June 2019

UTMB NEWSLETTER • JUNE 2019

DSRIP is an incubator for Best Care at UTMB Annual event marks milestones of employment

The experts working behind the scenes:

Day in the Life of a Facilities Operations Technician on the Clear Lake Campus

A time for celebration, growth at SON commencement

In October 2018, a shuttle bus transporting industrial workers overturned and rolled several times down an embankment on the ramp of Highway 36 and 288, resulting in a range of injuries and one fatality. UTMB’s Angleton Danbury Campus Team did an amazing job handling this medical emergency while also demonstrating constant kindness and compassion to the many families affected by this tragedy. The team also managed the media who came to cover the accident in a highly professional manner, and for their efforts they received the President’s Way To Go Award from UTMB President David Callender on April 25.

Michael Ainsworth, MD, and Karen Szauter, MD, FACP, received the first-place Innovations in Health Science Education Award for their project, “Cultivating a Professional Environment

by Addressing Medical Student Unprofessional Behavior: The Early Concept Note Program.” The award was presented at the UT System Innovations Conference, held in Austin Feb. 21–22. Ainsworth is senior associate dean for educational performance in the School of Medicine and professor of Internal Medicine. Szauter is assistant dean for educational affairs in the School of Medicine, medical director in the Office of Clinical Simulation and professor of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Carolyn Utsey, professor and chair of the Department of Physical Therapy, has been honored by the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation as a 2019 Piper Professor.

Utsey, who has worked at UTMB for 28 years, began her career in health care as a physical therapist before earning her PhD in Educational Psychology. She helped lay the foundation for the Global Health Interprofessional course at UTMB and was instrumental in developing the Physical Therapist Assistant to Physical Therapist clinical doctorate program, one of only two such programs in the nation. This prestigious award comes with a $5,000 grant from the foundation. The Piper Professor Awards were first introduced in 1958 and honor effective and dedicated professors from two- and fouryear colleges and universities in Texas.

The UTMB School of Nursing has achieved a milestone, with a 100 percent national exam pass rate for the 122 students who tested in the second

quarter of 2019. A passing score on the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) is required for the licensure of nurses in the United States and Canada.

The SON’s year-to-date pass rate is 99.21 percent.

This is a great example of UTMB faculty members’ outstanding efforts to train the next generation of health care providers.

Drs. Yingzi Cong, PhD, professor of Microbiology & Immunology, and Pathology, and Lorraine S. Evangelista, PhD, RN, CNS, FAHA, FAAN, were announced as recipients of UT System Science and Technology Acquisition and Retention (STARs) Awards.

The STARs Program provides funds for the purchase of equipment and renovation of facilities, as required to retain or recruit outstanding faculty in academic institutions. Evangelista will join UTMB School of Nursing from the University of California-Irvine on July 1 as associate dean for nursing research and scholarship.

Erika Main, licensed veterinary technician in the Animal Resource enter, was honored with the UTMB Research STAR Award at the May 21 Research Quarterly Update. The STAR Award is presented to an employee who exhibits exemplary professional behavior and commitment to teamwork and improvement in their daily activities. Erika’s supervisor, Marita Husted, says her great attitude promotes a supportive work environment and influences others positively.

JUNE 2019

impact

From the President Welcome to the latest issue of Impact.

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This issue highlights the contributions of our faculty and staff and your ongoing commitment to improving health for the people of Texas and around the world.

In particular, this edition includes an article on the annual Employee Service Day celebration, which was held May 22. During that event, we honored more than 1,600 employees who achieved significant service milestones and 624 GEM card recipients. Also honored were six employees who have each dedicated more than four decades of service to the university and this year’s winner of the Nicholas and Katherine Leone Award for Administrative Excellence. This prestigious award recognizes one manager or supervisor each year who displays the highest degree of professionalism in his or her work on behalf of UTMB.

DSRIP considered an incubator for Best Care at UTMB Page 4

As always, Impact includes numerous articles that highlight your efforts to advance our mission areas. Among them:

Researchers develop new vaccine to fight deadly MERS

• A Day in the Life of Ron Krenek, a facilities operations technician, and his fellow team members on the UTMB Clear Lake Campus; • A new Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) nutrition program that promotes population health initiatives; • A new vaccine against the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) developed by UTMB researchers; • More than 400 School of Nursing graduates recognized at commencement; • Five myths typically associated with vaccines; and

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Day in the Life of a Facilities Operations Technician

• Hidden talent, trivia, kudos and more.

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As always, send your story ideas, nominees for the Hidden Talents column and trivia answers to the Impact team. And thank you for all you do to serve UTMB. Thank you!

Annual Service Day event marks milestones for UTMB employees

Dr. David L. Callender UTMB President

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Impact is for and about the people who fulfill UTMB’s mission to improve health in Texas and around the world. We hope you enjoy reading this issue. Let us know what you think!

Vice President Marketing & Communications Steve Campbell

ON THE COVER:

Editors Stephen Hadley Shannon Porter Jessica Wyble

The UTMB Property Services team that keeps the UTMB Health Clear Lake Campus running smoothly and efficiently.

P R I N T E D B Y U T MB G RAPHIC D ESIG N & PRIN TIN G SERVICES

Associate Vice President Marketing & Communications Mary Havard

Art Director Mark Navarro

CONTACT US Email: impact.newsletter@utmb.edu Phone: (409) 772-2618 Campus mail route: 0144 U.S. Postal address: UTMB Marketing & Communications

301 University Boulevard

Galveston, TX 77555-0144

B E S T C A R E I N AC T IO N

BY JESSICA WYBLE

FIVE, TWO, ONE, ZERO—team members of various UTMB pediatric clinics want their patients and their patients’ guardians to remember these numbers when it comes to nutrition and exercise for children.

“We tried to keep the message simple,” said Dr. Helen Paradise, clinical assistant professor and Internal Medicine physician with UTMB’s Community-Based Clinics, referring to the advice that for optimal health, each day children should strive to have five servings of fruits and vegetables, no more than two hours of screen time, one hour of physical activity and zero sugary drinks.

To ensure these practical recommendations were reaching all UTMB patients, regardless of condition or insurance coverage, a standardized note highlighting the “five, two, one, zero” guidelines was recently incorporated into after-visit summaries for all ambulatory pediatric patients across the UTMB Health System.

The various DSRIP metrics cover a total of five care areas: diabetes care, heart disease care, adult preventative primary care, cancer screening and pediatric primary care. Metrics include blood pressure control, hemoglobin A1c testing for diabetes, cervical cancer screening and many more.

In an effort to help providers meet goals and provide better care for their patients, the DSRIP and population health team at UTMB has recently launched a population health internal website http://intranet.utmb.edu/population-health, which includes links to tips, tricks and resources clinicians can incorporate into their practices every day.

The website also has a section reserved for celebrating the teams who have made significant strides in achieving DSRIP and populaThe Galveston Island East Pediatric Primary and Specialty Care Clinic closed tion health goals overall at UTMB. out calendar year 2018 with successful marks for the exercise and nutrition Kovacevich and Paradise, along counseling DSRIP metric. The group was recognized for their efforts by Craig with other members of the DSRIP Kovacevich and Dr. Helen Paradise earlier this year. team, not only publish the progress Paradise, who also serves as medical and performance reports online to celebrate the groups’ successes. They director for DSRIP and Population Health initiatives at UTMB, said the move was also present the teams with certificates and other goodies to recognize their a strategic one that simultaneously allowed for consistent awareness about the achievements.

They also ensure that all members of the team—patient services topic while ensuring UTMB reaches its performance target for nutrition and specialists, medical assistants, nurses, physicians and others—are invited to physical activity counseling for children and adolescents. Such counseling is celebrate, because they all play a role in providing best care. one of the 30 metrics in place within DSRIP, which stands for “delivery system reform incentive payment”—a funding program of the larger Texas Medicaid Seven years into the waiver and DSRIP, folks at UTMB know there’s still much Transformation 1115 Waiver that incentivizes hospitals and other providers to work to be done, but they’re excited and energized about the task at hand and improve care for uninsured patients and those on Medicaid. are keeping their focus on the big picture.

“While DSRIP is technically a Medicaid-focused program, we at UTMB like to look at it instead as an incubator for larger population health initiatives,” said Craig Kovacevich, associate vice president for Community and Population Health. “What we want to do is take the ideas, pilots and initiatives we have in place to meet our DSRIP goals and see where we can apply those to our overall patient population.”

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“Since day one, we have looked at the 1115 waiver and DSRIP first and foremost as an opportunity to provide better care for our patients,” said Kovacevich. “If we prioritize better patient outcomes, we’ll be able to meet the metrics and continue supporting the health of the full patient population.” n

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impact

RESEARCH

Researchers develop new vaccine against deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome

BY DONNA RAMIREZ

A collaborative team from UTMB, Saudi Arabia and Canada has developed a potent and safe vaccine that protects against the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS. MERS, which was first identified in 2012 after a patient died from a viral infection, can cause severe and fatal respiratory symptoms, systemic infection and multi-organ failure.

It has caused 2,250 confirmed infections with a 35 percent mortality rate in 27 countries.

The virus can be spread from camel to human or person to person, and many global cases are linked with the Arabian Peninsula because of its high camel population. However, it has the potential to spread globally, as evidenced in a 2015 outbreak in South Korea.

“In the past, we’ve mainly focused on developing universal influenza vaccines by targeting the viral proteins to specific cells that have a molecule called CD40 on their surfaces,” said senior author Dr. Chien-Te K Tseng, a professor in UTMB’s Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases. “We modified and optimized our earlier vaccine platform to generate new potential MERS vaccines.”

Tseng said that although other research groups have investigated various MERS vaccines in animals, serious safety concerns are often associated with vaccines for the family of viruses that MERS belongs to. The current study set out to use a different vaccine platform that was safer yet still effective.

The research team made two versions of a potential vaccine and evaluated their effectiveness and safety in mice that were genetically altered to have more human-like immune responses. After the mice were vaccinated and then infected with MERS-CoV, both vaccines protected the mice against clinical signs of disease and death. However, one of the vaccines was unable to stop the virus from causing lung damage. Use of the other potential vaccine, which more selectively targeted cells with CD40, stopped the virus from damaging the lungs.

“Our platform offers a promising strategy for enhancing the safety and potency of the MERS vaccine and can also be used to enhance the safety and efficacy of vaccines against a broad range of pathogens,” said lead author Dr. Anwar Hashem, associate professor at King Fahd Medical Research Center and Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia.

UTMB Drs. Abdullah Algaissi, Anurodh Agrawal and Bi-Hung Peng also contributed as authors of the report, which was recently published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. n

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BY STEPHEN HADLEY

RON KRENEK STEPS INTO THE SIMMERING SUNSHINE just outside the Clear Lake Campus Hospital with a bright orange tester kit in his right hand and a sense of purpose in his gait.

As a longtime electrician and a facilities operations technician, Krenek heads for a gray metal door that opens to one of two massive electrical generators that provide emergency power for the hospital in the event of an electrical outage.

His task, which he completes every week as part of a routine preventive maintenance protocol, is to test the charge level of the eight batteries to ensure they start the generators when they’re needed.

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Ron Krenek, right, helps carpenter Marty Broadway cut a piece of chain used to secure gas bottles.

Krenek, middle, reviews schematics with Ron Lloyd, program director for Academic and Business Property Services, and Isaac Hebert, program director for Offsite Utilities.

Krenek holds a door while Austin Williams, an HVAC/Refrigeration specialist, checks a reading on a glycol chiller unit.

“They’re fully charged,” Krenek says as he removes the

tester from the last battery and fastens the door closed. “I do this every week, and it’s a really important part of my job because if these generators don’t start when we lose power, it could cost someone their life. I take that responsibility very seriously.”

maintaining the hospital and two floors of the adjacent clinics building, says Bill Irwin, maintenance customer service manager at the Clear Lake Campus.

Irwin, who manages the Clear Lake group, says the team is comprised of skilled craftsmen, including an electrician, a carpenter, an That’s true for the entire team in Property Services, says Russell Heating, Ventilcation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) technician, a Rodecap, associate vice president of UTMB Property Services, plumber, a Building Automation Systems (BAS) specialist, utility a department in Business Operations & Facilities (BOF). Other operators and a utility technician. departments in BOF include Auxiliary Enterprises, Environmen- “Our team includes people who have been with UTMB for years tal Health & Safety, Facilities Design & Construction, Facilities but also three members, including myself, who worked here when Portfolio Management, Facilities Risk Management, and Utilities. it was the Bay Area Regional Medical Center,” he says. “That has

Across UTMB, there are 116 employees in Property Services, given us a great perspective and has led to a lot of collaboration. including 98 technicians, who maintain the institution’s 10.5 In the end, of course, the focus is on the environment of care for million gross square feet of facilities that are part of our operations. our patients. My goal since Day One has been to make that envi“This is the wizardry behind the curtains, so to speak,” Rodecap ronment the best it can be for every patient.” says. “There are so many things our teams do to keep our hospitals, academic and research facilities, and campuses running smoothly on a daily basis all while maintaining compliance. Every member of our team is focused on providing safe and reliable systems that support our mission areas to prevent unplanned interruptions in our operations.”

The team’s responsibilities include a mix of corrective maintenance, like repairing a leaky faucet, replacing air handler fan bearings, and changing a light bulb, to planned maintenance such as inspecting and adjusting fire doors, aligning motors with water pumps, cleaning ice machines, and testing the emergency power supply system. UTMB also generates the chilled water and hot water needed for the HVAC equipment and the team operates and manages complex utility equipment.

At the Clear Lake Campus, there are 10 technicians tasked with 8

That goal seems to echo through the entire team. Austin Williams, the HVAC technician, Ryan Elkins, the BAS specialist, and Marty Broadway, a senior carpenter, each mentioned camaraderie among teammates and the need to provide a safe facility for patients as highlights of their jobs at UTMB.

“I think all of our jobs are really important,” says Elkins, who has worked at UTMB for nine years. “We are all working and contributing to helping people save lives. Everyone in this hospital is involved in that, and I feel like we are too.”

The other team members at the Clear Lake Campus include plumber Olivar Garza, utilities reliability technician John Aumiller and four utility operations technicians: Beau Plite, Johnathan Oliver, Manuel “Manny” Guzman, and Travis McGahuey. Overseeing the maintenance and utility crews on the campus are Irwin and Isaac Hebert, program director for Utilities, and Ron Lloyd, program director for Property Services.

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c ities.

sa

As for Krenek, this particular Tuesday morning starts like most.

He arrives at the hospital at 6 a.m. and logs on to the Maximo work-order management system to check for maintenance requests. He’ll spend the next eight hours balancing between responding to those requests and his planned maintenance work.

Every so often, as he’s wheeling a FlexCart filled with electrical supplies and tools through the hospital’s hallways from one job to the next, his phone will beep, an indication that a new work order has been delivered by email.

“I love the variety of work that I do and I enjoy helping people,” Krenek says as he pushes the button on the elevator that will wind up on the fifth floor. “Here it’s like a small community.

You see people on a daily basis and that really makes it feel like a family to me.”

Krenek, who has been an electrician for nearly four decades, has worked at UTMB for a total of 39 years. He retired briefly but returned to work with the institution in 2011.

“When I retired, I had been working at UTMB for 31 years and

I was 49,” Krenek recalls. “That means more than half my life was here, and working here is my life. That’s why I decided to come back.”

Much of Krenek’s career involved working in Galveston, handling maintenance from one end of the sprawling campus to the other. But last year, he had the opportunity to join the new team assembled to handle facilities maintenance at the Clear Lake Campus. Krenek seized the opportunity.

He and his team, along with the rest of the Business Operations & Facilities departments, were instrumental in preparing the 367,000-square-foot hospital for its March 30 opening.

Williams, the HVAC technician, takes pride in the work that was completed to get the facility ready.

“We did whatever it took to get this place opened on its scheduled date,” he says as he stands inside a room filled with electrical panels. “It’s just a relief to see that all the hard work has paid off and see that our community has first-class medical care available here.” n

BAS specialist Ryan Elkins and Krenek discuss a reading for a pressure-dependent patient care space at the UTMB Health Clear Lake Campus.

“Every member of our team is focused on providing safe and reliable systems that support our mission areas and prevent unplanned interruptions in our operations.”

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UT M B NE WS

Marking milestones of employment More than 2,200 honored at annual Employee Service Day event

BY STEPHEN HADLEY

MORE THAN 1,600 UTMB EMPLOYEES WERE CELEBRATED for reaching important milestones in their careers during the annual Employee Service Day ceremony in late May. Collectively, the employees honored at the May 22 event at Levin Hall on the Galveston Campus represented 22,000 years of service to UTMB and its mission. Special service pins were presented in five-year increments, with 40 years being the longest tenure honored at the ceremony.

In addition, Vicky Easter, a Correctional Managed Care facility nurse manager at the Lindsey Unit in Jacksboro, Texas, received the 2019 Nicholas and Katherine Leone Award for Administrative Excellence.

The award recognizes a manager or supervisor at UTMB who displays the highest degree of professionalism, with a monetary prize of $7,500: $2,500 for the winning manager and $5,000 for developing and training in his or her department.

The Leone Award, established in 1971, is made possible through an endowment from Dr. Nicholas Leone, a former commanding officer and director of the Public Health Service Hospital in Galveston, and his wife, Katherine. n

In addition, 624 GEM card recipients were recognized for “Going the Extra Mile” in their daily activities.

Donna Sollenberger, executive vice president and chief executive officer for the UTMB Health System, recognized six employees who have been with UTMB for 40 years. They are: • Dr. Michael Malloy, professor in the Division of Pediatric Neonatology • Amy Carroll, nurse clinician in the Mother Baby Unit at John Sealy Hospital on the Galveston Campus • Dr. Vincent Conti, professor in the Division of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery in the Department of Surgery • Dr. Anne Hudson Jones, professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine & Community Health and the Institute for the Medical Humanities • Carolyn Johnson-McCorpen, medical assistant in Internal Medicine at the Primary Care Pavilion on the Galveston Campus.

• Dr. John Papaconstantinou, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology

Right: Leone Award winner Vicky Easter along with members of UTMB’s Employee Advisory Council and representatives from CMC.

NAME: Geoff Fish UTMB TALENT: Medical Laboratory Scientist, UTMB’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology HIDDEN TALENT: Rock and blues guitarist with passion for performance For Geoff Fish, medical laboratory scientist with UTMB’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology, playing guitar has been a passion and a pastime for more than 40 years. After his parents gifted him a guitar as a child, Fish quickly took an interest in the instrument and hasn’t put it down since.

While Fish did complete six months of formal lessons, he credits the bulk of his talent to the hours and hours he spent listening and re-listening to songs on his record player. A staple among the local music scene in Galveston, Fish, who has worked for UTMB for 25 years, says his hobby has always helped add balance and fun to his life, since his work as a microbiologist can be rather serious.

Fish can frequently be found playing popular classic rock and blues songs at venues in the area.

To see where you can find his next show, visit https://www.facebook.com/GeoffFishMusic. n

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EDUCATI ON

Katie Hansen, above, was one of 400 graduates to walk the stage as part of the School of Nursing’s commencement exercises on April 26.

BY JESSICA WYBLE

MOMENTS AFTER COMPLETING THE LAST CLINICAL ROTATION of her undergraduate nursing school career, Katie Hansen, a recent UTMB School of Nursing graduate, received a call. Her grandmother, who had been battling an illness for the past few months, was not doing well and had just been admitted to the hospital. Her mother urged her to come visit if she could right away, as the prognosis didn’t look good.

Anxious to be by her grandmother’s side, Hansen rushed from her post at MD Anderson Cancer Center to Methodist Hospital, which thankfully was right around the corner in the Texas Medical Center. She got there just in time to not only see her grandmother, but—with her stethoscope still around her neck— also assist with some basic care needs at her bedside.

The experience was an impactful one for Hansen, who walked the stage at the UTMB School of Nursing Commencement on April 26 at the Moody Gardens Convention Center in Galveston.

“UTMB has educated me to provide the best and safest care for my future patients, but the experience of caring for my grandma is something that cannot be taught in school,” she says.

Katie Hansen, a recent SON graduate, providing care for her grandmother.

As she prepares to embark on a new journey as a nurse with MD Anderson Cancer Center, Hansen knows she’ll be able to take with her the memory of caring for her grandmother and apply it to her own practice.

“I have found that I will be able to empathize more with my patients and their families,” she says. impact

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Just like Hansen, recent UTMB School of Nursing graduate Ivet Gaytan is preparing to use the skills and experience she gained during her undergraduate nursing school career in a new full-time role she has accepted with Shriners Hospital for Children in Galveston.

“I’ll be working as a pediatric intensive care unit nurse,” says the Galveston native who achieved a lifelong dream when she graduated from UTMB’s School of Nursing earlier this year.

Growing up on the island, Gaytan has a long history with UTMB—a history that started with her as a frequent patient.

Ivet Gaytan displays the nursing degree “I have chronic asthma and was she received during the April 26 School in and out of the hospital here at of Nursing commencement.

UTMB a lot growing up,” she said.

“The nurses were always so nice and welcoming to me each time I was here; that’s how I knew I wanted to be a nurse. I knew from a young age I wanted to do for other people what they did for me.”

Her connection to Shriners Hospital for Children runs deep as well, as she frequently volunteered there with the Ronald McDonald House of Galveston while in high school. She knows those experiences undoubtedly influenced her decision to pursue a job there.

While the specifics of Gaytan’s and Hansen’s journeys are different, they are both stories of learning and growth. During the recent UTMB School of Nursing Commencement, more than 400 other graduates, each with their own stories of learning and growth, participated in the festivities, celebrating those journeys, what’s to come and the unifying experience of now being proud UTMB alumni. n 11

5 Common myths about vaccines

By Dr. Megan Berman, associate professor of internal medicine, and Dr. Richard Rupp, professor of pediatrics MYTH: I don’t need vaccines if I’m healthy

MYTH: Giving an infant multiple vaccines can overwhelm the immune system.

We’re healthy until we’re not. No one plans on getting sick, much like how no one plans to get into a car accident, but we wear our seatbelt to protect us just in case. Even healthy people can become gravely ill from diseases such as measles or the flu, among others, if they’re not vaccinated. Additionally, healthy folks can spread disease to others with weaker immune systems. Some vaccines can also prevent cancer, and immunizing someone who’s healthy increases the likelihood of a good immune response.

Babies are exposed to bacteria immediately when passing through the birth canal. Healthy babies begin making antibodies, or weapons, to protect against infection right away. By comparison, vaccines use just a tiny amount of a virus to create an immune system response. Although today’s children receive more vaccines than in the past, the vaccines contain fewer antigens— the substance that induces an immune response in the body—than previous vaccines.

MYTH: Natural infection is better than immunization.

The influenza shot contains a dead virus, so it cannot cause infection. The vaccine uses part of the inactivated virus that the body recognizes as foreign to generate an immune response. It’s like showing someone a shell of a car — you would recognize it as being a car, but you cannot drive to Houston with it.

The immune system doesn’t know the difference between a natural infection and a vaccination. It recognizes or “sees” something foreign, mounts an immune response, and then provides protection.

Some vaccines actually provide a better immune response than natural infection. The real difference between natural infection and immunization is the price you pay. After natural infection, serious consequences can occur including paralysis, permanent brain damage, liver failure, liver cancer, deafness, blindness, loss of limbs and death. The cost of a vaccine is typically a few dollars.

MYTH: The flu shot gave me the flu.

Once the vaccine is given, it takes about two weeks to mount an immune response. It’s possible for someone to be exposed to the influenza virus before being vaccinated. It’s also possible to get infected with one of many other viruses common during the flu season and mistake these symptoms for the “flu.” No vaccine

is 100 percent effective, so it’s still possible to get influenza despite the vaccine. The good news is that those who have the vaccine will have a less severe illness.

MYTH: Vaccines cause autism.

No, they do not. The 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield that started the autism link with vaccines was based on a biased study. In 2004, 10 of the 13 authors retracted the study’s interpretation. In addition, Wakefield had his medical license stripped and his research was labeled as “dishonest,” “irresponsible” and as showing a “callous disregard” for the suffering of children involved in the studies. There have been a series of articles proving that Wakefield’s work was not just bad science but a deliberate fraud. n

UTMB TRIVIA The annual Employee Service Day ceremony on May 22 paid tribute to employees who have marked milestones of service at UTMB, including six people who were celebrating more than 40 years at the institution.

How many service years in total were honored at this year’s event?

Answer to the April/May trivia question: The couple who donated their entire estate to the Auxiliary of Angleton Danbury was Gladys and Joe Pelko.

Congrats to Angela Ellis, sponsored programs specialist in UTMB’s Office of Institutional Compliance, who won the April/May trivia!