations to health care teams. Ideally, researchers want the AI-driven system to be powerful and accurate enough to predict whether an ICU patient might improve or decline. Algorithms that sift through massive amounts of patient data may one day give physicians a new, crucial tool: Time to make decisions before a patient’s condition changes.
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College of Medicine faculty named lifetime fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
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The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals, has elected Czerne Reid, Ph.D., a senior lecturer in psychiatry and affiliate faculty in journalism, and Maurice Swanson, Ph.D., a professor in the department of molecular genetics and microbiology and associate program director of the UF Center for NeuroGenetics, to its newest class.
Reid and Swanson join 17 other faculty members in UF's class of inductees, breaking previous records for the number of UF faculty awarded in a single year. The honor, which includes alumni such as Thomas Edison and W.E.B. DuBois, is among the most distinctive in academia and recognizes extraordinary impact and achievement across disciplines.
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UF Health rectal cancer program earns national accreditation
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Obtaining the National Accreditation Program for Rectal Cancer’s stamp of approval is a group effort that requires the dedication of multidisciplinary teams to their work — and to their patients with rectal cancer. To be recognized by the NAPRC with the three-year accreditation, an institution must develop and operate a high-quality rectal cancer center, and each accredited program follows a model that ensures multidisciplinary, integrated, comprehensive rectal cancer services.
“Receiving this accreditation demonstrates that we have high-quality pathology review of specimens, high-quality review of the radiographic images and collaboration between all the specialties that treat our patients,” said Thomas E. Read, M.D., FACS, FASCRS, professor and chief of the division of gastrointestinal surgery at the College of Medicine.
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Dean's Office | Medical Science Building |
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(352) 273-7500 |
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COMDean-Koch@ufl.edu |
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