In 1975, lured by the coastal beauty of Tampa Bay that reminded him of his native Sydney, Australia, Dr. Reading left Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Md., to become the chairman of psychiatry and behavioral medicine. In September 1993, he was appointed associate dean for faculty affairs. He, too, listed his love of teaching among the satisfactions of his life here. With population growth, the school gradually became surrounded by the town. It has become a part of the community, and the community has accepted USF as its own.
People know someone who works here or comes here for treatment.
I find that to be the greatest satisfaction. To validate his perceptions, he would have to look no further than one of the school's graduates, Daniel Riggs, M.D., '81. Dr. Riggs was one of those students sufficiently inspired by Dr. Barness to choose pediatrics as his specialty. After a residency at the University of New Mexico, he took a 2-year fellowship at Yale and then returned to the USF department of pediatrics as an associate professor. After his experiences elsewhere, he believed the USF clinical faculty in every discipline were exceptional human beings.