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Health project grant among 6 nationwide The MUSC College of Health Professions was among one of six successful competitors across the nation awarded a health project grant entitled Community Connections II: Learning, Service and Research. The three-year $637,324 award is funded by the Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA).   Team leaders on the project are Maralynne Mitcham, Ph.D., director of the Occupational Therapy Program; Holly Wise, Ph.D., associate professor of physical therapy, and Elizabeth Ricciardone, assistant dean, College of Health Professions.   Mitcham, Wise and Ricciardone will lead a team of nine additional faculty members within the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences to create a departmental level demonstration center that links allied health clinical practice, education, and research. This demonstration center will serve as a means for coordinating, developing, and disseminating innovative model allied health programs that provide prevention and health promotion services in rural, medically underserved communities and health professions shortage areas in South Carolina.       The team will capitalize on the mechanisms established in “Community Connections: Partners for Learning and Service” and continue to provide outreach to medically underserved areas, stimulate the provision of innovative allied health services for residents, socialize occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech-language pathology students to interdisciplinary community-based practice early in their career training, and ultimately influence their orientation and readiness to practice in medically underserved areas after they graduate. With the addition of the proposed outcomes research component, measurement of the efficacy and effectiveness of graduate student learning and service delivery in rural, medically underserved areas in South Carolina will be enhanced.     Friday, Aug. 5, 2005 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.