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Sansom@uthscsa.edu San Antonio (Feb. 13, 2007) – Thanks to a stipend from the Robert J. Kleberg, Jr. and Helen C. Kleberg Foundation, a medical resident named Hector Amaya, M.D., is preparing to study the frequency of low potassium levels in congestive heart failure patients. Another resident, Eleazar Quintanilla Jr., M.D., is using his Kleberg stipend to begin a study to evaluate the diagnostic workup that is done in patients presenting with chest pain to the emergency room, comparing the results between white Hispanics and white non-Hispanics.
Both physicians are in the internal medicine program of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio School of Medicine and are assigned to the Health Science Center’s Regional Academic Health Center (RAHC) Medical Education Division at Harlingen. Both physicians see patients at Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen. And, both are among the 10 Kleberg Medical Scholars supported in 2006-2007 by the generosity of the Kleberg Foundation, which four years ago started the program with a $1.5 million grant.
The Kleberg Medical Scholars will be available to present their work Thursday, Feb. 15, during an evening dinner at the RAHC, 2102 Treasure Hills Blvd. Notable leaders in attendance will include Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D., president of the Health Science Center; The Honorable Dolph Briscoe Jr., governor of Texas from 1973 to 1979; Leonel Vela, M.D., M.P.H., regional dean of the RAHC in the School of Medicine; and the keynote speaker, interventional cardiologist Steven Bailey, M.D., holder of the Janey Briscoe Distinguished University Chair in Cardiovascular Research and professor of medicine at the Health Science Center.
Dr. Bailey and other Health Science Center faculty cared for Gov. Briscoe’s wife, Janey, after a major heart attack. The governor has said his wife lived nearly two additional years because of the care she received. Gov. Briscoe has donated more than $3 million to the Janey Briscoe Center of Excellence in Cardiovascular Research, which is directed by Dr. Bailey. The center’s scope ranges from the laboratory bench to the patient bedside.
The Kleberg Medical Scholars represent the next generation of patient care and research.
Low potassium in blood serum is a condition called hypokalemia. “I believe it is very common in patients with congestive heart failure,” Dr. Amaya said. “It has been described extensively that hypokalemia is a contributing factor to death in these patients.”
Dr. Amaya hypothesizes that a large population of patients admitted to the RAHC’s teaching hospital, Valley Baptist Medical Center, present with this condition. “We want to evaluate the extent of the problem and whether patients are getting adequate treatment for it,” he said. “We want to know, if patients died from a problem such as an arrhythmia or a cardiac arrest, what the treatment was.” Hypokalemia is a known risk factor for arrhythmias, he added.
Dr. Amaya is from El Salvador, where he received his medical degree. Before his residency, he worked at McAllen Medical Center, where he was trained in external counter pulsation therapy, a treatment for refractory chronic stable angina.
Dr. Quintanilla, a native of San Benito just down the road from the RAHC, received his medical degree in Matamoros, Mexico, and completed his residency in the Mexican Federal District. He was in private practice as a cardiovascular surgeon for 10 years before applying to the internal medicine program at the RAHC.
His project will seek to answer whether there is an overuse of non-invasive diagnostic tests in patients presenting with chest pain to the emergency room, an overuse that could cause Hispanics to spend more than the necessary resources and possibly produce major levels of stress. “Actualized standard protocols approved by the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology have been used for a long time, but have not been completely validated in minority populations,” he said. “We have a high number of patients from Hispanic heritage who present with chest pain to our community hospital, but the majority of them do not have significant coronary artery disease. We need to re-evaluate the situation. If we focus more of our efforts on prevention, we may help more than just rescue our patients.”
Robert J. Kleberg, Jr., who originated the Santa Gertrudis breed of beef cattle on his family’s King Ranch, left an epitaph that read, “Your life is an expression of what you are.” The Kleberg Medical Scholars are an expression of his own pioneering and innovative life, as well as the inspirational life of his wife, Helen C. Kleberg.
# # #The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is the leading research institution in South Texas and one of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an operating budget of $536 million, the Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $14.3 billion biosciences and health care industry, the leading sector in San Antonio’s economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $35 billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to six campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. More than 22,000 graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and allied health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas. Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney disease, orthopaedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing, allied health, dentistry and many other fields. For more information, click on
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