Working Together To Work Wonders

By Educating The Future Of Health Care.

As the Dean, I am happy to introduce you to our new UTMB School of Health Professions newsletter. You will find current and useful information about all of the progress we have made over the past year. You will receive these newsletters on a regular basis and I look forward to sharing all of our accomplishments with you. I also encourage you to scan the contents and find any information that may be useful to you in your daily life. I would love to hear from you about anything that you found interesting or impactful. You can reach me at davibrow@utmb.edu.

I would like to introduce you all to our exciting new initiative program that guides our future endeavors. We call this program, RISES, which stands for Research/Influence & Impact/Student Success & Preparedness/Experiences in Clinical Settings/Strategic Capacity & Transformation. With each of these initiatives, we will be leading our health care professions to greater educational training experiences, more impactful research, and innovative clinical care.

Read Full Statement

The Health Education Center

The new Health Education Center is a 160,000 square foot, five-story building that features collaborative space to expand interprofessional education. It is a state-of-the-art simulation center that includes standardized patients and non-human simulation. The center consists of a community home environment, acute care units, birthing suites, operating rooms, an ambulance bay, and critical care units.

In addition to simulation space, the center boasts modern learning classrooms and studios that will enhance interprofessional learning. The clinical space increases in acuity as one raises to different levels of the building.

The first floor has large learning spaces, group study rooms, individual student study cubicles, and a food grill. The second floor has three large classrooms, group study rooms, and extensive clinical skills labs. The third floor has acute care hospital beds with human patient simulators and a community home environment. The fourth floor is dedicated to standardized patient encounters. Finally, the fifth floor has a 10-bed critical care environment and two simulated operating room suites. The Respiratory Care and Physical Therapy programs coordinated the first interprofessional activity hosted in the center in August of 2019.

The IPE activity was the early mobilization of mechanically ventilated patients. In this activity, teams of respiratory therapists and physical therapists had to plan and coordinate treatment for a mechanically ventilated patient to include sitting the patient at the bedside. This IPE activity offered students from both programs an opportunity to learn from each other on how to provide intracollaborative care for a complicated patient.

We are pleased to announce Dr. Carole Tucker as our new Associate Dean for Research in the School of Health Professions and Professor in the new department Nutrition, Metabolism, and Rehabilitation Sciences. Dr. Tucker received her PhD in Exercise Science, State University of New York Buffalo. She is a licensed physical therapist and engineer with extensive clinical and research experience in exercise science, physical therapy, and biomedical engineering.

Dr. Tucker’s current research program is focused on the development of patient-centered outcomes and wearable sensor systems for clinical and “real-world” measurement, as well as implementation of learning health systems and artificial intelligence/machine learning approaches to improve patient health, and health care system outcomes. Much of her past research has been focused on pediatrics, particularly in populations with developmental disabilities and movement dysfunction.

As Associate Dean for Research, Dr. Tucker will lead the new SHP Office of Research, staffed by Beth Cammarn and Matthew Lakich. This new office will focus on enhancing and expanding SHP’s research portfolio by offering a wide range of services including research development, education and training, submissions, and post-award management, among others.

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Tucker.

Learn More About Research in SHP

Ways to Give Back>>

Student Scholarship Support
Faculty Endowments
Health Education Center
...and more!

Visit Giving to UTMB Health

Have you joined our Alumni Association?

As UTMB alumni, we can boldly boast that the school was the first of its kind in the Southwest and has graduated over 11,500 students since 1968. We share a special bond with our alma mater and it is important that we maintain that bond by continuing our involvement in the life of the university by supporting the School of Health Professions and the students following our example.

Membership in the Alumni Association is an easy way to ensure our camaraderie remains strong. By joining, you and your fellow members support programs vital to students and alumni alike. These activities include awarding student scholarships, sponsoring student-driven functions/activities/travel, and recognizing the Distinguished Alumnus during the Commencement Ceremony.

Communication is essential to ensure a robust relationship between alumni and their alma mater. I encourage you to log into the UTMB alumni website to ensure your contact information is updated. This is where you can remain current with School of Health Professions activities, press releases, alumni news, and other valuable information.

I hope you are just as excited as I am about the future of the School of Health Professions and UTMB. Together, as alumni, we can help ensure that the future of the school continues to flourish and develop the next generation of health care leaders.

Sincerely,

Karen R. Chapman, PT, DPT

President

School of Health Professions Alumni Association

Support the Alumni Association here!