A Message from the President
What a time of celebration!
It was just 25 years ago that The University of Texas System Board of Regents created what would become the comprehensive health university for San Antonio and the South Texas/Border Region--and named us The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
In the intervening years, the student body of our five schools--medical, dental, nursing, graduate--has grown from 450 to nearly 2,700. Working together, the schools have graduated more than 15,000 health professionals. Our annual grants and contracts funding has risen from $19 million in 1982 to more than $110 million today. The Institute for Scientific Information, based in Philadelphia, has ranked us ninth in the country in frequency of research citations by colleagues worldwide.
More than $1 billion in health care has been provided by the professionals of our schools to the medically indigent of our region. We are one of 16 sites in the world approved by the National Cancer Institute for patient trials of new anti-cancer drugs. Our Nursing School now has the largest enrollment in The University of Texas System. Our Dental School is consistently ranked number one in the nation. Our Dolph Briscoe Library is one of the largest and most innovative among its peers. Our Health Science Center budget has grown from $13 million in 1982 to $282 million today.
Without question, South Texas and the South Texans we serve have unique challenges and opportunities. Our region has historically had unmet needs in the health professions--from teaching to patient care. They occur in settings of high unemployment, acute poverty, high disease rates and harmful environmental and waste water conditions. In the face of a growing population, these needs are being exacerbated--from Brownsville to Del Rio, from Laredo to Robstown. Our Health Science Center, and its offerings, have great relevance to the health of this region so important to the future of Texas.
We are aware of the privilege--and the responsibility--of our stewardship of the health professions in the South Texas/Border Region. Much is at stake, and much is being done to continue the miracles in our classrooms, laboratories, the community, in traditional patient care settings and even in nontraditional settings, including NASA's space environments.
We hope that the stories in this issue will give you a glimpse of the remarkable progress we have achieved in our first 25 years and that you will be as excited as we are to see what wonders are in store for us in our next quarter-century.
John P. Howe, III, MD
President
