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NEW ORLEANS – A procession of performers in elaborate and colorful costumes heralded the beginning of the Student National Medical Association’s conference with rhythmic beats and song. 

Calm and collected, Antonio Igbokidi, MS-4, at the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University, gazed at the scene proud of what he and his fellow SNMA members had accomplished.

“It’s really a blessing and really a privilege,” said Igbokidi, who served as SNMA Chair of the Board of Directors for the past academic year. “Learning about everything that really has to do with making this organization thrive has been a privilege I won’t soon forget.” 

Sharing this moment with Igobikdi, who graduates in May, is special, said Founding Dean Stuart D. Flynn, M.D., who was one of the keynote speakers at the conference’s Opening Ceremony, which was sponsored by the medical school.

“I feel so grateful that he picked our medical school. He’s been a leader for his class. He’s been a leader for our medical school,” Dean Flynn said. “He’s going to leave a wonderful legacy of this is how you do it as a medical student not just at our medical school but at any medical school across the country.” 

More than 4,500 medical students and medical professionals came together in New Orleans in late March to take part in SNMA’s 60th Annual Medical Education Conference (AMEC).  SNMA is the nation’s oldest and largest independent, student-run organization focused on the needs and concerns of students of color who are underrepresented in medicine. Boasting more than 190 chapters across the nation including one at the Burnett School of Medicine, the SNMA membership includes more than  7,000 medical students, pre-medical students, and physicians.

Igbokidi was not the only Burnett School of Medicine student leaving their imprint at the conference. Several medical students were a part of panel discussions in different medical specialties alongside physicians. 

Rebecca Sobolewski, MS-4 at Burnett School of Medicine at TCU and SNMA Vice Chair of Convention Planning, helped organize and plan this year’s conference, which had more than 300 speakers and more than 100 volunteers.  

“We had a lot of involvement at AMEC this year which is extremely exciting,” said Sobolewski, who begins her Emergency Medicine residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville this summer. 

These young people are the future of medicine, Dean Flynn said.  

“This is the next generation of physicians from an underrepresented population,” Dean Flynn said. “It’s special to be able to come here and have the opportunity to greet them, thank them and just to challenge them a little bit to go out and make medicine better.” 

The Burnett School of Medicine’s mission is to create Empathetic Scholars® that can walk in a patient’s shoes and have a capacity to care a community and patients from diverse backgrounds, beliefs and identities. The medical school’s involvement in the AMEC conference is one way to encourage more underrepresented groups to go into health care. 

“We have to increase that component of health care,” Dean Flynn said. “It has dire consequences when you don’t. I love seeing these students and in the coming years I would like to see more of them.” 

The conference’s theme, “From Pressure to Purpose: Illuminating the Path to Excellence,” reflected SNMA’s mission. The organization strives to ensure that medical education and services are culturally sensitive to the needs of diverse populations and to increasing the number of African American, Latino, and other students of color entering and completing medical school.  

“We are important as it pertains to increasing the number of clinically competent and socially competent physicians,” Igobikidi said.  

As SNMA chair for the 2023-2024 academic year, Igbokidi oversaw the organization’s 14,000 members and learned about the day-to-day operations. 

“It’s really surreal and it fills your cup up,” said Igobokidi, who will begin a Psychiatry residency at UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience this summer. “It really makes you feel more engaged and more galvanized.”  

By title and organizational flow, I am a leader. With that realization, I often turn my inclination for introspection to my leadership, to me as a leader. What I continue to find is that I am not where I would like to be. I want to, can, and will grow as a leader. And to do so, I have a lot to learn, skills to develop, and ways of being to nurture and share.

What’s most important? According to leadership expert Mike Erwin, “Leadership is a relationship.” 

Erwin teaches that good leadership involves understanding and meeting the needs of others, fostering a sense of belonging and purpose, and empowering individuals to reach their full potential. To do so, effective leadership goes beyond mere authority and control, focusing instead on building meaningful relationships built on respect, communication, trust, and empathy. As empathetic scholars, leadership as a relationship aligns with, and perfectly informs our mission.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” That, for me, is sage advice to recognize, value, and emphasize relationships.

In some areas of your life, you are surely a leader. Answer Roosevelt and Erwin’s call. Be an empathetic leader. Build and care for your relationships and lead on from the heart.

Craig Keaton, PhD, LMSW

Burnett School of Medicine at TCU Director of Wellbeing

FORT WORTH – An innovative approach on teaching medical students is getting attention.

The Clinical Skills team at Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University was selected to present its Geriatric Escape Room activity at the 2024 Southern Group on Educational Affairs (SGEA) conference in Houston. The SGEA is a group of medical educators in the region who meet to exchange ideas, information, and promote evidence-based principles of medical education. 

“It’s exciting to present something that we are doing different,” said Sandra Esparza, M.D., Director of Clinical Skills at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU. “We hope that other schools can also carry this through, so we’re just trying new things that hopefully will benefit the students in the long run.” 

The Geriatric Escape Room was created with the safety of the patient in mind and giving first-year medical students the opportunity to learn how to spot potential hazards when treating elderly patients. 

“We can talk about hazards, and we can teach them about hazards in a lecture format, but when they’re exposed to an environment, and they can see those real-life situations they can retain it a little better,” Esparza said. 

Nico Martinez, MS-1, said one of the reasons he decided to study at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU was its creative approach to learning. “I wanted to join an environment that was doing innovative things that you don’t see elsewhere,” he said. 

During the Geriatric Escape Room activity, students walk into a room set up as a patient’s home living environment. They encounter a Standardized Patient (SP) who is trained to act out what could take place during a real patient visit.  The SP also offers feedback to the students after the exercise. 

“We really value our Standardized Patients,” said Clinical Skills Manager Victoria Dunson, MSN, RN. “We know that they have a huge impact on our students.  We want it to be as realistic as possible.” 

The Clinical Skills team’s SGEA presentation will focus on piloting this new way of learning as well as trends of gamification in medical education.  The SGEA conference will be April 11-13 in Houston. 

SCOTTSDALE, AZ (April 4, 2024) –  The Fiesta Bowl Organization named Judy Bernas as chair for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons.

Currently, Bernas is the senior associate dean and chief strategy and communication officer for the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

“Judy is a well-respected servant leader who understands how sports organizations are integral contributors to their communities. She will step right in and be a steady hand for our volunteers, our stakeholders and our organization,” said Fiesta Bowl Executive Director & CEO Erik Moses. “I’m excited about the well-rounded additions to our board of directors and the infusion of diversity in viewpoints and connections we have to guide our strategic decision-making.”

Under Bernas’ direction, the 29-member Board will oversee the governance, provide management oversight and strategic direction of the nonprofit organization in keeping with its prominent role in college football and extensive community and charitable efforts. During her two-year term, she will preside over the first-ever College Football Playoff Quarterfinal at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl in the expanded 12-team Playoff, robust charitable giving with millions of dollars donated back into the community and the year-long calendar of community events that also include the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, Vrbo Fiesta Bowl Parade presented by Lerner & Rowe and more.

“This is such an exciting time for the Fiesta Bowl Organization and we truly have the best board, staff and volunteers in all of college sports. I’m eager to support our returning and incredibly impressive new board members and work closely with our Yellow Jacket Committee, Ambassadors and volunteers,” Bernas said. “With college athletics in the middle of transformative changes, we are ready to implement new and innovative strategies to partner with our sponsors, conference and university leaders and importantly, all of our student-athletes.”

Bernas, who first became involved with the Fiesta Bowl as a board member in 2013, served as Board Chair-Elect and on the Executive Committee for the last two seasons. She has served on committees in nominating & governance, hospitality, charitable giving, strategic planning and audit and compliance.

A 40 Under 40 recipient from Inside Tucson Business and the Phoenix Business Journal, Bernas previously served as Board Chair for the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority. She previously served at the University of Arizona for 24 years at the main campus in Tucson and in launching the medical school in downtown Phoenix. Named the 2013 Woman of the Year for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Arizona, Bernas received her undergraduate degree from the University of Arizona and is currently completing her Master of Public Health at Arizona.

Read the news release here.

FORT WORTH – The interior floors of the four-story Arnold Hall at the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University are taking shaping.

Linbeck construction crews are nearing completion of the building in the heart of Fort Worth’s Medical Innovation District and are in the process of finishing administrative offices on the fourth floor. 

In episode nine of On Site: Construction of the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University hosted by Founding Dean Stuart D. Flynn, M.D., faculty members of the medical school and JPS Health Network leaders discuss the benefits of medical students getting early clinical exposure through the Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC) curriculum. 

“From the first day students walk into our medical school, they are assigned to a primary care physician,” Dean Flynn said. “You go to medical school to learn to care for patients and medical schools in the past withheld this for two years and had them sit in classrooms. Our students do a lot of classroom work and small group work but to show up at hospitals in their first year is a great complement to their learning.”  

Grant Fowler, M.D., Chair of Family Medicine at Burnett School of Medicine at TCU and Chairman, Department of Family Medicine, and Associate Program Director at JPS Health Network, and Tricia Elliott, M.D., Professor at Burnett School of Medicine at TCU and Senior Vice President Academic and Research Affairs, Chief Academic Officer, DIO at JPS Health Network shared their experiences working with students. 

“We take a significant number of the students and we’re proud of that,” Dr. Elliott said. “I’m excited that continues and they are embedded. They get to know the staff and they are learning continuity of care.”  

Construction of the new medical education building is scheduled to be completed in Summer 2024. 

FORT WORTH – The Class of 2024 at the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University matched into top medical residency programs across the United States. These future physicians will begin the next phase of their medical education as resident physicians at prestigious health care systems such as The Mayo Clinic, UCLA Health, Duke University Medical Center, and UT Southwestern Medical Center.

They learned where they will spend the next four to seven years of their medical careers during a Match Day event held at the Cowtown Coliseum in the Historic Fort Worth Stockyards on Friday, March 15.

“When these students walked into our school four years ago, they walked into the health care profession during the uncertainty of the pandemic each with a passion to help others despite that uncertainty,” Stuart D. Flynn, M.D., the Founding Dean of Burnett School of Medicine at TCU said. “This moment is the culmination of four years of hard work and dedication. These are future physicians that will make all of us proud. They will continue to learn about their patients, their illnesses, and themselves.”

WHAT IS MATCH DAY?

This year’s Match included 44,853 applicants who certified a rank order list (“active applicants”) and 41,503 certified positions in 6,395 residency training programs, according to NMRP.

There continues to be more medical school graduates than residency slots making the process extremely competitive.

Sophia Wix, MS-4 at Burnett School of Medicine, landed a highly competitive residency in dermatology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

“I’m just so grateful that I did match,” Wix said. “The field just lends itself to someone who loves research and wants to contribute to the cutting edge of the field.”

RESIDENCY MATCHES BY SPECIALTY

Burnett School of Medicine students will be entering 25 residency programs in Texas, including 9 in North Texas. The most popular specialty was Emergency Medicine with 10 students going into that field. Rounding out the top 10 most popular specialties were: General Surgery, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Family Medicine, Anesthesiology, Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, Orthopedic Surgery, and Psychiatry.

STUDENT SPOTLIGHTS

Sam Sayed, MS-4 at Burnett School of Medicine, matched into emergency medicine at The Mayo Clinic – Rochester, Minnesota one of the most prestigious residency programs in the country.

“Coming from where I come from it’s hard to really even dream about this in a tangible way,” Sayed said. “I feel like I’m going to get pinched one day.”

The Burnett School of Medicine put a unique touch on the long-standing Match Day celebration at the Cowtown Coliseum. A trick roper on horseback provided a show before students entered the arena area to find out their matches. Rodeo athletes on horseback handed out the envelopes containing their residency match. Family and friends of the students along with faculty and staff from the medical school, were able to join the students in the arena to celebrate their match. The students were also given commemorative belt buckles as a keepsake.

“Medical school and the process to get here to Match Day is a roller coaster,” said Yolanda Becker, M.D., Director of Career and Professional Development at Burnett School of Medicine.

“After years of preparation they are about to embark on their life’s work,” Dr. Becker said. “This is one of the most exciting times of their lives when they will move on to the next phase of their journey and continue to learn and teach.”

Each year, fourth-year medical students across the country find out where they will begin their careers as doctors within the specialty of their choice at the same time. The National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) releases results to applicants seeking residency and fellowship training positions in the United States at 11 a.m. CST on the third Friday of March each year.

The NRMP conducts the match using a computerized mathematical algorithm to align the preferences of applicants with the preferences of U.S. residency programs seeking new trainees. Residency training for most graduates will begin in June or July.

The Burnett School of Medicine has been working with hospitals systems in North Texas to grow and expand graduate medical education (GME) slots. In 2020, we announced a partnership with Baylor Scott & White All Saints Medical Center Fort Worth for a resident training program that will eventually train more than 150 physicians annually. In 2021, the school announced an expanded affiliation with Texas Health Resources that includes support of GME programs at hospitals in Fort Worth, Hurst-Euless-Bedford and Denton with nearly 50 new slots. That annual number is expected to increase to more than 110 by July.

FORT WORTH – On Match Day, 60 medical students of the graduating class of the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University matched into medical residency programs throughout the United States. All students matched into recognized programs, including Mayo Clinic, Stanford, Vanderbilt, UCLA, Duke, to name a few.

READ MATCH DAY NEWS STORY

The National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) announces residency match results to all medical students in the United States at the same time on the third Friday in March. This year marked the largest Match in history with a record number of applicants who certified a rank order list, according to NRMP.

Here’s a sampling of where some of the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU graduates will be headed:

Sophie Wix

Hometown: Phoenix, Arizona

Program: Dermatology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical School – Dallas, Texas

Her specialty: “As soon as I started seeing patients in the hospital, I noticed that I was drawn towards some of the patients that had cutaneous manifestations of their complex internal disorders, and realized I really enjoyed studying the skin,” Wix said.

Her inspiration: Her late grandma, she called ‘Tutu,” always wanted to see her become a doctor. For 11 years, Wix has carried a book Tutu gave her as a reminder: “I would love to tell her, ‘I did it; we made it!’ ”

Her medical school experience: “I am so grateful that TCU gave me the opportunity to take a year between my third and fourth years to pursue my passion for studying melanoma.”

Sam Sayed

Hometown: Arlington, Texas

Program: Emergency Medicine, Mayo Clinic of Graduate Medical Education – Rochester, Minnesota

His specialty: “There’s just more to medicine than just helping people in their most trying times,” Sayed said. “At the end of the day, it can’t be about lip service when it comes to people. You need to learn your community before they even walk through the door.”

His inspiration: Sayed’s 16-year-old daughter got the honor of opening her dad’s Match Day envelope. She said: “I’m really proud of him.”

His medical school experience: “Navigating the challenges of a new curriculum was something was something that was very exciting to me,” Sayed said. “I am just so proud I could call myself a Horned Frog.”

Benjamin Jacobs

Hometown: Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Program: Obstetrics and Gynecology, Duke University Medical Center – Durham, North Carolina

His specialty: Jacobs matched at his No. 1 ranked program – Duke. He said the focus on empathy and communication at the Burnett School of Medicine was important to him because talking to patients is the “most common procedure you’ll perform.”  He said: “Our school really focuses on that and makes you stronger in building relationships with them, and trust with them.”

His inspiration: “I have all my family and friends, so I feel a lot of pressure, a lot of anxiety but I’m really excited for this moment and soak it in,” he said.

His medical school experience: “I wanted to see patients early and be able to be part of their care,” Jacobs said. “The early clinical experience at the medical school really gave me the opportunity to shine throughout my away rotations and become the best clinician I could be.”

Antonio Igbokidi

Hometown: Little Rock, Arkansas

Program: Psychiatry, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience – Los Angeles, California

His specialty: “Psychiatry is important because oftentimes we’re dealing with things that we can’t see on the outside, and the stigmas that come with it,” Igbokidi said. “A psychiatrist figures out a way to heal your soul.”

His inspiration: “I recently lost my father,” Igbokidi said. Match Day is a moment to share with loved ones and it hits harder when you are missing family members, he said. “Recognizing that he’s still watching over me makes this a little more special for me.”

His medical school experience: The school really allowed me to be an innovator: “Somebody who could find creative ways to solve a problem. That’s what medicine is all about.” If we want to provide the best quality care for our patients, we must be creative, be intentional, and go that extra mile, he said.

Anne Shirley Hosleton

Hometown: Chattanooga, Tennessee

Program: Urology at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine – Chattanooga, Tennessee

Her specialty: It’s difficult to get into some programs, especially the ones that have few spots like Urology. “Urology residency spots are pretty small in general, most of them are 2 to 3 residents a year,” Hoselton said. “So, you just picture all these different futures you have at these different places.

Her inspiration: “My parents are both in medicine,” she said. “I really grew up seeing my parents being very faithful to their work and what they did. They did a lot of home calls, and I would see them practice medicine in a community setting.”

Her medical school experience: “I was really attracted to the Empathetic Scholars® curriculum…and the importance of the human connection.

The Burnett School of Medicine at TCU’s annual celebration of completed Scholarly Pursuit and Thesis (SPT) research projects has been named to honor a Fort Worth family for its generous philanthropic support.

The Esch Family SPT Research Summit will honor John, Grainger, and Gregor Esch, whose endowment gifts are providing annual support to this unique component of the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University curriculum. The family created the Mary G. Esch and Mary N. Esch Endowment Fund in 2021, in memory of wife and mother Mary Norwood Esch and mother and grandmother Mary Guinn Esch.

“Research in all areas of humanity is vital to the betterment of life; but none is more beneficial or needed than in the medical area,” John Esch said.

John and his two sons have enjoyed a close and passionate relationship with TCU for seven decades. John earned his TCU Economics degree in 1964, and with his wife, Mary, set down roots in Fort Worth that remain strong today. The family’s connection to TCU has also remained strong. While older son Grainger earned his degree from Duke, younger son Gregor earned his 1996 Journalism degree from TCU. A mutual love of athletics, music, and the arts has led the entire family to campus often through the years.

Like many in Fort Worth, the 2019 launch of a new medical school attracted the family’s attention and interest. “TCU has provided Fort Worth with an incredible asset and resource with the rapid development of a quality medical school. The coming physical location in the medical district will magnify the impact even further,” explained John. The value of conducting a four-year research project and thesis particularly caught their eye. “We have the greatest amount of respect for the dedication, perseverance, and discipline that research entails.”

Why did my wife’s alarm go off so early this weekend? Wait, it didn’t. It’s just Daylights Saving Time. Depending on perspective and mindset, this “Spring forward” can be experienced rather negatively and take a physical toll, or it can be exciting, energizing and life giving, more sun and warmer weather. How do you experience time change, especially in the Spring? Your perspective could make all the difference.

Statistically, about one-third of the world’s population participate in some form of daylight saving each year, and the data from this shift can be alarming – props to neuroscientist and sleep researcher and expert, Dr. Matthew Walker for bringing attention to these statistics. After the Springtime change when we lose an hour of sleep, that following week there is an increase in heart attacks, stroke, automobile accidents, more injuries at work, even suicide. In case you are wondering, when we gain an hour of sleep in the fall, those increases decrease; there are less heart attacks, accidents, and suicide. Sleep is so important for our health and wellbeing, so is our perspective on getting the sleep we need, at least in the short-term.

Ellen Langer, Harvard’s first tenured professor of psychology, has an incredibly interesting study on real and perceived short-term sleep loss and its impact on performance. Healthy subjects slept in a sleep lab overnight. They either had a clock that moved slowly and told them they only slept 5 hours when they slept 8 hours, or the clock moved quickly and indicated that they got 8 hours of sleep when they only slept for 5 hours. Then, they took a test of cognitive performance and were asked to subjectively rate their level of sleepiness. Can you guess what the researchers found? If you perceived that you got the sleep that you needed (8 hours), you perform better and you don’t feel sleepy. If you perceive that you didn’t get the sleep you needed (5 hours), you perform worse and you feel sleepy. This is remarkable! Even if you get the 8 hours of sleep your body needs, if you believe you got too little sleep you will feel and perform worse! As Stanford health psychologist Kelly McGonigal PhD teaches, “the effect you expect is the effect you get.”

Here’s the take-home: Sleep is essential for health and wellbeing. We absolutely need good – quantity and quality – sleep to be healthy, feel good, and perform at our best. And, at least in the short term, if we perceive that we are getting what we need, we can feel great and function at our best.

The solution to sleep in your lifestyle is not that you can just change your mindset and sleep as little as possible. The solution is to prioritize the sleep you need, and – emphasis on and – in the short-term, this week, give yourself a little more time to take care of yourself in all the little ways that make a significant difference in how you feel and function throughout the day. Pick out your outfit the night before, give yourself a few extra minutes in the morning to get ready for the day, have good food available and easily accessible, and go a bit easier on yourself as your circadian rhythms synch with the time change. Even if you’re a little short on sleep, you will be strong in mind, which will make you also strong in body.

In all reality, you might lose a bit of sleep this week, but if you take care of yourself and your needs and prepare with a little more intention for your upcoming days this week, you can shift your mindset from lack to plenty. And that mindset shift can lead to a better transition this Daylight Saving Time and to you feeling great and having a wonderful week.

Craig Keaton, PhD, LMSW

Burnett School of Medicine at TCU Director of Wellbeing

Ever feel trapped in a cycle of busyness and stress? It can feel so hard to “turn it off.” Trust me, I know. Having faced it in my life and the lives of many others, I’ve learned (and relearned) a few important things.

Our bodies and minds are rhythmic. We move between higher and lower energy and activity throughout the day. We all peak, and we all valley. This is natural and healthy. Breathe in. Breathe out. The cycle of life goes. To have our “up time,” we all, require “down time,” breaks, and rest, but we are absolutely bombarded with information, impositions, distractions, and activating stimuli.

We live in a world of what Professor Cal Newport calls, “solitude deprivation.” Solitude is best defined as “the freedom from input from other minds,” and it is accessible to us all throughout the day, every day. Empirically, it contributes to peace and rest, recovery and rejuvenation, inspiration, creativity, and problem solving, even enhanced self-worth.

Free yourself. Skip the podcast, resist the urge to scroll, close your computer, turn off email, silence your phone, and just be – after all, we are human beings not doings.

Curiously search where you can get solitude, how you feel when you do it, and how you transform with consistent practice.

In the midst of the chaos, solitude just might be the sanctuary you need to rest, recover, and be well.

Craig Keaton, PhD, LMSW

Burnett School of Medicine at TCU Director of Wellbeing