Impact May 2016

UTMB Newsletter • MAY 2016

Spotlight on Tom Ksiazek, Galveston National Laboratory UTMB research attracts worldrenowned journalist Nursing graduate beats the odds

Virtual reality:

CMC telepsychiatry transforming care across Texas

Ann Varghese, director of Ambulatory Operations at the Angleton Danbury Campus, was recognized as one of the Brazosport Facts newspaper’s “Leaders Under 40.” Facts editor Yvonne Montz surprised Varghese with a plaque on April 18. Leaders were nominated by the community and were included in a special section of the newspaper on May 15.

The Office of Student Life and Student Government Association co-hosted the annual “United to Serve” event on April 2. More than 230 students volunteered their time at more than 15 sites around Galveston County, where they cleaned up beaches, assisted with a 5K run, fixed up community gardens, helped at two local free clinics, painted faces and ran games at the Grand Kids Festival, and so much more.

Pamela G. Watson, ScD, vice president for Interprofessional Education and Institutional Effectiveness and dean of the School of Nursing, was honored as one of the “2016 Women of the Year” at the Galveston Chamber of Commerce’s Celebrating Women Conference in April. She was chosen for the incredible work she does to empower and advance the women and business community.

Yolanda R. Davila, PhD, was selected as the 2016 recipient of the Pamela G. Watson School of Nursing Award, which recognizes an outstanding faculty member who has made major contributions through a commitment to excellence in research, publications, education and nursing leadership.

Dr. Robert Tesh, a professor in the departments of Pathology and Microbiology and Immunology, was the keynote speaker at the recent Pan-American Dengue Research Network Research meeting in Panama, where he also received the Gorgas Medal of Honor from the Panamanian government for his longtime efforts to advance science and medicine in the Americas. The medal is named for Dr. William Crawford Gorgas, surgeon general of the U.S. Army who helped create a mosquito-free zone so that workers could build the Panama Canal.

Barbara Bonificio, director of Nursing Excellence, and Karen Chapman, DPT, director of Rehabilitation Services, presented at the University of Texas System Shared Visions Conference on April 21–22 in San Antonio. They shared their “Get Up and Walk” mobility pilot project, which aims to maintain the mobility of Bonificio hospitalized patients who were moving around independently prior to admission. Patients who participated in the pilot were encouraged to undergo superChapman vised, scheduled ambulation with a dedicated mobility technician twice a day to minimize the effects of bed rest.

The program was successfully piloted on three units from December 2014 through May 2015.

Congratulations to students and staff at UTMB’s Center for Addiction Research who recently won awards. Yafang Zhang, a graduate assistant, won the “Best Poster Presentation” award for the second year in a row at the Behavior, Biology, and Chemistry: Translational Research in Addiction conference in San Antonio; Carrie McAllister, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow, won the “Overall Fellow” award at UTMB’s fourth annual Zhang Clinical and Translational Research Forum; and Maria D. Garcia, senior administrative manager, received the 2016 National Council of University McAllister Research Administrators Region V Quinten S. Mathews Travel Award, which provides $1,000 to offset travel expenses for attending the annual meeting in April.

Garcia UTMB School of Health Professions’ Respiratory Care Program was among a select group of programs recognized by the Commission on Accreditation for Respiratory Care to receive the Distinguished RRT (Registered Respiratory Therapist) Credentialing Success Award. Selected programs met rigorous criteria, including (1) having three or more years of outcomes data; (2) holding accreditation without a progress report; (3) documenting RRT credentialing success of 90 percent or above, and (4) meeting or exceeding established CoARC thresholds for CRT credentialing success, attrition and positive (job) placement. The CoARC views the RRT credential as a measure of a program’s success in inspiring its graduates to achieve their highest educational and professional aspirations. The award will be presented at a CoARC reception in Florida in June.

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impact

From the President

MAY 2016

While we’re less than halfway through 2016, this year has already been a remarkable one for UTMB. Many of you may know that this October marks the 125th anniversary of the first meeting of the founding members of the University of Texas Medical Department at Old Red. The past few months also have included some new historic milestones for UTMB as we opened the state-of-the-art Jennie Sealy Hospital in April and held the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new League City Hospital earlier this month.

UTMB research attracts well-known journalist Page 6

The opening of Jennie Sealy Hospital allows the second phase of the John Sealy Hospital modernization project to get fully underway. When the new John Sealy is complete in 2020, it will offer another soothing, healing environment for our patients and their families, and an advanced learning and practice environment for our students, faculty and staff.

You can learn more about the John Sealy Hospital modernization inside this issue, along with stories about our people. Among them:

Day in the Life of a CMC telepsychiatrist

• A day in the life of Dr. Pradan Nathan, CMC telepsychiatrist

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• A profile of Dr. Tom Ksiazek, director of high-containment laboratory operations, Galveston National Laboratory • A new transparency initiative to make quality and safety performance information more accessible • UTMB’s neurodegenerative research piques interest of a national correspondent

Nursing graduate beats the odds

• An overview of UTMB’s new nursing hiring initiative and the inspiring story of a recent School of Nursing graduate

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• Our Employee Service Day ceremony and annual Earth Day event • Physical fitness tips by Chad Davenport, senior physical therapist • Numerous accomplishments and kudos in the Working Wonders column and throughout the newsletter If you have ideas for future issues of the newsletter, let the Impact team know.

Thank you!

Spotlight on Tom Ksiazek, GNL Page 12

Dr. David L. Callender UTMB President

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!

ON THE COVER: Using a webcam, CMC telepsychiatrist Nathan Pradan sees up to 20 patients a day at prison units across the state from his office in Conroe. With a severe shortage of psychiatrists in Texas and around the country, telemedicine has become a way to stretch the reach of a few and increase access to behavioral health care for long-distance patients.

P rinted by U T MB graphic design & P rinting S ervices

Vice President Marketing & Communications Steve Campbell

Contact us Email: impact.newsletter@utmb.edu Phone: (409) 772-2618

Associate Vice President Marketing & Communications Mary Havard

Campus mail route: 0144 U.S. Postal address: UTMB Marketing & Communications

301 University Boulevard

Galveston, TX 77555-0144

Editors Kristen Hensley KirstiAnn Clifford Stephen Hadley Art Director Mark Navarro

PAT I E NT C A R E

B y K irsti A nn C lifford

W

hen you want to buy a new car or try a new restaurant, do you look at online reviews before making a decision? For a growing number of people, the answer is yes. But what about medical procedures?

If you’ve ever tried looking for medical reviews, you may have found that price information and quality data can be hard to come by. And if you do find it, how do you interpret the numbers?

Over the last several months, UTMB has begun launching a transparency initiative to make health care quality and safety performance information more accessible and easy to digest.

lations may not fare as well in certain categories. We need to explain that to consumers and help them understand the whole story.”

In addition to clinical outcomes, UTMB recently began posting patient satisfaction scores related to their UTMB physicians on UTMB’s Find A Physician website at www.utmbhealth. com/phy. The objective is twofold: (1) to promote UTMB providers by optimizing search engine results and (2) to continue efforts to improve and distinguish the patient experience.

“Currently, consumers have access to Yelp, Healthgrades, RateMDs, ZocDoc “We have better data out there for and other social media to provide any www.utmb.edu/qualityresults goods and services than we do about feedback they wish about providers, but a fundamental, basic concern: our it’s hard to know whether the reviews By going to UTMB’s Quality and Safety website, health,” said Mark Kirschbaum, RN, are valid or justified, and there are consumers can view reports on patient experience PhD, UTMB’s chief quality, safety usually very few ratings for individual and outcomes, physician ratings and other and clinical information officer. “By providers,” said Kirschbaum. “All the information to help make confident and informed decisions regarding their health care. and large, the consuming public has reviews posted on the UTMB Find A accepted that lack of information for Physician website come from verified way too long.”

UTMB patients and are published word-for-word, both positive and negative.”

He adds that our patients are using search engines to access health care information, and he believes younger generations are not going to put up with lack of data. “The health industry is finally climbing into the rest of the world’s view that we’ve got to make performance information more universally available to our consuming public,” he said.

Reports ranging from patient experience and outcomes to price information on common inpatient services are now available at www.utmb.edu/qualityresults. All reports are accompanied by explanations to help consumers interpret the data and ultimately make better health care decisions.

UTMB aims to be transparent with all of its outcomes. “To the extent that we are able, we are putting all the data out there,” said Kirschbaum. “At the same time, we also need to make sure we tell our story. For example, we may get great marks in some areas and not-so-good marks in others. Well, why is that? Many consumer reports don’t account for patient differences or the complexity of cases, so academic health centers and safety net hospitals that care for high-risk popu4

Once a specific physician’s profile is pulled up on the Find A Physician website, consumers can see patient comments along with the physician’s overall star-rating score. The five-star rating scale is based on provider assessment questions including whether the provider listened carefully, how much time they spent with the patient and how well they explained things. In an effort to offer the most accurate representation for each provider, only physicians who have a minimum of 30 completed surveys within the past year will have their ratings posted.

While the provider ratings and hospital quality and safety information can be a valuable tool to help consumers make more informed decisions regarding their health, Kirschbaum still recommends that patients talk to their primary care provider if they have any questions—because shopping for health care is more complex than buying a car.

“An informed public is going to be a better consumer and better patient at UTMB,” he said. “People should be more demanding of us, and we want to partner with them to help them be better consumers of their own health care. We are up to the challenge.”

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Kudos

UTMB President David Callender’s

‘Way to Go Award!’ winners Keykoca Johnson, a patient care technician in the Mother Baby Unit, recently received the award for her quick actions and exceptional patient care, which resulted in a positive outcome for both mother and baby when a 12-day-old infant experienced respiratory difficulty and needed immediate attention. After quickly assessing the situation and alerting the health care team to the emergency, Johnson accompanied the infant and mother to the ED and shared important information that greatly assisted physicians in determining the best plan of care for the infant.

Justin Hall, a patient transporter, received the award in April for his genuine compassion, concern and empathy for a patient with endstage heart failure. Hall took his lunch break to comfort and sit with the patient who had just been told there was nothing else that could be done for his condition and he would be going home on palliative care.

Nicollette Ward, biological and chemical safety specialist, and Dr. Sophie-Anne Brocard, Environmental Health and Safety consultant, received the award for increasing efficiencies in the shipment of materials from UTMB’s World Reference Center for Emerging Viruses and Arboviruses. Brocard designed a new form, and she and Ward have made a 500 percent improvement in processes to get rid of backlog. The WRCEVA serves as a virus reference center for the world. Any virus suspected of being biologically transmitted by arthropods or vertebrates is accepted for identification and characterization. The current virus collection consists of about 6,000 unique virus strains.

Requests for viruses come in from around the world. Right now, the Zika virus is being requested to support research worldwide.

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Marlo Cochran, DNP, director of UTMB’s Regional Maternal Child Health Program, and Tracy Peveto, FNP, (not pictured) clinical director of the Orange County RMCHP, received the award for going above and beyond during the recent flooding of the Sabine River. During the peak of the flood, water covered the roadways, including Orange clinic’s parking lot and walkway. Peveto was on the ground placing sandbags all around the clinic doorway, while Cochran provided round-the-clock communications and feedback on the status of the clinic and WIC site, and helped coordinate the continuity of patient care at nearby clinics.

We’re growing!

New clinics open on the Mainland UTMB Health Wound Clinic

1804 W. FM 646, Suite N • Dickinson, TX 77539 • (281) 967-7106 The clinic is located in the Bay Colony Town Center and offers specialized wound care treatment, including hyperbaric oxygen therapy, to patients with acute, chronic and non-healing wounds.

UTMB Health Women’s and Surgical Specialties Clinic 17448 Hwy 3, Suite 200 • Webster, TX 77598 www.utmbhealth.com/clinicsclearlake

The clinic offers OB-GYN and urogynecological services, as well as pediatric, dermatologic and cardiovascular/thoracic surgical follow-up.

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RESEARCH

A personal journey UTMB’s neurodegenerative research attracts world-renowned journalist B y K irsti A nn C lifford

A five-person crew carrying loads of camera

and lighting equipment headed up to the lab of Rakez Kayed, PhD, on the 10th floor of the Medical Research Building on UTMB’s Galveston Campus.

Leading the way was well-known national reporter and correspondent, Stone Phillips. You may know him from his tenure on “Dateline NBC” or “20/20.” These days, he’s working independently on a documentary that is personal for him.

“I’m the son of a mother with Alzheimer’s,” said Phillips, who grew up in Texas City before moving to St. Louis when he was 10.

“At 93 years old, she’s in the advanced stages and it’s progressing, so I’ve been dealing with that just like so many families in this country are. I’m also a former football player—I played through college and had a couple of concussions, so I’ve been tracking the chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) story regarding sports and concussions and repetitive traumatic brain injury.

And it really led me to start exploring where the basic science, or bench science, on neurodegenerative disease stands.”

After reading numerous studies and scholarly publications, he noticed Kayed’s name come up again and again. And in talking to experts around the country—in California, New York, Massachusetts and Michigan—Kayed’s name was mentioned multiple times.

Rakez Kayed, PhD, (left) does an interview with journalist Stone Phillips about cutting-edge neurodegenerative research being done at UTMB.

In mid-April, Phillips and his camera crew, which included his son, Streeter, spent three days in Galveston, interviewing Kayed, associate professor of Neurology, and Julia Gerson, who just received her PhD. Their conversation centered around the link between traumatic brain injury and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Recent findings by Kayed and his team

RESEAR C H B R I E F S Compiled from press releases written by Donna Ramirez and Christopher Smith Gonzalez. Find out more at www.utmb.edu/newsroom.

An interdisciplinary research team has made a discovery that could lead to the development of a treatment for a deadly virus spread by rodents.

Thomas Geisbert, PhD, professor of Microbiology and Immunology, reports that a laboratory-engineered antibody provided complete protection against the deadly Junin virus responsible for Argentine hemorrhagic fever. There are no FDA-approved drugs available for preventing or treating this disease, which has a mortality rate of 20 to 30 percent when left untreated. The relatively slow onset of this disease with its unspecific symptoms that may delay diagnosis, coupled with its devastating hemorrhagic phase, make Junin virus a serious threat to public health. What makes the study unique is that the researchers observed complete protection against death even when treatment was delayed six days after Junin virus infection when animals were showing signs of disease.

This recent success of the antibody therapy against Junin virus is a key step in its development as a therapeutic for use in people. The findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Jacques Baillargeon, PhD, professor of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, has found that older men using testosterone therapy were less likely to have complications that require them to go back to the hospital within a month of being discharged than men not using this therapy. The overall rate of 30-day hospital readmissions was 9.8 percent for testosterone users and 13 percent for non-users. This decline was stronger for emergency readmissions, with a rate of 6.2 percent for testosterone users and 10 percent for non-users. Testosterone deficiency is associated with muscle loss and overall health decline, rendering older men with low testosterone particularly vulnerable to “post-hospital syndrome.” Testosterone therapy, which increases muscle mass and strength, is reported to improve mobility, functional health and exercise capacity in older men with low testosterone. Given the importance of potentially avoidable hospital readmissions among older adults, further exploration of this intervention holds broad clinical and public health relevance. Reducing avoidable hospital readmissions is a national health priority and a major focus of health care reform in the United States.

The study appears in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

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RESEARCH

show that a toxic form of tau protein is associated with TBI and may be responsible for the increased risk for neurodegenerative disease and spread of impairments throughout the brain following TBI. Gerson has played a large role in the lab on a project laying the groundwork for personalized medicine against toxic tau in numerous diseases.

“This is breakthrough science,” said Phillips. “Tau has become the ‘it’ protein with regard to neurodegenerative disease, and Dr. Kayed has played an important role in that. He’s very passionate about what he has accomplished so far and clear he won’t put it down until he gets the answers that he wants. It’s new territory.”

Brain cells depend on tau protein to form highways for the cell to receive nutrients and get rid of waste. In some neurodegenerative diseases, the tau protein changes into a toxic form. When this happens, molecular nutrients can no longer move to where they are needed and the brain cells eventually die.

Phillips said his documentary is in the beginning stages, but he hopes to find a good outlet for it once it’s finished. He added that it was great to be back in Galveston. One of his mother’s favorite pastimes was packing him and his siblings into the car and driving down to the beach.

Because this form of tau plays an important role in the toxicity underlying TBI, it could be a viable therapeutic target. Working with mice, Kayed’s lab has developed antibodies that cannot only stop the disease, but also reverse mental deficits. The next step is to test it in clinical trials, which Kayed hopes to do in the next three to five years.

Antonio Saad, MD, fellow in Maternal Fetal Medicine, found that consuming too much fructose during pregnancy raises the child’s risk for heart disease. The UTMB study found that when pregnant mice drink only water sweetened with fructose, a common sweetener in foods and beverages, their offspring have several more risk factors for heart disease, compared with mice who drank only water throughout pregnancy. Throughout their pregnancy, the researchers gave pregnant mice either only water or a 10 percent fructose drink that mimics the level of fructose in most soft drinks. Otherwise, the diets were the same for both the water and fructose groups. After weaning, the pups were provided water and a normal mouse diet and evaluated after a year. A year is considered middle aged for mice since their life expectancy is about two years. The team found that when the mother has a high intake of fructose in her diet throughout pregnancy, her offspring is more at risk of developing adult obesity, high blood pressure and metabolic dysfunction, all of which are risk factors for cardiovascular disease. This effect is more pronounced in female offspring. The findings appear in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Ashok Chopra, PhD, professor of Microbiology and Immunology, has found that non-antibiotic therapeutic drugs already approved for other purposes in

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Kayed, who has been working on this for eight years, said he’s honored to take part in the documentary and credits the Mitchell Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases and UTMB administration with providing support since day one.

“This was a risky project, but we took the risk and it paid off for everybody,” said Kayed. “There are hundreds upon hundreds of labs working on this. For us to be selected and recognized is really a great honor. It’s good for UTMB, the students, post docs, everybody. And it’s satisfying to see that other researchers in the field acknowledge that this is important. We were ahead of the field by a few years and now everyone is moving toward working on toxic tau. We are in science to find a cure. The more people involved, the better.”

“It’s been poignant being here, standing on the beach where I used to come with her and realizing that she wouldn’t be able to remember that even if she were here—and that’s sad to me,” said Phillips. “She doesn’t even remember me, but that’s part of my motivation for this—and part of my gratitude to the neuroscientists who are pursuing this so rigorously.”

people could be effective in fighting antibiotic-resistant pathogens. While antibiotics have been highly effective at treating infectious diseases, infectious bacteria have adapted to them and antibiotics have become less effective. The rise of antibiotic resistant bacterial pathogens is an increasingly global threat to public health.

In the United States alone, antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens kill thousands every year. Chopra and his team started looking at other molecules that could have some effect in killing such antibiotic-resistant bacteria. By screening a library of 780 Food and Drug Administration-approved therapeutics, they were able to identify as many as 94 drugs that were significantly effective in a cell-culture system when tested against Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that cause the plague and which is becoming antibiotic resistant.

After further screening, three drugs—trifluoperazine, an antipsychotic; doxapram, a breathing stimulant; and amoxapine, an anti-depressant—were used in a mouse model and were found to be effective in treating plague. In further experiments, trifluoperazine was successfully used to treat Salmonella enterica and Clostridium difficile infections, both of which are listed as drug-resistant bacteria of serious threat by the CDC. The study’s findings appear in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

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B y K irsti A nn C lifford

Dr. Pradan Nathan used to drive hundreds of miles to see psychiatric patients at Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison units across the state. These days, he doesn’t drive at all.

As a telepsychiatrist for UTMB Correctional Managed Care, Nathan sees up to 20 patients a day in the comfort and safety of his office in Conroe.

“Right now, Stiles has nearly 700 patients on psychiatric medication out of a population of 2,800,” Nathan says.

“We’ll see them all in rotation, but some need to be seen more often depending on their situation. We have a team right there in the unit itself that includes a chief psychologist, three psychologists, two social workers and, of course, medical physician assistants and a medical physician. If a patient needs to be seen in more detail, they’ll set up an appointment with me. We have 100 percent access to care, which means whenever an offender fills out an I-60, or sick call request, somebody has to see them within 48 hours.”

“I can easily see patients on death row in the Polunsky Unit in the morning and then turn my computer screen to the Stiles Unit in the afternoon,” Nathan says. “The two maximum security units are nearly 100 miles apart, so telemedicine has made a big difference. Instead of driving all day, I can see more patients and really focus on what they are saying.”

Nathan has practiced psychiatry for 40 years and has helped spearhead telemedicine and electronic medical records applications in the Texas prison system. With a severe shortage of psychiatrists in Texas and around the country, telemedicine has become a way to stretch the reach of a few and increase access to behavioral health care for long-distance patients. In 2015, CMC telepsychiatrists recorded nearly 46,500 patient encounters.

I meet up with Nathan on a Wednesday morning, just before his clinic begins at 8:30 a.m. His office is one of five telepsychiatry-equipped rooms in the CMC administrative offices.

There’s a slight delay in starting the clinic because the inmate “count” is off and everything is at a stand-still while prison officers account for all inmates. But once we get the all-clear, the pace picks up quickly.

“My hope is to give them direction so they are able to understand their mental problems and do something positive about them.”

He immediately strikes up an energetic conversation about a recent conference in Boston, where he learned about the latest advances in psychopharmacology.

He did his original MD/PhD research in India, focusing on psychosocial factors in murderers and has worked with UTMB and TDCJ since 1992. Considering he works all day long with offenders—many of whom have life sentences—I’m immediately taken by Nathan’s positive attitude and passion for his profession.

He explains his office set-up as he sits down in front of two computer screens.

One is for email and pulling up patient electronic medical records, and the other is for videoconferencing with patients. Nathan adjusts a webcam as he dials into the Stiles Unit in Beaumont.

“Good morning, Ms. McDonald!” Nathan says warmly to the correctional clinical associate at Stiles who appears on the screen. I’m surprised by how clear the picture is—there’s no audio delay or blurry images. The two casually discuss the order of patients for the morning, and Nathan glances through the EMR of the first patient before he arrives.

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His first patient suffers from depression and is experiencing spasms as a side effect of his medication. Nathan zooms in with his camera to get a closer look at the facial spasms and makes a change to his medication before scheduling a follow-up appointment in a few months.

He asks the patient if he has any questions for him and explains why depression occurs.

“Sometimes, people get hopeless thinking about the future, or something happens in their family. In prison, people can get stuck with others that they don’t necessarily like. In the ‘free world,’ you can avoid people, but in prison, you can’t,” Nathan says. “The people who manage it well exercise regularly, keep up with their faith and have good family connections.”

As soon as one patient stands up to leave, another patient enters the room and sits down in front of the camera. Nathan spends more time with new patients, going over their history and assessing whether they have a mental illness. If so, he tries to determine if it should be treated with medication or therapy. In extreme cases, he sends patients to one of two psychiatric hospitals that serve the prison system.

“Walk step-by-step with me and we’ll get you patched up,” he tells a patient.

The most common issues include depression, anxiety, mood changes, neurological disorders and psychosis. Many patients also have comorbidities, like hepatitis C and diabetes, so Nathan is careful to make sure none of the medications he prescribes interact negatively.

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One patient experiences a psychomotor seizure during an appointment and starts repeatedly yelling for help. Nathan immediately notifies the clinical associate and has the on-staff medical team keep an eye on the patient until he is no longer disoriented.

Nathan oftentimes stays in his office until 8 p.m., finishing up paperwork and carefully looking through each person’s past records again to make sure he made the right decision regarding their care. If he’s had a particularly tough day, he’ll take some time out.

By lunchtime, he’s seen nine patients with no breaks in between. Several of the offenders have been seeing Nathan for years and have a friendly relationship, talking about the Final Four Championship along with their usual business.

“When things happen, it’s hard not to feel it,” Nathan says. “If someone threatens to kill themselves right in front of you or kill someone else, it takes some time to decompress. I have to sit down at the end and take a few minutes for myself.”

The CMC telepsychiatry team in Conroe includes (L-R) Dr. Marciano Limsiaco, Sharon Parker, George Fong, We grab a quick lunch at a Chinese buffet Still, Nathan wouldn’t trade his job for any other.

John Wang and Dr. Pradan Nathan. down the street before heading back for He doesn’t ask his patients what they’ve done the afternoon session, when he’ll be seeing to end up in prison. Rather, he treats them with patients who are segregated in a different building at Stiles. the care and compassion that he would for any other patient—whether in person “With segregated patients, the timing of everything depends on security, purely,” or through video.

Nathan says. “They have to escort each inmate from his cell to the appointment. If they are short on security officers, appointments may be canceled. The other day, one inmate set fire to his cell and everything had to be stopped so all the guards could make sure no one was injured.”

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“Once they know they are being heard, they start to respond,” he says. “My hope is to give them direction so they are able to understand their mental problems and do something positive about them. When they are doing well, you can’t beat that.”

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e d uc at i o n

UTMB nursing graduate beats the odds Father of four graduates with honors B y K urt K oopma N n

It’s been a very long road for Galveston’s Hunter Cherryhomes.

required essay and submitted his application, ending up as one of five students accepted.

When he walked across stage at UTMB’s School of Nursing graduation ceremony on April 29, getting his degree was definitely the high point of a long journey.

When asked about the benefits of being a part of the honors program, Cherryhomes said there were many.

“One of the most rewarding aspects of the program was the field experience we did in Beaumont,” said Cherryhomes. “I had experience with inpatients, but when working with outpatients we saw many indigent patients.”

As a single father trying to make ends meet after 2008’s Hurricane Ike, life was anything but easy for Cherryhomes.

A high school dropout, Cherryhomes was working for a local electrical contractor, sometimes up to 15 hours a day. His job provided no insurance or other benefits, which prompted the young father to re-examine his future.

Cherryhomes took to heart many of the challenges the indigent patients experienced, such as a lack of transportation and more.

“I always regretted not finishing high school,” said Cherryhomes. “Working the long days I had very little time to spend with my young daughter, and I wanted to have a greater presence in her life.”

Cherryhomes made the decision to obtain his GED, which set him on a path for even greater achievements than he may have anticipated. While earning his GED he realized he had an affinity for science, which led to an Associate of Science degree from Galveston College.

“If a person has to make a choice between medicine and food for their family, they will choose food,” he said.

“We are proud of Hunter and all of our graduates,” said Pamela G. Watson, dean of UTMB’s School of Nursing. “The integrity and quality of our graduates will be an ongoing asset to the nursing community.”

During this time, Cherryhomes also met his future wife. She had three girls, making for a blended family with four daughters.

One of the four has type 1 diabetes, and Cherryhomes felt he could not properly care for her, inspiring him to consider a medical career.

“Working in the health care field would give me the opportunity to take care of my family and myself with a rewarding career.

That is how I came to the decision that nursing school was right for me,” said Cherryhomes.

The young father not only attended nursing school, he was part of UTMB’s prestigious honors program. Two days before the deadline to register for honors courses, he learned that his test scores qualified him for the program. He quickly composed a

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Cherryhomes received his diploma at the April graduation ceremony in front of a large family contingent.

“We are proud of Hunter and all of our graduates,” said Pamela G. Watson, dean of UTMB’s School of Nursing. “The integrity and quality of our graduates will be an ongoing asset to the nursing community.”

Cherryhomes recently began his first nursing position in the UTMB medical intensive care unit, which he finds exciting and challenging. The new nurse is also excited to be working in the recently opened Jennie Sealy Hospital, with its abundance of natural lighting and expansive views.

When prompted to explain what he finds most rewarding about nursing, Cherryhomes quickly and proudly responded.

“There are so many things. You are taking care of not just the patient, but also their loved ones. I enjoy the aspect of comforting families and patients and seeing them make a full recovery or getting better. Even if it does not work out, I feel good knowing I tried and always strive to be a positive influence.”

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edu cati on

New UTMB program focused on hiring SON graduates B y S tephen H adley

To meet the growing demand for skilled and well-trained nurses in a highly competitive job market, UTMB Health launched an initiative this year to hire new nursing graduates from UTMB’s School of Nursing.

Craig Vollmers, director of Healthcare Systems Staffing for UTMB, said SON graduates are a great fit for UTMB because they are among the best-trained nurses in the region entering the workforce each year.

vides Galveston County,” Ross said. “UTMB provides support, compassion, and kindness to its patients, nurses and students. I feel like I joined a family during nursing school, and I’m looking forward to making a permanent place with that family as I move forward with my career.”

Dorothy Pearrow, assistant dean for Admissions and Student Affairs in the School of Nursing, said UTMB’s hiring initiative represents a great opportunity both for SON and the new graduates.

UTMB’s School of Nursing awarded 610 degrees this year, with 450 graduates who participated in the commencement ceremonies on April 29 at Moody Gardens “Current demand, demographic Convention Center. Pictured above are several graduates who have accepted shifts and a competitive local positions with UTMB. marketplace have stretched the “We believe the School of Nursing provides the best education in the area and regional nursing population, making it more difficult to hire experienced that our students are very well prepared,” she said. “We’re very excited about nurses,” Vollmers said. this program and increasing the number of our graduates working here going forward.”

“New graduate nurses are needed to help offset this demand as well as to contribute new skills and ideas for next-generation solutions to traditional issues. UTMB’s SON provides a readily available resource of highly trained, quality health care professionals who are already familiar with and supportive of our university values.”

Vollmers said the initiative would place 70 new SON graduates into positions throughout UTMB in its first year, including in Adult Patient Services, the Emergency Department, Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Hospital Galveston, and the Women’s and Children’s Department.

To find and recruit potential nursing applicants from the nursing school, Vollmers said UTMB conducts several informational, coaching and employment sessions with each senior class and participates in the SON employer open house for local health care entities in hiring new graduates.

“We hold our own ‘open house’ with hiring manager presentations to showcase the various opportunities at UTMB, and finally we conduct a hiring event where the graduating seniors are paired up with departments of interest to interview and discuss employment opportunities,” he said.

“From that final session, interested students are matched up with hiring departments for potential career offers.”

One of those graduates is Ashley Ross, who accepted a position as a nurse in the Emergency Department on the Galveston Campus. Ross said her experience as a student helped her make the decision to start her career at UTMB. “I have a deep respect for the service [the Emergency Department] pro-

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Pearrow said that UTMB represents an attractive career option for new nursing graduates who are being pursued aggressively by other hospitals in the region. “Our students who attend clinical rotations at UTMB Health end up loving it here,” Pearrow said. “UTMB Health stresses continual, lifelong learning and provides a unique growth opportunity for our graduates; we are proud of what our alumni have accomplished. Many of these new graduates will return to UTMB School of Nursing for graduate degrees as they gain experience and prepare to be the nursing leaders of tomorrow.”

Kelsey Osgood, a SON graduate who has accepted a position as a pediatrics nurse with UTMB, said her clinicals experience at John Sealy Hospital helped to deepen her resolve to work in Galveston once she graduated.

“I observed the value of teamwork being carried out by the employees and felt comfortable in the atmosphere created by staff members,” Osgood said.

“I’m looking forward to becoming a pediatrics nurse at UTMB because it is a wonderful opportunity for growth and challenge. I’m excited for the chance to serve a diverse population of patients and to assist them in achieving optimal wellness.”

Pamela G. Watson, dean of UTMB’s School of Nursing, expressed her enthusiam for the new program. “My spirits soar at the notion of more new UTMB SON graduates being hired by UTMB Health,” Watson said. “It is a fabulous opportunity for our graduates and the Health system. UTMB SON graduates are the best! UTMB patients and families will greatly benefit from the care to be provided by UTMB SON graduates!”

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lea d e r s pot l i gh t

Spotlight on Tom Ksiazek, director of high-containment laboratory operations, Galveston National Laboratory Thomas Ksiazek, DVM, PhD, is a world-renowned virus expert with 40 years of experience on the front lines of some of the worst outbreaks the world has ever seen. He currently serves as director of high-containment laboratory operations for the Galveston National Laboratory, as well as professor in the departments of Pathology and Microbiology and Immunology.

Before coming to UTMB in 2008, Ksiazek was chief of the Special Pathogens Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where he coordinated outbreak and control responses to especially dangerous pathogens such as Ebola, Marburg and SARS. In fact, along with a colleague, he discovered the SARS virus. Through the years, he has played a significant role in disease discovery and outbreak response efforts in Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East.

Ksiazek retired from the military in 1991 after 21 years of active-duty service with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army. He holds a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Kansas State University, a master’s degree in virology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a PhD in epidemiology/virology from the University of California, Berkeley.

What does the future look like for you?

I still learn things from my participation with younger colleagues and students, and my contribution is often with older classical methods or techniques that folks no longer seem to get in their formal training. So the situation continues to be one of mutual benefits for myself and the younger generation of scientists that I have the privilege of working with each day.

You’ve said luck and timing have made your career interesting. How so?

I came of age in the ’60s and graduated from veterinary school in 1970. This was in the midst of the Vietnam War and I, like many of my classmates, was subject to the draft. A lot of us volunteered for the military through something called the Early Commissioning Program and then went on active duty when we graduated. I discovered that the Air Force offered advanced training in return for future commitment on my part. That got me into graduate programs at the University of Wisconsin and subsequently at UC Berkeley.

Somewhat similarly, some of my early science assignments provided practical experience with more senior individuals that had been working on infectious diseases in the field in the developing world. That combination of formal training and field experience, coupled with the luck of being in the right place at the right time and being able to collaborate with other

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Tom Ksiazek, DVM, PhD, talks to a police officer in Sierra Leone during the West African Ebola outbreak in 2014. Ksiazek spent six weeks there directing efforts to stop the outbreak through contact tracing and the development of a comprehensive database of patients and their close contacts.

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to do this, but I would love to go back in time to early periods in some of the places that I’ve lived or worked, particularly to see what they were like during Colonial times.”

individuals who had similar backgrounds, has made my professional career pretty amazing.

Through the years, you have worked in the “hot zone” of deadly virus outbreaks, including Ebola. Have you ever been concerned about your safety?

A longtime colleague and friend, Bob Swanepoel, often says that the safety aspects of working with “deadly” pathogens is 95 percent using your head.

That includes understanding the way the viruses are spread and acting accordingly. For Ebola and several other agents, this means understanding that they are not transmitted by person-to-person transmission in the community, but rather by very close, unprotected contact. Once that is established, it should remove the personal fear factor from the equation. There are still higher risk aspects to dealing with outbreaks—patient care being the most obvious. If one doesn’t do patient care, the risk is essentially not there for folks who respond. When I was at the CDC, we used to say, “We always bring back the same number of people we deploy.”

What was your first job?

When I graduated from veterinary school, I worked in an animal hospital for small and large animals in upstate New York prior to my delayed entry in the Air Force.

What do you like to do outside of work?

I like woodworking and what I call recreational welding.

I like to do mechanical things with my hands. It probably comes from my fraternal grandfather who ran a metal fabrication shop.

I understand you are a rock ‘n’ roll enthusiast. Any favorite musicians?

I like all kinds of music, mostly older music from my younger years. I guess today you’d call it “classic rock.”

I like to listen to it while I work. My interests are broad, but I suppose if I had to choose, I would say some of my favorites include the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, the Eagles, Guns & Roses, ZZ Top, and I also like a lot of Motown and am a fan of movie soundtracks. I lived overseas a lot and missed some of this music when it first came out.

Do you have any hidden talents?

I also like photography, and in the last few years, I’ve done video compilations of images and music (sort of a la Ken Burns) of past events and outbreaks to commemorate anniversaries of things like hantaviruses in the Americas or the SARS outbreak.

What’s something you always wanted to do but have not done yet?

I don’t think I’m going to be able to do this, but I would love to go back in time to early periods in some of the places that I’ve lived or worked, particularly to see what they were like during Colonial times.

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impact

Good new s

B y K irsti A nn C lifford

It was a party atmosphere as more than 1,600 UTMB employees were celebrated for reaching important milestones in their careers during the annual Employee Service Day ceremony on April 13 at Levin Hall.

Collectively, the employees represented 21,960 years of service to UTMB and its mission. Special service pins were presented in fiveyear increments, with 50 years being the longest tenure honored at the ceremony. In addition, 628 GEM card recipients were recognized for “Going the Extra Mile” in their daily activities.

Decades of Dedication UTMB President David Callender took the stage to personally recognize two employees from the Department of Pediatrics who have been at UTMB for 45 and 50 years.

Dr. Randall Goldblum, who is the director of the Child Health Research Center and the Children’s Asthma Program, has been at UTMB since 1972 and is highly regarded for his expertise in biochemistry and molecular biology—particularly the study and treatment of immunodeficiency diseases in children.

Dr. Randall Goldblum received special recognition from UTMB President David Callender for his 45 years of service.

Dr. Sally Robinson, a clinical professor of Pediatrics, has been a devoted educational leader and noted physician at UTMB for 50 years.

As part of the Children’s Special Services team, Robinson treats children with special health care needs such as chronic physical or mental conditions.

Dr. Sally Robinson (first row, center) and her colleagues wearing “Team Robinson” shirts.

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Videos about Goldblum’s and Robinson’s tenure at UTMB, along with comments from their colleagues, drew smiles and laughs from the audience—one lighthearted clip even showed a roomful of Robinson’s colleagues all wearing her trademark hairstyle, a bun.

The Highest Degree of Professionalism Christy Taylor Bray, assistant director for Research Training and Development, received the 2016 Nicholas and Katherine Leone Award for Administrative Excellence at the Employee Service Day celebration.

“Dr. Goldblum has helped countless patients and their families with complex medical issues, teaching children with asthma and related disorders how to care for themselves, thus changing the disease process dramatically,” said Callender. “He has been a well-respected professor here at UTMB, passing along his medical knowledge and expertise to untold numbers of medical students and residents who have benefitted from his examples of patient care and his love for research.”

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“An externship at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Scotland in the 1960s, which was facilitated by UTMB President Truman Blocker himself, helped cement Dr. Robinson’s resolve to become a pediatrician,” said Callender. “Over the past five decades, she has improved the lives of patients and their families while teaching the next generation of health care providers how to provide compassionate and competent care.”

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. Employee Advisory Council members reviewed and scored a total of 34 nominations.

Callender presented the award to Taylor Bray, who has worked in research administration at UTMB for 13 years and is described by others as someone who leads by example, encourChristy Taylor Bray and her team (L-R): Donna Davis, ages her employees Pamela Petty, Christy Taylor Bray, Melodi Moore and and looks for ways to Heidi Lutz improve processes in everything she does.

“This is great! I’m ecstatic!” said Taylor Bray, who was also nominated last year. “I’m so excited to use the money for professional development in our department. My staff in Research Education is amazing and they make my job easy. I couldn’t do it without them.”

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.

To watch the Employee Service Day video, go to http://hr.utmb.edu/ tod/serviceday.

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G A LVE S TO N C a m pus

Second phase of John Sealy Hospital modernization underway B y S tephen H adley

When the second phase of the John Sealy Hospital modernization project is finished in 2020, the facade of the towers will look similar to Jennie Sealy Hospital, complete with gleaming glass running the building’s length and new brick to match the hue of the newest arrival to the Galveston campus.

That’s just one of the many improvements being made as part of the $135 million project to completely refurbish the hospital, said Mark Smith, principal facilities project manager for UTMB Design & Construction.

In addition to a revamped appearance, patient rooms in the two towers will be expanded in size and finish comparable to the new rooms in Jennie Sealy Hospital – from the floors to the ceilings and wall coverings – and the infrastructure updated to support the latest technological advances.

Smith said the opening of Jennie Sealy Hospital on April 9 cleared the way for construction to begin at the John Sealy Towers.

While many of the adult patient services were moved from John Sealy to Jennie Sealy Hospital with its opening, the world-renowned Blocker Burn Unit, Mother & Baby and Labor & Delivery Units, the Children’s Hospital, UTMB’s Blood Donor Center, the Sleep Lab, Café on the Court cafeteria and various other services will remain in John Sealy Hospital.

However, Smith said all services would begin moving from the AB Tower to the CD Tower in October so that remodeling work can begin on both the exterior and the interior of AB. That work is expected to take 18 months and once it’s complete, all patient care and support services will be moved to AB Tower so that the same work can be completed on the CD Tower.

“It’s a very complex project with a lot of moving parts,” Smith said. “Obviously, a lot of our visitors and staff are affected as we ask them to circulate around construction areas. But, when we get to the end, the hospital is going to be a beautiful place.”

The former hub of UTMB’s inpatient care complex, the current John Sealy Hospital was completed in 1978 at a cost of $32.5 million, funded completely by The Sealy & Smith Foundation. The 12-story hospital includes single patient rooms and a multitude of specialized care units. The Sealy & Smith Foundation has contributed $75 million to this phase of the modernization project.

The first phase of the John Sealy Hospital modernization project was completed after Hurricane Ike and included renovating and upgrading many patient rooms in the CD Tower - particularly those on the second, third, seventh and eighth floors.

Smith said that ultimately completion of the second phase of the John Sealy Hospital modernization would enable UTMB to provide exceptional care to even more patients.

“I think the key to this portion of the modernization is it will greatly expand UTMB’s Women’s, Infant’s and Children’s capabilities and give us even more of a worldclass facility to care for our patients,” he said. “This will be a tremendous asset to the patients and staff here when it’s complete.”

Artist’s rendering of John Sealy Hospital modernization.

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EARTH DAY

UTMB Earth Day celebration marks 24th year, pays tribute to “the man who started it all” B y K irsti A nn C lifford

T

he courtyard outside of the Moody Medical Library was full of vendor booths, spectators, food trucks and live music as UTMB celebrated its 24th annual Earth Day celebration on April 22.

“Recycle in Style” fashion show took to the outdoor runway. About a dozen UTMB employees showed off their recycled outfits, created with materials such as coffee filters, duct tape, Q-tips, feed bags and film strips.

Only one person was missing. Ken Steblein, UTMB’s recycling coordinator who started the annual event back in 1992, passed away on April 16 following an 18-month battle with cancer.

This year’s overall winner was Cheryl Sadro, executive vice president and chief business and finance officer, who wore the “Enchanting Southern Gown,” designed by Tonya Allyn Broussard. The fashionably “green” ensemble was covered with rubber gloves and blue OR sterilization covers.

(c) 2016 Robert Mihovil

Ken Steblein’s wife, Colleen, and two of their three sons, Andrew and Mark, stand next to a quilt made in Steblein’s honor.

Neal Cooper, UTMB’s sustainability director, “Ken, on behalf of UTMB and the Sustainability Department, thank you for your hard work, your dedication, your dream and paid tribute to Steblein, the commitment necessary to making all of this a reality for recalling how the Earth Day celebration has Other awards included generations to come.” grown from a couple of “Crowd Favorite” and tables in the main hallway of the John Sealy Hospital, to an “Mother Earth,” which went to Madison and Haley Love, outdoor event with 30 suppliers, a leadership committee, cor- granddaughters of UTMB employee Florence McMillian. porate contributors and more than 100 volunteers from across Runner-up prizes went to Jena Cherry and Trina Phillips. Bay the institution.

Colony Elementary School also participated in this year’s event, Steblein’s wife, Colleen, and two of their sons, Andrew and with 37 fourth graders showing off their unique styles during Mark, were in attendance as Cooper expressed his appreciation the “Trashion Show.” for “the man who started it all.”

Cheryl Sadro walks the “runway” in a gown made of rubber gloves and blue OR sterilization covers.

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“Because of Ken’s vision and passion, we are reaching further and doing more to promote sustainable living principles throughout the area,” said Cooper. “Ken, on behalf of UTMB and the Sustainability Department, thank you for your hard work, your dedication, your dream and the commitment necessary to making all of this a reality for generations to come.”

Part of Steblein’s legacy was on display, as the always popular

The theme of this year’s celebration was “Recycling…Just what the doctor ordered.” School of Medicine student Christina Haddad won first place in UTMB’s Earth Day art contest and her drawing was featured on this year’s Earth Day T-shirt.

To see more pictures from this year’s event, visit UTMB’s Flickr account at www.flickr.com/photos/utmb/albums.

By the numbers (FISCAL YEAR 2015) UTMB recycled about 36 percent of its municipal solid waste, including: 569 tons of brush and used pallet waste 469 tons of paper 276 tons of cardboard 24 tons of plastics 15 tons of toner cartridges

15 tons of e-waste 14 tons of heavy metal 8 tons of grease 4 tons of tires Almost a ton of aluminum

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7 Tips to get moving in May!

By Chad Davenport, Senior Physical Therapist, UTMB Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation May is National Physical Fitness and Sports Month and a great time to spread the word about the benefits of getting active. The tips below can help people of all ages and body types not only get fit, but also reduce stress, lose weight and gain energy!

1. Combine weight training and aerobics. Try gentle resistance training with 30 minutes of sustained aerobic activity. The two activities have great benefits. While weight training increases muscle tone, bone density, strength of connective tissues and metabolism to burn fat at rest, aerobic exercise increases energy and cardiovascular health, improves immune function and decreases stress.

2. Make it fun. Exercising doesn’t always mean you need to go to the gym or throw around heavy weights. Find an activity you enjoy and turn that into an exercise opportunity or make small modifications to things you are already doing on a daily basis.

3. Pick up the pace. Increasing your pace, even just a small amount, can help burn extra calories and improve

4. Break a sweat during commercials. Skipping the gym to catch your favorite show or sporting event? You don’t have to be a couch potato—get active during commercial breaks. Start out by doing 20 sit-tostands during commercials to build up leg strength.

5. Have a ball. Bring an exercise ball to sit at the computer instead of a regular chair. The challenge of sitting on the ball versus the chair will strengthen your core muscles.

6. Park farther away. Rather than stress about getting a spot near the front door, park your car farther away the next time you make a trip to the grocery store, mall or office. Those added steps will really add up in calories burned and will help improve leg strength and balance.

physical fitness. Walking around the mall at a brisk pace counts—any activity that keeps your heart rate elevated for more than 20 to 30 minutes is an aerobic activity. You do not need to run, jog or cycle.

7. Team effort. Get your family or friends involved to make it more fun and keep each other motivated. Explore your community to see what fitness activities are available for all age groups and activity levels and meet new friends while getting fit!

Parting Sh ot

The ribbon is cut!

UTMB President David Callender cuts the ribbon on May 3 for the new League City Campus Hospital.

A crowd of local dignitaries, UTMB leaders, staff and many friends from throughout the community attended the ceremony, which also included tours of the three-story hospital.

The 150,000-square-foot facility is an expansion to the existing UTMB clinic facility on the campus and will provide inpatient and emergency care, starting on June 4. Look for a full story on the new hospital in the June edition of Impact.

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