Will McWhorter, senior practice manager for TDCJ’s Beauford H. Jester III and Carol S. Vance units in Richmond, has been named to the University of Texas System Employee Advisory Council.
McWhorter is the first Correctional Managed Care representative to hold a seat on the UT System EAC. He also sits on the University of Texas Medical Branch EAC.
The UT EAC is a selected staff advisory group composed of two representatives from each UT System institution that present information and make recommendations to the Board of Regents and System leadership regarding issues of importance to UT System employees.
The mission of the EAC is to provide a forum for communicating information and sharing staff-related matters between employees, the Board of Regents, and the Executive Officers of UT System.
In his CMC role, McWhorter manages all non-clinical activities in the units for a combined 2,000 inmates.
“We're here to support our providers and our nursing staff and our specialists and do as much as we can—from scheduling to grievances and complaint response to coordinating with our TDCJ contract partners and outside agencies—so our clinical folks can focus on high-quality patient care.”
Day to day, that means a wide variety of things, from reviewing patient charts to reworking schedules around security, to overseeing transportation for high-importance appointments like chemotherapy or transplants.
“It’s almost like being the CEO of a small hospital, just in a correctional setting,” he said.
In addition to supporting the CMC staff at the units, the unique setting affords him the opportunity to advocate for the highest-quality care for the inmate patient population amid the added safety and security concerns that come with working within the prison system, McWhorter said.
As much of an advocate as McWhorter is for CMC staff and for inmates and their health care, he is equally as much a supporter of his colleagues throughout UTMB. That commitment is what led him to his spot on the UTMB EAC.
The council is a 15-member team that represents every walk of UTMB staff members—corrections, non-corrections, onsite, remote, on all shifts, in all departments, etc.
“We encourage folks to reach out to us with ideas, with new thoughts or concepts with concerns, with issues, with complaints, things we've tried that they liked and didn't like,” he said, “so we can put that into one voice and mold it into a message that we can share with our leaders.
“It's very effective and gives our highest-level leaders some true perspective on the front line,” he added. “You know, when the boss is in the room, everyone acts a little bit differently. This gives us all the opportunity to be who we are and share the message we need to with the highest levels, and at the same time we have the opportunity to make sure that information flows all the way back from the highest levels into the community.”
McWhorter sees his own involvement in the EAC as similar to his role as a leader in CMC—to hear and to represent the voices of those without a voice, “to be the voice in the darkness for employees that elsewise wouldn't share their thoughts, wouldn't share their opinions.”
“That’s my goal there, to draw attention to those who need it and may have not had it before, not by any fault of the university but just because they didn't know they had a voice,” he said.
It’s a commitment he brings to the UT System EAC as well.
McWhorter calls his involvement with the UT System EAC—and his being the first CMC representative to do so—an honor and “the most humbling experience of my career.”
“I am in awe,” he said. “And I truly take great pride in it, and I thank our organization and the trust that they've placed in me with that.
“And I do want to be a force to be reckoned with on behalf of UT Systems and UTMB and that council,” he said, “because our employees deserve it, our teams deserve it, our university deserves it.”