Teri Tullous, team lead in the Department of Occupational and Physical
Therapy in UTMB’s pediatric inpatient and outpatient areas, received the
President’s Way To Go Award during the Dec. 4. Town Hall meeting from
Dr. Ben Raimer, UTMB president ad interim. Tullous, who specializes in
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) therapy, feeding therapy and children
with special needs, was recognized by the family of a premature infant
she cared for nearly two decades ago. The patient, Alejandro Acosta, is
now 17 and a senior in high school. He was joined by his mother and
father, as well as Chair of Pediatrics Dr. Joan Richardson and UTMB
neonatologist Dr. Rafael Fonseca, during the meeting to thank Tullous
for her kindness and compassion in caring for him when he was born.
UTMB faculty members Suzanne Alton, DNP, RN, FNP-BC, and Lisa Elferink, PhD, will be inducted to the Kenneth I. Shine, MD, Academy of Health Science Education at the University of Texas System Innovations Conference in February. The Shine Academy, which recognizes excellence in health science education across UT System health institutions, accepts up to 16 new members each year. Alton is an associate professor in the School of Nursing. Elferink is a professor in the Department of Neuroscience, Cell Biology and Anatomy, and is assistant dean for educational affairs and director of the Instruction Management Of ce in the School of Medicine.
UTMB has once again been recognized with the Get With The Guidelines—
Resuscitation Gold Quality Achievement Award from the
American Heart Association. UTMB was the rst hospital in Texas to receive
the award in 2014. It signi es that UTMB has reached an aggressive
goal in using guidelines-based care to improve outcomes for patients
who suffer cardiac arrests in the hospital. UTMB was also awarded with
the Gold Plus Stroke and Target Stroke Elite Plus Honor Roll. The AHA Get
With The Guidelines initiative is a continuous quality improvement program
developed with the goal to save lives by measuring hospitals’ adherence
to secondary prevention guidelines (pharmacological and lifestyle interventions)
for coronary artery disease, heart failure and stroke.
UTMB recently received official notification from the Commission on
Cancer (CoC) of its three-year accreditation. CoC accreditation, a quality
program of the American College of Surgeons, is the hallmark of excellence
and awarded to cancer-care programs that have demonstrated their
commitment to providing high-quality, comprehensive, multidisciplinary
patient-centered care through compliance with the CoC Accreditation
Standards. UTMB has been continuously accredited by the CoC since 1942.
Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association chapter at UTMB recently was recognized as the as “New Chapter of the Year” at this year’s APAMSA national conference in New York, New York. The creation of the APAMSA at UTMB was championed by Michael Phan, who is the organization’s president. Other officers include vice president of administration Thao Giang; vice president of external affairs Chris Nguyen; vice president of member retention and recruitment, Kayla Nguyen; and faculty advisor Dr. Quan Nguyen, Radiology. The organization’s goals are to promote the dissemination of information relative to Asian Pacific American issues in the eld of medical education; to explore and possibly resolve the unique challenges, obstacles and responsibilities specific to Asian Pacific American medical students and physicians; and to provide opportunities for Asian Pacific American medical students to give back to their community through service. Activities include community engagement, raising awareness of health disparities, fundraisers, faculty-student mentoring, high school outreach, health fairs and cultural celebrations.