UF Health represented at TEDxUF 2015

In March, TEDxUF 2015 showcased eight speakers and three performances from local and national public figures, including two from UF Health. The theme was “break through.”

TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share an experience similar to that of the global TED conference, which usually includes live presenters giving short, thought-provoking lectures.

Speakers included Jill Sonke, the director of the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine and assistant director of the UF Health Shands Arts in Medicine program. Throughout her career, she has sought to explore the relationships between creativity, meaning and health through programs that bring the arts to hospitals, in order to help people coping with serious medical illness.

Chris Hass, Ph.D., also spoke at the event about the limitations of using drugs and surgery alone in the treatment of Parkinson’s and introduces new, simpler treatments with minimal side effects and promising results. Hass, an associate professor of applied physiology and kinesiology in the UF College of Health and Human Performance, is also on faculty at the Center for Movement Disorders and Neurorestoration, where he co-leads the interdisciplinary Progressive Supranuclear Palsy & Atypical Parkinsonian Disorders clinic, a one of a kind partnership between his college and the UF College of Medicine.