Health care heroes

The Jacksonville Business Journal recently named the winners of its Health Care Heroes awards for 2013. The list included seven providers from UF Health Jacksonville. The weekly newspaper annually recognizes physicians, nurses and scientists who make extraordinary efforts to save lives and improve the quality of health care. This year’s Health Care Heroes recipients were:

Cynthia Gerdik, R.N., director of critical care for UF Health Jacksonville, pioneered UF Health’s Partners in Care program, which allows patients and family members to activate the Rapid Response Team. That team supports nursing when a patient’s condition deteriorates. She created a color-coded armband system that easily identifies patients’ special needs for clinical staff. She also oversees an initiative at the hospital called “Nursing CSI,” which allows nurses to share best practices.

Kelly Gray-Eurom, M.D., an associate professor and associate chair of emergency medicine, created a statewide program for senior emergency medicine resident physicians called Life After Residency, which prepares them for the business side of emergency medicine. During the past year, Gray-Eurom served as president of the Florida College of Emergency Physicians. She also works nationally with the American College of Emergency Physicians and locally with the citywide CaRE2 (Care and Coordination to Redefine and Reduce ED Encounters).

Daniel J. Indelicato, M.D., an assistant professor of radiation oncology, is the lead physician for the UF Proton Therapy Institute’s pediatric proton program, the largest program of its kind in the world. He works closely with physicians at Wolfson Children’s Hospital and Nemours Children’s Clinic to aid children who need combination cancer treatment such as chemotherapy or surgery. He contributes to medical journals and has helped establish protocols for the treatment of children with rare brain tumors.

Michael S. Nussbaum, M.D., a professor of surgery, serves as director of the UF College of Medicine – Jacksonville’s general surgery residency program and the gastrointestinal/minimally invasive surgery fellowship program, which he established in 2010. During his five-year tenure as UF’s chair. of surgery in Jacksonville, he recruited several high-performing faculty surgeons and residents to the campus. He is president of the Jacksonville Chapter of the American College of Surgeons and serves on the executive committee of the Florida Chapter of the American College of Surgeons.

Scott Silliman, M.D., an associate professor of neurology, has play ed a major role in developing one of the largest multiple sclerosis programs in Florida and the busiest stroke center in Jacksonville. Silliman is now instituting a telemedicine stroke program for rural hospitals in southern Georgia and northeast Florida, linking their stroke care to UF Health Jacksonville’s program. He is the founding director of the neurology residency and vascular neurology fellowship programs at the UF College of Medicine – Jacksonville.

Vicki Truman, R.N., is a nurse case manager for the UF Center for HIV/AIDS Research, Education and Service. She works one-onone with HIV-positive patients to help them understand their diagnosis and receive the proper medical care and support. Truman is also president of the North Florida Association of Nurses in AIDS CARE. In that role, she assists in the development of other nurses who deliver care to people affected by HIV.

Martha Wasserman, M.D., an associate professor of radiology and chief of women’s imaging, helped introduce 3-D digital breast tomosynthesis for breast cancer diagnosis at the UF Health Breast Center – Jacksonville. The tomosynthesis equipment is the first of its kind in Northeast Florida. She assisted the hospital in getting the newest technology in bone-density screening. Last year, she created the first women’s imaging fellowship program on campus. Also in 2012, she gained national recognition for her publication about women’s imaging in “Applied Radiology.”