Twenty-one UTMB faculty, staff and students recently received UTMB President’s Cabinet awards for projects that promote outreach, education and improved patient care in the community. The nine funded projects total more than $200,000 and were presented during a banquet on Sept. 9 at The San Luis Resort in Galveston.
The President’s Cabinet provides financial resources that advance UTMB’s mission to improve health. The contributions of the cabinet’s 400-plus members, which include university friends, community and business leaders from the Houston-Galveston area, and UTMB faculty members, staff and alumni, provide seed money to launch initiatives designed to improve the quality of life in the community and beyond. For information on the President’s Cabinet, visit
https://development.utmb.edu/cabinet-intro.
Cognitive Rehabilitation for Cancer Survivors
Theresa Smith, PhD, and Karen Ratcliff
School of Health Professions—Occupational Therapy
A program to offer cancer patients in Galveston County a series of group sessions to provide attention and memory strategies, compensation techniques, planning and organization, problem solving skills and cognitive training. UTMB occupational therapy students will run the classes and gain experience in developing, implementing and measuring cognitive rehabilitation outcomes.
UTMB Adolescent Weight Loss Program
Dr. Kanika Bowen-Jallow
Surgery
The establishment of a multidisciplinary clinic at UTMB where adolescents and their parents can meet with a nutritionist, pediatric gastroenterologist, pediatric surgeon and a personal fitness instructor. Participants may also receive consultations to psychiatry and pediatric endocrinology.
Establishing the UTMB President’s Cabinet Fab Lab at Ball High School
Maurine Nichols and Rebecca Trout
Moody Medical Library and Health Policy and Legislative Affairs
Due to the success of the MakerHealth Space supported by a 2015 President’s Cabinet grant, this project will create a similar lab at Galveston’s Ball High School to provide higher level learning experiences to the next generation of health care, research and biomedical science workers. This fabrication laboratory (Fab Lab) will combine tools and materials for woodworking, metalworking, electronics, robotics, textiles, computers and soft circuits and will become part of the school’s career and technology education program.
Impacting Community Health through Pressure Ulcer Prevention
Dell Roach and Dr. Jillian McLaughlin
Nursing APS and Surgery
This special surgical intensive care unit quality-improvement intervention program will provide hospital staff, patients and their families with visual cues such as checklists, signage, patient risk bracelets and color pictures in an effort to promote awareness of hospital-acquired pressure ulcers (bed sores) and decrease the number of incidents.
HOPE Initiative: Mindfulness at St. Vincent’s Clinic
Karen Aranha, PhD, Jacob Moran, Elizabeth Wright and Alison Kelly
Schools of Health Professions and Medicine
The Student Healer Association, an interprofessional student organization at UTMB, plans to teach mindfulness meditation techniques for the management of stress, chronic pain and various life changes to occupational therapy and psychiatry patients at St. Vincent’s Clinic.
The BAMBI/School of Nursing Collaborative Project
Jaquelyn Svoboda
School of Nursing
The Baby and Mother Bonding Initiative at UTMB offers pregnant offenders the opportunity to live with their babies after delivery, rather than sending them away to family or foster care. This project seeks to improve maternal bonding through student-led educational sessions that will improve the mother’s knowledge of prenatal health and infant care.
Empowering Future Generations of Neuroscientists and Health Professions
Giulio Taglialatela, PhD, Ashley Nilson, Michele Comerota, and Andrea Dimet
Neuroscience and Cell Biology
Enhancing and expanding the current efforts of the Galveston Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience by providing funding for new exhibits, activities and educational materials for the group’s annual Brain Fair event and community outreach projects.
Parent-Based Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program
Cara Pennel, DrPH, Dr. Juliet McKee and Dr. Naiomi Jamal
Preventive Medicine and Community Health
To increase parent-adolescent communication regarding sexual health, this project will develop and implement a parent-based teen pregnancy prevention program. Classes will be held for parents of children ages 11-16, with UTMB residents and students facilitating each session.
Health-Fair-Kits-to-Go: Turning Service into Service-Learning
Christine Arcari, PhD, and Lynda Chowdhury
Preventive Medicine and Community Health
Expanding the current collection of Health-Fair-Kits-To-Go exhibits and educational displays to address health issues and create a website to measure the initiative’s success. The kits are for adults, children, teenagers and elderly at health fairs across the region.