USF Faculty Named Health Care Heroes

The Tampa Bay Business Journal named two USF faculty Health Care Heroes on Oct. 17 at the 2013 award banquet, which took place at the Vinoy Renaissance St. Petersburg Resort and Golf Club.

Dr. Mary Jean Etten, adjunct instructor in the School of Aging Studies, was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award, and Dr. Stuart Hart of the Morsani College of Medicine received the Health Care Innovation Award.

Early in her career as a gerontological nurse, Etten found that caring for the dying was a very rewarding experience, although many people avoided talking about the subject. She taught gerontological and thanatological nursing for 33 years at St. Petersburg College and USF, where she developed seminal coursework and clinical experiences in Hospice care of the dying. She is a board certified music practitioner specializing in therapeutic music for the dying.

Etten is a founding board member of Suncoast Hospice, which has served the Tampa Bay area for over 35 years by comforting patients and grieving families. She has also taught a death and dying course at USF for almost 40 years, where she prepares students for their careers by helping them better understand loss, death and grief.

Hart is an Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Division of Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery at USF. He is the Director of the Tampa Bay Research and Innovation Center (TBRIC), and a leader at the Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS).

Harts’s research interests include development of innovative medical devices and technologies, and medical simulation, education and training programs.

His objective is to make new interdisciplinary devices available in the medical market, so that it can benefit patients in the future. Hart recently completed work on the first computerized hysterectomy training simulator and is currently working on development of several medical devices.

Etten and Hart’s work has been essential to the health care industry, and to improving the lives of many patients.