UTMB retains top faculty in competitive academic world
APRIL 27, 2007--Like beach tides that ebb and flow, there is a rhythm of sorts at UTMB. Students come, learn, and go—timed to the seasons. This cycle is normal for universities, natural for an academic health center.
A thriving and vibrant health center like UTMB—in addition to what it offers students—trains and provides opportunities for people at all stages in their careers. Many of these individuals become so accomplished that they are sought out by other institutions. Some heed that call, but many do not. Why is that? What is so special about UTMB, its mission and its people? What binds a person to this island-based institution when he or she is highly sought elsewhere? Consider these tales of two of UTMB leaders—Dr. Gary Hankins and Dr. David Walker.
Dr. Gary Hankins
‘A Privilege and a Joy’
Dr. Gary Hankins’ ties to UTMB go back to his student days at Virginia Military Institute, when he was asked to escort a college benefactor during a VMI function. She was Mary Moody Northen, heiress to Galveston’s largest fortune. “Of course I had no idea at the time I was going to be a doctor, or even where Galveston Island was,” Hankins says with a smile.
But 26 years later, Hankins found himself drawn to UTMB by its historic mission of serving the poor, and by the vision of then-chair of Ob-Gyn, Dr. Garland D. Anderson. Recently, those two factors were integral to Hankins’ decision to stay at UTMB, despite ardent recruiting efforts of another Texas medical school. “Ultimately, I couldn’t leave my patients, and I couldn’t leave this department and what Garland had worked so hard to achieve during his years as chair.”
Hankins, a former colonel in the U.S. Air Force, said “I’ve always believed that everyone deserves quality care delivered by good doctors and nurses.” He added, “That’s why I stayed in the military for more than two decades, and it’s what I originally found so attractive about serving at UTMB.”
Since joining the UTMB faculty in 1995, Hankins has written or co-written nine books, 30 book chapters, close to 200 articles and 300 abstracts. He also serves as a consultant to the Air Force Surgeon General for Obstetrics/Gynecology and is the chairman of the OB Practice Committee for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
He previously served as vice chairman of the UTMB Ob/Gyn department, and has been medical director of the university’s Perinatal Outreach Program.
Hankins’ recent appointment as the Jennie Sealy Smith Distinguished Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology has him looking forward to the future, particularly to the opportunity to develop a focused research group in the biology of early pregnancy, and to lead the renovation and expansion of the John Sealy Hospital labor and delivery areas and nurseries.
And it is his love for his specialty that transforms the usually quiet physician into an animated speaker. “We have the privilege of being there at one of the most profound, joyous moments in a person’s life,” he says, eyes lighting up. “If you think about it, in our specialty, patients aren’t coming to the hospital because they are sick. They are coming to bring another life into this world. And it is a privilege and a joy to be a part of that.”
Hankins’ enthusiasm for his profession has inspired his students, who keep in touch long after graduation. “I have had several call me and say, ‘Dr. Hankins, I still hear your voice in my head when I am doing certain procedures,’” he explains.
Fortunately for UTMB’s students and patients, they will be hearing Hankins’ voice for years to come.
Dr. David Walker
Building on Collaboration
Dr. David Walker still remembers the thrill he felt in July 1987, when he became the new chairman of UTMB’s pathology department.
“I didn’t know how things worked, and I didn’t understand all the economics of running a medical department,” Walker said. “But I was excited because I wanted to be a leader, and I knew what I wanted to do.”
Initially, that meant setting some demanding standards for the department’s education and clinical services components. Today, those standards serve the department well and are a source of pride for the institution. Next, Walker turned his attention to developing the pathology department’s strengths in a research area that at the time was far from the mainstream — infectious diseases.
Between the early 1990s and 2000, the year the West Nile virus outbreak alerted the rest of the nation to the dangers posed by emerging infectious diseases, Walker built an internationally renowned experimental pathology team. It featured such legends of infectious disease research as Drs. Robert Shope, Robert Tesh and C.J. Peters, as well as a dedicated group of up-and-coming investigators from all over the world. Walker and his team established the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Tropical Diseases and they successfully laid the groundwork to begin development of the nation’s first full-sized biosafety level four lab on a university campus.
In 2001, in response to the anthrax attacks that followed Sept. 11, Walker organized UTMB’s Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases. He later led the effort to secure a $48 million grant from the federal government to create the Western Regional Center of Excellence in Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases, and today directs a UTMB-led coalition of more than 30 institutions as part of the effort.
Walker’s program-building success at UTMB has attracted national attention, and, naturally, interest from other institutions hoping he could produce similar results for them. Recently, a major East Coast university made him an offer that he admits tempted him strongly.
“It was an incredible opportunity,” he said. “But I have so much affinity for this place, and I would hate to leave behind all the wonderful colleagues I have here, particularly in the area of infectious diseases and pathology. Our infectious-disease community has always been marked by such tremendous collegial support, and abandoning that would have been one of the hardest things about leaving.”
Instead, Walker is looking forward to building on the foundation he’s established at UTMB, while at the same time taking his department in new directions. He’s particularly excited about developing a new program in endothelial cell pathobiology — the study of the damage done by disease to the cells that line blood vessels. UTMB’s School of Medicine has committed to hiring four new faculty members to establish a significant presence in the field. Walker is the recent recipient of a $1.25 million Science and Technology Acquisition and Retention (STAR) award from The University of Texas System, and plans to devote the funding to the new program.
“This effort’s going to have a tremendous impact beyond the Department of Pathology,” Walker said. “It’s going to involve groups from all over campus because it involves every organ in the body. There are so many diseases of the blood vessels that we don’t understand — the acute injuries that diabetes causes in the kidneys and eyes, the cerebral edema produced by altitude sickness, the internal bleeding produced by many infections — the field is just wide open.”