UTMB Newsroom

 Galveston County Daily News, Oct. 15, 2008

In their Keeping Kids Healthy column, UTMB’s Drs. Sally Robinson and Keith Bly offer general health tips and advice on when to keep sick children out of school. “Be sure to keep your child’s school informed of current telephone numbers in case your child becomes ill or injured. School is important, but sick children need to be at home so that they can rest and so that they don’t cause other children to become ill.”

 Galveston County Daily News, Oct. 15, 2008

Lisa D. Cain, an associate professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, recently was selected to be a fellow of the African Scientific Institute.

 Galveston County Daily News, Oct. 14, 2008

All 86 medical units of the state prison system are fully operational, including a Texas City clinic damaged by Hurricane Ike, according to UTMB officials who manage the state’s correctional health services.

 DOTmed.com, October 2008

UTMB’s Marsha Canright and Dr. Karen Sexton are quoted in this article about lessons learned from Hurricane Rita in preparing for Hurricane Ike. “It looks like the emergency preparedness plans worked. Thank God we evacuated patients and weren’t in the position of trying to care for really sick people with no power. Our leadership had a plan and stuck to it.” Canright said. Sexton said she believes that specific factors are crucial for success, including identifying an incident commander with sole authority to make decisions, developing and communicating a set of guiding principles, setting patient safety as a top priority, establishing an incident command center that consolidates vital institution functions, avoiding delays in deciding to evacuate, identifying strategic partners, selecting essential personnel who are not distracted by personal concerns during the emergency and conducting periodic trial runs of emergency preparedness.

 Galveston County Daily News, Oct. 14, 2008

Dr. Michael Warren’s weekly column returns to the Galveston paper and he explains why a patient may have a long wait at an emergency room. “It’s not that your 99.6 degree temperature, your queasy stomach or your swollen ankles are not important. Of course they are. Professionals in the emergency room care about all the patients, and this is why they turn their attention first to those with the more serious injuries or ailments. Your local E.R. does not work on the same principle as your friendly accountant: first in, first out. If this were the case, someone needing a refill for a prescription would be seen ahead of the patient with symptoms of a heart attack.”

 BioRegion News, Oct. 13, 2008

UTMB’s William New discusses the rebuilding of UTMB’s research capabilities. “Our disaster planning really focuses on protecting three repositories - our data repositories, our freezer repositories with our data specimens, and our animals. … It wasn’t perfect, but all in all we lost very few freezers, and we lost very few animals, and the data - I’ve heard no reports on any problems with the data repository. From one perspective, a very successful plan was in place, very successfully oriented. Our plans were oriented more toward a three- to five-day downtime, with people coming back.”

 Texas Cable News, Oct. 14, 2008

UT System leaders and state leaders are scheduled to meet in Austin inside the governor’s office Tuesday to decide the fate of thousands of UTMB employees. The Galveston hospital says layoffs are necessary. Thousands of medical jobs are at stake. This could be a decisive blow to the island’s economy as residents try to rebuild a month after Hurricane Ike pounded the area. Now leaders must decide how to shore up UTMB. 

 Houston Chronicle, Oct. 14, 2008

The birth of Jennifer Ramirez-Hernandez, the first baby born on Galveston Island since Hurricane Ike devastated the isle, has received widespread news coverage. Jennifer, born at 8:46 a.m. at John Sealy Hospital at UTMB, was born one month after Ike hit the Texas coast. “Exactly one month after Hurricane Ike’s devastating assault, Galveston is celebrating a much happier arrival - a baby girl.” The story as written in the Galveston County Daily News: “Maria Hernandez had an inkling her daughter would be famous.

Over the past few months, friends and family members often touched her pregnant belly, and with a knowing look, told her the little girl growing inside her womb was special somehow, she said. On Monday, Hernandez found out why.” http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=bad519c93d3883ac

The news of Jennifer’s birth was picked up nationally by The Associated Press and was prominently posted on many Web sites. A video report showing Jennifer was the last segment on the 10 p.m. news on KHOU-TV (Ch. 11) in Houston. (no link available)

Hospital Galveston to reopen some beds in mid-November

GALVESTON, Texas - All 86 medical units of the state prison system are fully operational, including a Texas City clinic damaged by Hurricane Ike, according to officials at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston who manage the state’s correctional health services.

Hospital Galveston, which provides inpatient care and specialty services for critically ill offenders, received some flood damage in the storm but will reopen 32 beds in November, said John Allen, interim vice president and chief operating officer for UTMB correctional care.  (more) (more…)

 GALVESTON, Texas - Lisa D. Cain, an associate professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, recently was selected to be a fellow of the African Scientific Institute.

The ASI, founded in 1967, includes more than 280 members from 18 countries who have contributed significantly to science and technology. Members include world-renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson, physicist and designer of lunar surface ultraviolet cameras, George Carruthers, and Carlton Truesdale, an engineer who is widely recognized for his research in optical couplers, multimode fibers and waveguide processing.

Cain, an associate member of the UTMB Institute for the Medical Humanities and director of medical school enrichment programs, attended her first mixer as an ASI fellow on Oct. 9 in Washington, D.C.