Frank A Orlando, MD, FAAFP

Frank Orlando, MD, FAAFP, completed two years of general surgery residency and then a two-year surgical oncology fellowship, after which he changed specialties to family medicine because of his desire for life-long patient relationships. He is a clinical associate professor in the Department of Community Health and Family Medicine were he has been a primary care physician since 2013 and the Medical Director of UF Health Family Medicine – Springhill since 2021. Dr. Orlando teaches both clinical and didactic course at the College of Medicine and is Faculty Advisor to three undergraduate student organizations. He is Co-Investigator on several research grants and studies, and his current research interests include body composition, chronic inflammation, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, pharmacogenetics, chronic pain management, COVID-19, and social determinants of health.

In 2023, Dr. Orlando became a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians and an Associate Editor of Family Medicine and Primary Care, a specialty section of Frontiers in Medicine. He has served on the North American Primary Care Research Group Committee on Advancing the Science of Family Medicine – Practice-Based Research Networks since 2024. He volunteers for various local community health projects, is an avid triathlete, and enjoys spending quality time with his family.

Family Medicine offers ample opportunity to simultaneously research numerous topics, and my current areas of research interest are COVID-19, wellness (including body composition & obesity management), cardiovascular disease (CVD), genetics/pharmacogenetics, addiction/chronic pain management, and social determinants of health. I have currently accumulated 7% time as Co-Investigator on a mobile health smoking cessation study and a clinical trial on the potential of kava in enabling smoking cessation. I am Site Principal Investigator on a grant called Cardiovascular Track pending NIH submission. CVD continues to be the greatest cause of disease burden in the US and worldwide, and national surveillance tools effectively monitor behaviors or outcomes related to CVD, but not both. CVH Track is a multi-institutional research initiative including UF OneFlorida to build a complex, modern surveillance system using real world data from the PCORnet Common Data Model and regular, modular behavioral surveys designed to track changes in behavior and outcomes that impact risk for CVD development, over time.