We’ve got a lot of exciting news from Tampa!

First of all, congratulations to Dr. Enola Okonkwo on her role as the new Assistant Program Director for our residency. Dr. Okonkwo completed her residency in emergency medicine at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, NC. She loves emergency medicine, research, spending time with her family, party planning, travel and fitness. We are grateful for her leadership.

Our simulation department also has many new developments. Under the guidance of Dr. Ryan McKenna, we have started a new rotation in simulation and after a few short months, it has become a hit. We are also excited about the new fellowship in simulation, which is set to start in July 2020 and is now accepting applications. Furthermore, as part of the growing simulation program at USF, we are thrilled that the USF Health Simulation Center will be hosting the ACEP Sim Training Course on May 4-6, 2020.

Finally, congratulations to Dr. Jason Wilson, Dr. Jack McGeachy and Heather Henderson, MA, who received a grant through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative (HEAL), which is a national effort that provides $945 million in total funding to research projects that tackle opioid addiction and the overdose crisis. Tampa General Hospital has been chosen as one of the 30 emergency department sites to participate in a study being conducted by the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network’s New England Consortium Node and investigators at Yale University. Their research will test an implementation strategy to guide the development of ED-initiated treatment of opioid use disorder with buprenorphine.

Cheers to all well-deserved successes, and of course to all of our PGY-3’s signing contracts and getting ready to start their own journeys as attendings. ■