Two UTMB doctors,
Jeffrey Aycock, DMD, an oral and maxillofacial surgery resident, and
Dr. Andrew Grant, a professor of Internal Medicine and Microbiology and Immunology, were onboard an Atlanta-to-Houston Southwest Airlines flight when a passenger fell ill. Aycock, Grant and nearly 20 other physicians happened to be on their way back from a conference and were able to help. “It became obvious that it was an emergency and I rushed to jump right in, squeezing through the tight seats to get to the patient,” Aycock told NBC News. The patient was stabilized and able to deplane on his own. This event was reported in a large number of news stations and outlets across the country, including KVUE, Northwest Cable News, KVOA, 12 News Now, Medical Health News, NBC New York, MSN and many other outlets.
Joan Voncannon and
Crystal Gamoa, birth registrars at UTMB’s Angleton Danbury Campus, recently received 2016 Five Star Service Awards from the Texas Department of State Health Services. The Five Star Award acknowledges partners who understand the importance of vital statistics and their impact on the citizens of Texas. This award honors those who go above and beyond the duties of birth and death registration by attending trainings and keeping up with the latest legislation and trends.
UTMB’s Frontera de Salud medical mission to the Big Bend area is featured in the latest issue of Texas Family Physician.
Fourteen UTMB students recently helped physicians provide primary care at clinics in Alpine, Marfa, Presidio and Candelaria. The article notes that Frontera, a student-run volunteer organization founded in 1998, originally provided basic medical care to the Rio Grande Valley, but as access to care improved in the Valley, Dr. Norma Perez, the program’s executive director, identified the Big Bend area for its next project. The Big Bend area is sparsely populated and some regions have very limited access to physicians, hospitals or ERs.
Dr. Owen Murray, UTMB’s vice president of Offender Health Services, has been named a commissioner on health care for the American Correctional Association’s Commission on Accreditation for Corrections for a four-year term. The CAC is the official accrediting body of the American Correctional Association, which is responsible for accrediting nearly 1,400 facilities across the U.S. and around the world. Created in 1974, the commission includes professionals from all areas of the field, including adult and juvenile corrections and detention, community corrections, probation, parole and correctional health services. UTMB provides health care services for most of the state’s inmates.
The
School of Nursing master’s degree program recently ranked fifth nationally among institutions offering online nursing graduate programs, according to GraduatePrograms.com. The website compiles more than 57,000 student reviews and ratings on more than 1,600 colleges into rankings to highlight the best graduate schools according to students. UTMB’s extremely high student satisfaction ratings placed it among the top programs in the nation. The full list and additional details are available at
www.graduateprograms.com/school-rankings/nursing-online.
Dr. Rafic Berbarie, assistant professor, Internal Medicine;
Dr. Megan Berman, assistant professor, Internal Medicine;
Dr. Anita Mercado, associate professor, Internal Medicine; and
Dr. Victor Sierpina, professor, Family Medicine, received this year’s John P. McGovern Academy of Oslerian Medicine Excellence in Clinical Teaching Award. Each year, up to four faculty members are selected for the award, which recognizes the fundamental concept exemplified by Sir William Osler that the development of outstanding physicians occurs primarily in clinical settings. Each recipient will receive $5,000 to support his or her professional development.