USF's Rehabilitation Science, Engineering, and Medicine Building

[tampatony]

USF/VA are going to put up a building on Fowler and BBD the website below should show you what I am talking about. Check the sight out... The image of the building is the first pick and if you scroll down it talks about some different things it would support... There is no building like this anywhere in the country right now... Meaning it would put research from almost every aspect of rehabilitation and reintegration of Veterans in the community... 

 

From the site:

 

"The mission of the USF Veterans Reintegration and Resilience Initiative is to provide the best care possible for our veterans and their families. The major goal is to build a unique, nationally recognized research, education and treatment center for the rehabilitation and successful reintegration of veterans as well as concurrently providing holistic care for their families. The mission's program and location make this project unique in the nation and will establish the universal standard for comprehensive care.

The Rehabilitation Science, Engineering and Medicine facility will be the only one of its kind and will accommodate  an innovative array of comprehensive services and research "under one roof." The main focus will be on wounded veterans with issues such as but not limited to: traumatic brain injury, trauma induced blindness, technologically advanced prosthetics and robotics, assistive devices, behavioral health disorders, post traumatic stress disorder, speech pathologies, cognition, audiology, psychology, gait and balance, age-related disorders, physical rehabilitation, neurosciences, new drug therapy development, translational research, holistic family resilience, and coping skills. In the history of previous wars, many of the injured who once would have died on the battlefield can now be saved, even to return to serve many more years.  Approximately one quarter of Florida's 1.72 million veterans and their families reside in surrounding counties. The state of Florida has a relatively high percentage of an aging population, including Vietnam Veterans who are now in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. Due to the concentrations of aging Veterans in the area, there is also an opportunity to make major advances in cancers and degenerative disorders research through clinical trials. Research applications on battlefield injuries will help treat injuries from sports and car accidents, among other traumatic physical and psychological injuries; all of humanity will benefit from the many associated applications of this research.

To accomplish this unique mission, the Initiative is committed to pursue collaborative Public and Private Partnerships with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense as well as potentially Draper Labs, National Science Foundation, and other public and private entities. Based on a very successful record of extramural funding as well as longstanding partnerships with the systems serving a large population of veterans, the Initiative was created at USF to build on these successes. With representation from six colleges and Undergraduate Studies on the Initiative's Steering Committee, this unique program and facility will promote globally competitive undergraduate, graduate and professional programs with interdisciplinary hands-on learning opportunities. Students, our future researchers and practitioners, will have opportunities to participate in collaborative team-based care via internships and fellowships in clinical and basic research applications in interdisciplinary areas such as physical therapy; bioengineering, robotics, and prosthetics development; neurological units such as neuroaudiology, cognitive memory, and visual and sensory sciences; behavioral therapy counseling; and innovative regenerative medicine such as stem cell and molecular therapies.

The building will be located in the USF Research Park, Tampa FL, which is next to the USF Health colleges and schools (Medicine, Nursing, Physical Therapy, Public Health, Pharmacy, Social Work, Engineering, Arts, etc.) and the James A. Haley VA Hospital (the busiest of five polytrauma facilities in the U.S. with services available to more than 116,000 veterans). It will also be affiliated with the Bay Pines VA Hospital (a national VA center for the treatment of women veterans who have experienced sexual trauma during their military service.) located nearby in St. Petersburg. Proximity also exists to the Fisher House, Moffitt Cancer Center, the USF Joint Military Leadership Center, MacDill Air Force Base, U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command. USF is currently ranked 5th in Nation for Best Colleges for Veterans, recognized for its exemplary services in supporting the success of over 2,100 current USF student veterans and their families.

The USF Initative project is committed to providing the nexus to foster research collaborations in pursuit of excellence in the rehabilitation adjustment, resilience, and reintegration of wounded warriors and their families into civilian life.  Our nation's dedicated heroes from all wars deserve to the have the benefit of the best research and services available in order to return to their lives with jobs and homes for the sacrifices they and their families have made for our country.

The conceptual diagram illustrates a plan to integrate the combined expertise and resources of USF's Colleges, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, private industry, and the community to develop state-of-the art therapies, technologies, products, training and educational curricula for the current and future workforce, and services to improve the lives of veterans, wounded warriors, and their family members. We welcome inquiries, comments, and suggestions from those of you interested in assisting in this process." 

http://www.research.usf.edu/vri/

[charsibb]

Nice. We need to do far better by our vets than we are doing today.

 

But it's one more OCS location scratched off the list.

[ctbrown24]

Is this proposed or is construction starting soon?

[tampatony]

Proposed... Still building funds... Most of the issue right now is finding the staff to put in the research areas... Billions of dollars worth of man hours has to be organized

[Gismo]

Cool stuff.

I would like to see USF engineerig also broaden its research outside of just rehab. In the ME department it's almost like no other area of research exists.

It is good to focus on strengths though.

[charsibb]

Cool stuff.

I would like to see USF engineerig also broaden its research outside of just rehab. In the ME department it's almost like no other area of research exists.

It is good to focus on strengths though.

 

In a Wounded Warrior context, where would an ME focus be, other than prosthetics?

[Gismo]

Wounded warrior context? Of course that context is rehab. There are wheel chairs and prosthetics and haptics. I would like too see other contexts.

When I had capstone, every project to choose from was rehab related, well one was a surgical device. The groups that didnt do rehab made up their own projects.

It was kind of off putting because some guy who owns a medical device company is involved with the capstone course, a little too involved in my opinion, and I got the impression he was just using the class to come up with and/or develop ideas for his company. It's cool to help bring ideas and technology to market, but the fact this guy had this company and the nature of his involvement just left a bad taste in my mouth. A lot of my classmates felt the same way.

I would like to see the engineering school, at least the mechanical department, expand its areas research. Currently it is rehab dominated. Nothing wrong with that but it's not very inspiring for a lot of students. This new rehab engineering building is great, but it just reinforces the idea that rehab is all USF does.

[charsibb]

Wounded warrior context? Of course that context is rehab. There are wheel chairs and prosthetics and haptics. I would like too see other contexts.

When I had capstone, every project to choose from was rehab related, well one was a surgical device. The groups that didnt do rehab made up their own projects.

It was kind of off putting because some guy who owns a medical device company is involved with the capstone course, a little too involved in my opinion, and I got the impression he was just using the class to come up with and/or develop ideas for his company. It's cool to help bring ideas and technology to market, but the fact this guy had this company and the nature of his involvement just left a bad taste in my mouth. A lot of my classmates felt the same way.

I would like to see the engineering school, at least the mechanical department, expand its areas research. Currently it is rehab dominated. Nothing wrong with that but it's not very inspiring for a lot of students. This new rehab engineering building is great, but it just reinforces the idea that rehab is all USF does.

 

Wow, that's a change.

 

It was mainly robotics/ factory automation when I was there, IIRC.

[tampatony]

Wounded warrior context? Of course that context is rehab. There are wheel chairs and prosthetics and haptics. I would like too see other contexts.

When I had capstone, every project to choose from was rehab related, well one was a surgical device. The groups that didnt do rehab made up their own projects.

It was kind of off putting because some guy who owns a medical device company is involved with the capstone course, a little too involved in my opinion, and I got the impression he was just using the class to come up with and/or develop ideas for his company. It's cool to help bring ideas and technology to market, but the fact this guy had this company and the nature of his involvement just left a bad taste in my mouth. A lot of my classmates felt the same way.

I would like to see the engineering school, at least the mechanical department, expand its areas research. Currently it is rehab dominated. Nothing wrong with that but it's not very inspiring for a lot of students. This new rehab engineering building is great, but it just reinforces the idea that rehab is all USF does.

This isn't just an engineering building...

[smazza]

great stuff but there doesn't aPPEAR TO BE ANY MONEY FOR THIS  ambitious project