It's been said that the Health Science Center is the crown jewel of the South Texas Medical Center. A team of peer educators, appointed by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to review UTHSCSA programs and resources, apparently thinks so, too.
Four months after the distinguished educators visited this campus, SACS has granted the maximum re-accreditation possible--a full 10 years--to the Health Science Center. Dr. John P. Howe III, president, announced the news Feb. 2 during a meeting of the Executive Committee.
"We are grateful that a select group of educators in diverse fields and from throughout the country chose to bestow the highest marks possible for re-accreditation," President Howe said. "This reinforces our belief that we are moving in the right direction as an institution and as a force for change in serving the people of the South Texas/Border Region."
The SACS Commission on Colleges re-evaluates regionally accredited institutions. All academic and administrative functions are examined. The Health Science Center's re-accreditation consisted of two components--a strategic self-study of the topic "Interdisciplinary Research" and a report documenting the Health Science Center's compliance with more than 440 criteria.
Dr. Donald Hanahan, biochemistry, directed the strategic self-study, working with subcommittees chaired by Drs. Vince Speeg, medicine/gastro-enterology & nutrition; David Cochran, periodontics; Mary Ann Matteson, chronic nursing care; Merle Olson, biochemistry; and Arlan Richardson, physiology/Aging Research & Education Center.
Dr. Ken Andrews, telecommunication services, headed the compliance task force. Various associate deans and representatives of the vice presidents' areas of responsibility served on the task force.
"The SACS reviewers commended us on our Annual Campus Review process, and on our student counseling program headed by Dr. Joseph Kobos," said Dr. Deborah Greene, vice president for institutional effectiveness and planning, and coordinator of the Health Science Center's re-accreditation efforts. "We also received compliments from the chairman of the visiting committee and from the leader of the team which evaluated the strategic report, stressing the timeliness and the thoroughness of our study of interdisciplinary research on campus. In fact, the chair and team leader noted that our process, and its subsequent report, are models for other institutions to follow."
Dr. Francis J. Tedesco, president of the Medical College of Georgia, headed the SACS peer team. Dr. Marjorie Jeffcoat, chair of periodontics at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, headed the team evaluating the strategic report. Team members represented diverse fields of medicine, dentistry, nursing and graduate biomedical sciences, as well as library sciences, development, student affairs and finance.
The SACS Commission on Colleges is the recognized regional accrediting body in several Southern states and in Latin America for institutions awarding associate, baccalaureate, master's or doctoral degrees. Other SACS commissions serve as regional accrediting bodies for elementary and secondary public schools. SACS is one of six regional accrediting organizations recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
SACS members, including the Health Science Center, regularly perform com-prehensive self-evaluations to assist them in planning for improvement and to assure the public of their overall quality.
In an article titled "Top of the Charts: Respiratory Schools--Helping Students Choose from the Top Respiratory Schools in the United States," the author, Dr. Paul Mathews, notes that no nationally recognized agency rates the comparative quality of respiratory care education programs. He outlines criteria that prospective students may choose to employ, including program resources, faculty and cost, then lists seven of the top respiratory care schools including the Health Science Center.
"We're starting to develop a national reputation," said Dr. David Shelledy, associate professor and chair of the Department of Respiratory Care. "Along with six other programs, we were cited as examples of top respiratory care schools in the United States. We are proud to have received this recognition."
National notice for the 5-year-old department comes from:
"Two of the top people in the respiratory field nationwide were on the site visit team sent by the Committee on Accreditation for Respiratory Care (CoARC)," Dr. Shelledy said. "In the summation, the members listed nine strengths of our program. Under weaknesses, they typed in 'none.'"
"This is unheard-of success," said Dr. Jay Peters, professor of medicine/ pulmonary diseases who serves as co-medical director for the RC program with Dr. Ralph Erian, clinical associate professor of anesthesiology. "CoARC pushes schools to improve in all areas; to be listed as having no areas needing improvement is highly significant."
Students' exam scores reflect the RC department's teaching prowess. The rates for the first three graduating classes1996, '97 and '98were 100 percent on exams certifying students for licensure to practice as respiratory therapists, and 100 percent on exams for the designation Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT), though one student did have to take the exam twice. "Ours is the only program I know of that posted a 100 percent success rate on the certifying exams," Dr. Peters said. "That reflects the intense preparation students get from the faculty. Dr. Shelledy and the people he has recruited are outstanding teachers and researchers."
"Our students have made this possible by posting scores that are much higher than the national average," Dr. Shelledy added. "We also benefit from physician input by our two great medical directors."
Places to practice
Respiratory care students such as Alejandra Chavez, a senior from Eagle Pass, attest to the department's strengths, especially its outstanding clinical affiliations. "It's a really intense program," she said. "We take 90 hours in two years and get a bachelor's degree. It is very organized and the department has contracts with all the large hospitals in
San Antonio and the region."
"We have great clinical affiliates, encompassing 14 hospitals in six health care systems," Dr. Shelledy said. In San Antonio, students receive clinical training in the University Health System, the Methodist Healthcare System, the Baptist Health System, the Santa Rosa Health Care System, Wilford Hall and Brooke Army Medical Centers, and the South Texas Veterans Health Care System, Audie Murphy Division.
"The study showed the safety of using salmeterol, an aerosol, to treat acute asthma attacks in these patients, all of whom were at University Hospital," Dr. Shelledy said. "We presented a poster on this at the American College of Chest Physicians meeting in Toronto."
Salmeterol is a standard treatment for preventing patients' asthma attacks, but its usefulness and safety during severe attacks had not been clearly shown, he said.
Respiratory care faculty presented posters on eight research studies at the 1998 American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC) meeting in Atlanta. Current RC faculty are Wayne Lawson, Dr. Terry LeGrand, Eric Bakow, Dr. Art Jones and Dr. Shelledy. Lawson and Dr. Shelledy have served on the AARC board of directors, and four of the faculty members write exam items for the national boards.
"Last month (Jan. 30-31) in San Antonio, we co-sponsored with AARC the first disease management program for respiratory therapists," Dr. Shelledy said. "The program attracted 130 professionals from as far away as Vermont and California."
Dr. Shelledy, a noted respiratory therapist/academician at Georgia State University in Atlanta, was recruited to the Health Science Center in April 1994 to launch the RC degree program. His hiring followed program approval by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the U. T. System Board of Regents, and a need assessment conducted among South Texas health care professionals.
The first 12 students began classes in the fall of 1994 and received degrees in spring 1996. Class size was increased to 15 in fall 1995 and to 24 in fall 1997.
'Outstanding role model'
"David was hired to develop the respiratory care program," said Dr. Marilyn Harrington, dean of the School of Allied Health Sciences. "He did it single-handedly.
He recruited and hired excellent faculty, developed an outstanding curriculum, established relationships with our area physicians and hospitals, and initiated an important
research program.
"At the same time, David received the outstanding teaching award each year from the respiratory care students. He is an outstanding role model for university faculty members and a leader among his peers locally and nationally. We are fortunate to have David at the Health Science Center."
Other schools mentioned in the Journal for Respiratory Care Practitioners article include the University of Kansas Medical Center, the State University of New York Health Science Center at Syracuse, and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
"I want to work in both places because they're only an hour apart," she said. "I've talked to therapists in the area and that's what they do--go back and forth. The border needs more Registered Respiratory Therapists (RRTs)."
The employer who hires her will get an experienced hand in Chavez, who rotated through six San Antonio hospitals and centers during 1998. She started in the hospital telemetry wards, but by summer was ready for work in the intensive care units. This spring she is doing specialty rotations in areas such as home health, sleep lab, emergency room, cardiac "cath" lab and hyperbarics.
Respiratory care faculty members visit the clinical sites every Wednesday to answer students' questions, monitor progress and provide encouragement. The students go to classes Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, and do clinicals Wednesdays and Thursdays. "We're taking our certification exam in March, and the faculty are getting us ready for that," Chavez said. "Then we'll start preparing for the RRT exam."
Chavez has rotated through University Hospital, Brooke Army Medical Center, Vencor, Wilford Hall Medical Center, Warm Springs Rehabilitation, and the South Texas Veterans Health Care System.
Respiratory care students begin meeting peers and patients after just one semester of classes.
The students go to clinicals for 15 weeks each semester beginning in the spring of their junior year and continuing through the spring of their senior year. Senior rotations are divided among six different settings.
Chavez noted that she worked 3 to 11 p.m. as a therapist on ambulance runs during the department's emergency medical technology rotation.
"The rotations are great for people trying to get jobs, because we know everyone and they know us, how we work," she said. Chavez is working part time at Vencor as a result of a rotation she did with the agency.
Students enter the respiratory care program after completing two years of college or university study, including a number of program prerequisites. Upon finishing the two years of the Health Science Center program, the graduates receive a Bachelor of Science degree in Respiratory Care and are eligible to take an exam to become RRTs.
Chavez entered with a degree in biology from Texas A&M. "I was working at the Health Science Center in cytogenetics," she said. "Since I already worked here, it was convenient to talk to professors and students and go through the process of entering."
After graduating, she will return to Maverick and Val Verde counties, to the familiar territory of Eagle Pass and Del Rio, to serve people of her home region.
The course is for physicians, nurses, psychologists, sociologists, social workers and chemical dependency counselors. Participants will hear the latest research findings, and learn how new knowledge relates to treating substance-abusing women with histories of trauma.
Sponsors are the Health Science Center, the Medical Hispanic Center of Excellence and the Department of Psychiatry; the Texas Tech University Health Science Center and its Southwest Institute for Addictive Diseases; and the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration/Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. The federal agency provided a $50,000 grant to support the conference.
Course directors are Dr. Martha Medrano, assistant professor of psychiatry at the Health Science Center, and Dr. Rudy Arredondo, director of the Southwest Institute for Addictive Diseases at Texas Tech. Course faculty include distinguished speakers from Boston University, Brown, Columbia University, Jefferson Medical College, the Medical University of South Carolina and the University of California, San Francisco.
Continuing medical education and other specialty credit is available. Participants are encouraged to register early. For more details and to request a brochure, call ext. 4491.
Imagine a child putting gloved fingers into ventricles of a real preserved brain. A learning moment? The catalyst to spark a scientific career? Neuroscientist Dr. Mary Vaughan ignites children's curiosity about the body's "command center" like few others can.
Dr. Mary K. Vaughan, associate professor of cellular & structural biology, has been teaching about the brain for almost three decades. A funny thing, though, her audience continues to get younger.
Not content to limit her neuroscience teaching to medical, dental and graduate students at the Health Science Center, Dr. Vaughan is expand-ing her outreach to area youngsters. She has taught so many different groups of children that one of the teachers dubbed her "the brain lady."
Dr. Vaughan does more than lecture--she brings out real preserved specimens and allows children with gloved hands to examine them. Then she talks about the organization and functions of the brain. "I love children," she says. "I like to ask them questions. I teach gifted and talented students in the honor tracks, but also students with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at the Winston School and disadvantaged youngsters in the inner city."
She also mentors students from the Rio Grande Valley during summer breaks, as part of the Health Careers Opportunities Program (HCOP).
She began her crusade for neuroscience education five or six years ago, doing one or two school presentations a year. This year, she will do about 25. Coincidentally, that corresponds with the number of years Dr. Vaughan has taught at the Health Science Center. She came to San Antonio from the UT Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston.
Dr. Vaughan has participated in "Meet the Scientist" presentations at the Witte Museum and in a return engagement for Brain Awareness Week, when 500 students and parents touched and learned about the brain. She helped judge the college Brain Bowl last year at the Health Science Center and the Region XIV Academic Decathlon Super Quiz at Blossom Athletic Center. Many children and parents also gained "hands-on" brain experience at the San Antonio Children's Museum on East Houston Street.
"One reason I do this is because children don't grow up on farms or see the insides of animals nowadays," Dr. Vaughan says. "I bring specimens and models to show what the brain looks like, as well as the spinal cord, because it transmits the brain's commands to the rest of the body.
"I showed one group of children the place on the vertebral column where Christopher Reeve's problem occurred," she adds, referring to the Superman actor left paralyzed by an accident. She also brings models of the skull, so students can understand how the brain is protected against impacts.
Dr. Vaughan's visits provide local schools with access to materials otherwise unavailable to them, says Dr. Brian Herman, professor and chair of cellular & structural biology (C&SB). The materials are donated, which fits in with the C&SB department's mission of community service. Despite onerous academic schedules, Drs. Linda Johnson, Frank Weaker, Thomas King and other C&SB faculty members, like Dr. Vaughan, take time to give similar presentations, he said.
Dr. Vaughan's service to community is part of this larger educational outreach: "Teachers pass my name around; that's how I get so many requests for presentations," she says. Schools that call frequently include those in the Northside, Judson, North East and San Antonio districts, and some home schools. "I get a lot of repeat business," she adds.
In January several teachers from Victoria High School visited Dr. Vaughan for a short course on teaching neuroscience. She went to Laredo to speak to children at risk for dropping out of school. Nimitz Academy in San Antonio recently utilized her talents during a series called "Kids Involvement Network," which at-risk youngsters attended.
Presentation requests are referred to C&SB by the deans of the Health Science Center's schools, the Office of Special Programs, the Office of Public Affairs, and middle and high schools. Elementary school requests are not as plentiful--yet these are the children who are best served by the presentations, Dr. Vaughan says.
"The younger the children, the more excited they are," she says. "The presentation makes a bigger impact. Students don't start to get 'cool' until after fourth or fifth grade. As for adults, it's interesting--sometimes you can't even get them to put on the gloves."
She previously conducted research of the brain's pineal gland with pineal expert Dr. Russel Reiter, C&SB. "Mary also has produced CD-ROMs for medical and dental microscopic anatomy courses, and is involved in an effort to develop more computer-assisted programming for teaching," Dr. Herman says.
As speaking invitations pour in and interest in health science grows, "the brain lady" continues to educate students of all ages.
I liked the squoshy, smudgy brain.
Your friend, Stuart
Dear Dr. Vaughan,
I had been asking if we would see the
"brains in the jars." Well, we did!
From, Catherine
It was awesome of you to provide such experience
for these promising young
students. Your commitment to education is not
limited to the university. For that, I am grateful!
With appreciation,
Dr. Vaughan,
I had lots of fun learning about the brain. I
thought you were so brave when you touched the
brain.
Sincerely, your friend,
A number of these individuals have been noticed smoking literally under the nose of President John Howe. There is a recessed area on the west side of the
auditorium, between the breezeway and the entry to Anesthesiology, which is being utilized as a smoking area. It is interesting that some of the individuals to be found here are representatives of various campus administrative offices and, as such, should be examples of proper behavior to the rest of the campus.
I would appreciate your looking into this matter and/or posting no-smoking signs in this area to let these individuals know that they are not above the rules.
Smoking citation booklets were issued to each officer and to this date, I am proud to say that not a single citation has been issued at commonly known smoking areas.
In addition, we have asked for assistance with this policy from University Hospital regarding our employees on its property.
The information in this letter was immediately provided to all University Police personnel. An increase in the patrol of this area resulted in a quick cessation of smoking. Every member of campus administration who has been known to smoke has been contacted and reminded of the policy, and that it is his or her responsibility to set the
example for other campus personnel.
I am thankful for everyone'scooperation with this policy. As a result, we have not found it necessary to post more signs around campus in addition to those on every external door to our buildings.
Application deadline is March 19.
Through the SIG program, institutions may acquire expensive research instruments that are justified on a shared-use basis and for which meritorious research projects must be proposed.
Applications are limited to instruments that cost at least $100,000 per instrument or integrated instrument system. The maximum award is $500,000.
The full text of the program announcement (PAR-99-031), including types of instrumentation supported, is available from the NIH Web site.
For more information, contact Liz Buel in the Grants Management Office at ext. 2330 or <buele@uthscsa.edu>.
Speakers will include Anne Leonard, coordinator of Acute Stroke Research Studies and Stroke Prevention projects at the Health Science Center, and Dr. Bruce
Mayes, associate professor of medicine/neurology and medical director of the South Texas Comprehensive Epilepsy Center.
The program will start with an overview of patient neurologic assessment. Nurses will learn about new treatments for patients experiencing acute stroke and about
changing technologies for treating epilepsy. For more information, call
358-1893.
Common-sense topics for international visitors and others will include safety awareness on campus both day and night, security in the home, and safety at the airport.
The class begins at 10:15 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 17, in
the Dental School cafeteria's accordian room.
Dr. Vaughan ...
Dear Dr. Vaughan,
Mrs. Suzy Dudich
Jessica
Question to the President
Last year, an article appeared in the campus
News stating that your officers would begin to enforce the no-smoking rule on this campus. Consequently, those individuals
who could be found routinely in the area outside the first floor between University Hospital and UT found it necessary to relocate.
Dr. Howe replies:
A diligent effort has been made to inform the campus community about the no-smoking policy. Last fall we stepped up our efforts to enforce the policy. Naturally, as we
did that it took some time for everyone to become aware of the increased enforcement and to change their practice of violating the policy.
Of Note
Grant program reported
The National Center for Research Resources, a part
of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is
instituting the Fiscal Year 2000 Shared
Instrumentation Grants (SIG) Program.
Neuro conference set
"Getting aHEAD in Neurologic Disorders," a half-day update for nurses, is set for Saturday, Feb. 20, in room 309L of the Medical School building. The course is offered
by the University Health System.
Crime prevention class set for Feb. 17
The International Alliance invites
faculty, staff, students and friends to an upcoming presentation of "Crime Prevention On and Off Campus." Karen Tucker, officer in
the University Police Department, and Maurice Rose, chief of police at San Antonio International Airport, are scheduled to speak.
THE NEWS is published Fridays by the Office of Public Affairs for faculty and staff of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
Vice President for University Relations.....Judy Petty Wolf
Director of Public Affairs.....Dr. Charles Rodriguez
Editor.....Will Sansom
Writers.....Myong Covert, Catherine Duncan, Joanne Shaw
Photographers.....Lee Bennack, Lester Rosebrock
Designer.....Kris Doyle
Production.....Printing Services
Office of Public Affairs, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive,
San Antonio, Texas 78284-7768
(210) 567-2570