Contact: Will Sansom
Phone: (210) 567-2579
E-mail: sansom@uthscsa.edu

Fourth-year medical student Dustin Williams (right) checks a monitor while preparing to “restart” a manikin’s heart using a defibrillator in the H-E-B Clinical Skills Center. Looking on are medical student Andrew Shedd; H-E-B officials Craig Norman, Debra Salge and Cathy Durbin; Health Science Center President Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D.; and Debbie Morrill, HSC vice president for development.
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H-E-B, one of the foremost names in South Texas business, has made a philanthropic gift of $1 million to The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, said Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D., Health Science Center president.

To honor the generosity of H-E-B and its employees, the Health Science Center changed the name of its Clinical Skills Center to the H-E-B Clinical Skills Center. This state-of-the-art center, which opened in spring 2005 in the Academic and Administration Building on the central campus, is enabling 1,000 future physicians, nurses and physician assistants a year to learn patient-communication and physical-examination skills in simulated patient encounters before they ever use these skills with actual patients.

Gift impacts Health Science Center’s four missions
“The H-E-B slogan is ‘Here Everything’s Better,’” Dr. Cigarroa said. “Today is truly an example of H-E-B making things better for the people of South Texas. This gift impacts all four missions of our Health Science Center – education, research, clinical care and community service. We are recognizing the community spirit of H-E-B and its thousands of employees by naming a facility that impacts the next generation of health professionals in our region.”

Students better prepared for clinical setting
The Clinical Skills Center is providing training to 880 medical students across all four years of the curriculum, said William L. Henrich, M.D., M.A.C.P., dean of the School of Medicine and vice president for medical affairs at the Health Science Center. “Clinical skills training is making a major difference in the students’ first and second years, which previously have been dominated by classroom instruction,” Dr. Henrich said. “Our faculty physicians who oversee the third-year medical students are commenting how much better prepared these students are for the clinical setting when they start the third year.” (Learn what Health Science Center students are saying about the H-E-B Clinical Skills Center.

Attending the dedication of the H-E-B Clinical Skills Center are (left to right) School of Medicine Dean William Henrich, M.D., M.A.C.P.; Winell Herron, H- E-B group vice president for public affairs and diversity; Dya Campos, H-E-B director of public affairs; Debra Salge, assistant to H-E-B Chairman and CEO Charles Butt; Cathy Durbin, H-E-B director of benefits; Diane Ferguson, R.N., director of the H- E-B Clinical Skills Center; Suzanne Wade, president of the H-E-B San Antonio Food/Drug Division; Craig Norman, H-E-B senior vice president for pharmacy; Health Science Center President Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D.; and Craig Boyan, H-E- B chief strategic officer.

Gift will improve community’s health care
Suzanne Wade, president of San Antonio Food/Drug Division of H-E-B, said: “We are so proud to be contributing to the future education of health science professionals who will directly impact health care for people across South Texas. We believe that by increasing the Health Science Center’s ability to educate health professionals in training, we will improve the quality of health care for children, families and senior adults across all our communities.”

Largest skills center in Texas
At 13,500 square feet, the H-E-B Clinical Skills Center is the largest such center in Texas. It consists of 20 clinical examination rooms, two classrooms, a trauma surgery simulation room and a visualization and simulation suite complete with lifelike manikins that enable students to learn both normal and abnormal physical states, including normal versus abnormal heartbeat or respiration. Students who want extra practice on any skill are invited to request time in the center.

Center provides realistic opportunity for interaction with patients
“When I went to medical school, we had nothing like this,” said Nan Clare, M.D., senior associate dean of the School of Medicine, associate dean for academic affairs and a 1975 alumna of the school. “Pretty much, the first chance we had to learn communication with patients was with real patients, and that could be difficult.”

The H-E-B Clinical Skills Center employs “standardized patients” from the community who are trained to represent disease states and moods in the same way to every student. That is not new, but the clinical skills training formerly was offered in multidisciplinary laboratories and other spaces not designed for the activity.

Center provides cutting-edge training
Clinical skills centers, including mechanical manikins and standardized patients, represent an era of health profession education that is growing exponentially. “It is a worldwide phenomenon,” Dr. Cigarroa said. “Most of the big clinical skills centers are on the East or West Coast. We are proud to offer the H-E-B Clinical Skills Center for the education of our students.”

The center was constructed through state tuition revenue bonds and a $1.6 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.

Nursing school also has clinical skills labs
The Health Science Center School of Nursing also has excellent clinical skills labs that feature state-of-the-art manikins and other resources for training of nursing students.

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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 $576 million, the Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $14.3 billion biosciences and health care 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.