As the world watched, the verdict of murder was rendered against the police officer in thedeath of George Floyd. As the jury was instructed by the prosecutor, “Believe your eyes and use common sense.” The power of a 17-year-old woman videotaping the more than 9-minute scene catalogued the event, a powerful tool as we all could ‘believe’ our eyes. And now this young woman lives with the burden of holding herself accountable for not doing more to save Mr. Floyd.
This trial and verdict are monumental for many reasons, not the least of which is that this is reportedly the first time ever a white policeman has been convicted in the death of a black man in Minnesota. We can hope that this represents an inflection point in our society’s introspection and accountability (unfortunately, we have heard/said this before). Just in the last few days, people younger than 18 have died being shot by police in Minneapolis and Columbus, Ohio, and as we all know, those two cases don’t even remotely frame this immense epidemic in our country.
Our school has the immense responsibility to train the next generation of physicians. It is imperative that we recognize the systemic racism that exists and address this as a public health crisis. We are immersed in another public health crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic. However, I am comfortable that we not only are capable of being leaders in both, but also we must address both now!
It is our opportunity to continue these efforts, working diligently to address racism from a public health crisis perspective. I believe this is critical to our mission and the society in which we exist. I challenge each of us to work together to eliminate health inequities and to strive toward health and racial justice for all. We all can be leaders in these efforts.
This starts by being unaccepting of the violence that the George Floyd case framed, as well as the ecosystem of access to and affordability of health care, living conditions, infrastructure such as public transportation and internet access, food deserts, etc. We must ensure that these issues are always addressed in our training and our culture from the moment a student arrives to when they graduate. In the public health mission to address and eliminate racism and related factors, it is imperative that our graduates are prepared to lead this charge.
In the near future she hopes to feed a portion of the homeless population in Fort Worth with produce from the garden located at the University of North Texas Health Science Center campus.
“When you tell people to eat better, they aren’t going to know what that is,” Jivaraj said. “You have to meet them where they are and understand where they are coming from.”
The Office of Student Affairs at the Fort Worth medical school obtained a garden plot through the HSC Community Garden, which Jivraj and seven other first-year medical students have volunteered to maintain.
“The garden is a good opportunity to be able to take my mind off of school and focus on something new from time-to-time and kind of embrace the outdoors,” Jivraj said. “Also, we are able to send produce to locals in the community so knowing that is also something that drives me to do it.”
When the medical students took over the plot in Fall 2020, there were already a few plants such as potatoes, corn, eggplant already growing. It was all harvested and donated to a local food bank and a research center.
Jivraj, a native of Miami, Florida, didn’t have a green thumb prior to arriving in Fort Worth in July 2020. Since her arrival to the medical school, she’s become an avid gardener in her spare time.
She regularly maintains the SOM Community Garden plot and so far, has planted Brussels sprouts, bok choy (Chinese white cabbage), kale, lettuce and greens on her own. Her classmates have also planted watermelon, squash and peppers. Once they have a big enough harvest, the goal is to begin donating the produce to the homeless shelters near downtown Fort Worth.
“The cool thing about it is that we are allowed to plant whatever we want to plant and distribute it to whomever we want,” Jivraj said.
That falls in line with HSC’s mission to use the garden to enhance university and community engagement, promote sustainable food production, and educate others on health and nutrition among others initiatives. One of the key goals of the community garden is to donate a portion, of at least 25% of the yield, to the local community.
The garden currently has 35 (4’x12′) plots that are maintained by faculty, staff and students.
The panelists included TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine Founding Dean Stuart D. Flynn, M.D.; Evonne Kaplan-Liss, M.D., M.P.H., visiting professor at the Fort Worth medical school and the Director of University of California San Diego’s Center for Compassionate Communication at the Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion; and Ilana Zago, a first year medical student.
The panelists gave insight into how making empathy and communication a pillar of the medical school in Fort Worth is transforming medical students educational experience and the surrounding medical community.
Hosted By Prescotte Stokes III, Integrated Content and Marketing Manager, TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine
Panelists:
Stuart D. Flynn, MD, is the founding dean of Fort Worth’s new M.D. school, the TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine. The school was accredited in October 2018 and now has matriculated two classes of 60 students each.
Flynn has led the development of the new School and built a team that is creating an innovative and patient-centric curriculum that will change how doctors are trained. In a supportive environment, students will become Empathetic Scholars®, training to be excellent communicators, active listeners, life-long learners and become valued physicians, colleagues, leaders and citizens in their communities.
Previously, Flynn served as founding dean of the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix. He also was a professor of pathology and surgery at Yale University School of Medicine for 20 years. While at Yale, he was an accomplished researcher, director of the residency program, a leader in the design and oversight of the school’s curriculum and founding inductee of The Society of Distinguished Teachers at Yale.
Flynn received his medical degree and residency training from the University of Michigan and completed a fellowship in oncologic pathology at Stanford University.
Flynn has authored more than 100 articles, books and monographs. He has received numerous honors including America’s Top Physician’s Award from the Consumers’ Research Council of America, the Bohmfalk Teacher of the Year Award from Yale University School of Medicine and the Averill A. Liebow Award for excellence in the teaching of residents, also at Yale. He also has been a member of the National Board of Medical Examiners Pathology Test Committee and USMLE Step I Test Material Development Committee.
Evonne Kaplan-Liss, MD, is the Director of the Center for Compassionate Communication at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Kaplan-Liss was previously the Assistant Dean of Narrative Reflection and Patient Communication at the TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine in Fort Worth, a new medical school program, which opened in 2019. She held the first Dean–level position in a medical school dedicated solely to training faculty and medical students to communicate more effectively first and foremost with their patients as well as with colleagues of other disciplines, the community, the media, funders and policymakers. Dr. Kaplan-Liss saw thenew innovativemedical school as a unique opportunity to transform healthcare by inspiring the next generation of medical students to be Empathetic Scholars®through embedding communication training throughout their four years in pre-clinical and clinical courses and within all patient encounters.
Prior to arriving at the Fort Worth medical school, Dr. Kaplan-Liss worked at the nationally acclaimed Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, where she was the Founding Medical Program Director.
Ilana Zago, MS1, TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine is a first-year medical student at the TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine. Ilana grew up in Southern California and graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences in 2018. Throughout her undergraduate education, she explored her passion for the impact of nutrition and lifestyle behaviors on overall well-being by receiving a Health & Wellness Certificate through the Exercise & Sports Studies program. She also worked as a health educator in a medicallysupervised weight management program, which solidified her desire to pursue medicine. Ilana aspires to continue advancing her knowledge, exploring lifestyle medicine, and delving into the Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship in the coming years.
FORT WORTH – Every Women’s History Month since the late 1980s, Dr. Velma P. Scantlebury, M.D., FACS, has had a full calendar.
“I look at my schedule and I see all this demand to talk about things for Women’s History Month and Black History Month,” said Dr. Scantlebury, professor of surgery at TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine. “But the bottom line is the education and the stuff that we need to focus on should be a continuum across the board.”
Dr. Scantlebury has dedicated her life and her work of 40 years as a kidney transplant surgeon to focus on educating and raising awareness for the health disparities people in the Black community face from kidney disease.
As the first African-American female transplant surgeon in America, Dr. Scantlebury’s story and passion to serve others resonates with so many people, according to Lisa McBride Ph.D., assistant dean for Diversity and Inclusion at the Fort Worth medical school.
“We are fortunate to have Dr. Scantlebury on our faculty because she brings a ‘lived experience’ that is unique,” Dr. McBride said. “She shares that experience with our female medical students often. Her advice to herself was that she had to self-motivate herself to be the best. Her story resonates with all of our student male and female–particularly if they want to pursue a surgery residency.”
‘You’re Going to College’
The road to becoming the country’s first Black female transplant surgeon was paved with a lot of challenges for Dr. Scantlebury, who was born in 1955 in Goodland, St. Michaels Parish, Barbados.
Her introduction to medicine was how most children meet physicians through Family Medicine.
“Generally, you don’t go to big hospitals it’s private practice or a family doctor so that is what I wanted to be,” Scantlebury said. “I knew I wanted to be a physician from the time I was about 8 years-old.”
The rolling hills and subtropical weather in Barbados, was a stark contrast to the cold concrete jungle of New York City and the borough of Brooklyn where her family would move to in 1969 when she was 15-years-old.
Her parents believed that moving to New York City would give her a better shot at becoming a physician.
“I knew I wanted to take care of other people and also choosing a career where I could be my own boss was important to me,” Dr. Scantlebury said.
At Prospect Heights High School, an all-girls high school, in Brooklyn, she set out to do all the right things to get into college. She joined various clubs, took some pre-med courses and did all things that would look favorable on a college application for a future physician in training.
However, during her senior year in high school she ran into the first of many roadblocks on her journey into medicine. A guidance counselor looked at her college materials and thought she would be better off doing something else.
“She told me that perhaps I should just get a day job and consider going to night school,” Dr. Scantlebury said. “She felt like I wasn’t going to be a person who would have an aspiring career in anything.”
That was her first encounter with someone offering her advice while also stereotyping her because of her race and gender, Dr. Scantlebury added.
“That was just her concept of this little Black girl from Brooklyn with a heavy accent and probably having weird clothes,” Dr. Scantlebury said. “Her name was Mrs. Blanchett. In my mind I can still picture her. She also didn’t give me any recommendations or guidance about going to college. But my parents said, ‘No way. You’re going to college.”
‘Where Should I Go?’
Undeterred by that conversation, she set out to apply for college on her own. She began by applying to a college close to home in downtown Brooklyn, Long Island University. She also applied to Barnard College, a self-sustaining entity under the Columbia University umbrella, in Manhattan.
She was accepted into Barnard College on a one-year scholarship, but she was offered a full scholarship at LIU. She chose LIU.
“Just making it out of Brooklyn was an aspiration,” Dr. Scantlebury said. “For me that was a hallelujah moment because I knew my parents were struggling to make ends meet. My main concern was not costing them any additional expense.”
While attending LIU, she held a part-time job to avoid being so reliant on her scholarship. Her path to becoming a physician seemed to be in clear sight.
“I made the dean’s list every semester and I was a biology major with a pre-med focus,” said Dr. Scantlebury.
With such high academic achievements in undergraduate education, she set her sights on medical school and aimed high. She applied to Mehary Medical College, Yale School of Medicine and Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S).
Although, Dr. Scantlebury was accepted into Mehary, a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in Nashville, Tennessee, the idea of moving so far away from home presented a challenge.
“Living in Brooklyn I didn’t see a way of how I would get to Mehary,” Dr. Scantlebury said. “My parents knew nothing about the South and I was thinking about how that would be a major undertaking.”
However, she was accepted into the medical programs at Yale and Columbia, which was only a few subway train rides away in Manhattan from her home in Brooklyn.
“I applied to Columbia as an afterthought because someone who attended my church was an alumnus,” Dr. Scantlebury said. “But I still didn’t think they would take someone like me.”
She took a moment to reflect back on the day she had her interview for the medical program at Columbia and it was much like something you would read in a book.
It was the late 1970s on a brutally cold day with gusting winds coming off the East River. She took an hourlong subway train ride from her Prospect Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn to Columbia’s medical school in Uptown Manhattan on 168th Street.
“I wrote this in my book that despite the wind coming off the East River I was all set,” Dr. Scantlebury said. “I think I used so much hairspray that day (on my hair) you could’ve probably cut yourself on it, it was so cold. But it was a great interview and I came out of there being positive and getting that letter of acceptance confirmed.”
But again, the stereotyping and disbelief in her ability to succeed would come from another educator, this time it was the Pre-med officer at her undergraduate university where she had excelled all four years.
“I went into the Dean’s office with my two acceptance letters from Yale and Columbia and I asked where should I go?” Dr. Scantlebury said. “The reaction was, ‘What? You got into Columbia? How come Jane didn’t get in,’ Well Jane was the White student obviously.”
“To let people know that there is still the concept of being a Black person and that there is no way you got into these prestigious places on your own merit,” Dr. Scantlebury said.
Struggles During Medical School
Getting into Columbia’s medical program would only be the first hurdle in a long line of obstacles she would have to overcome to realize her dream of becoming a physician. During her time at Columbia, there wasn’t much support for students of color, according to Dr. Scantlebury.
“The bottom line was certainly there was no support once you were in there. It was almost as if they expected you to fail,” Dr. Scantlebury said. “For me, as the only person of color who wanted to be a surgeon, I was constantly met with comments like you don’t have what it takes.”
Academically, she excelled at Columbia and she began to focus on the type of surgeon she wanted to become despite her critics.
The first surgeon she worked with was Dr. Barbara Barlow, who was the chief of pediatric surgery at Harlem Hospital from 1975-1999. She mentored Dr. Scantlebury during her hospital rotations during medical school.
“I wanted to be just like her I loved the way she operated and the way she took care of patients,” Dr. Scantlebury said. “She was responsible for having New York City put guardrails on windows to keep kids from falling out because of the high trauma rate. My goal in life was to become a pediatric surgeon and come back and take her job at Harlem Hospital.”
Another opportunity developed during that time. She met another male medical resident who was working on animal research. The male resident needed an assistant to help with performing kidney transplants in dogs.
“I happened to be in the right place at the right time.” Dr. Scantlebury said. “I took six months and did that research.”
When the highly acclaimed Match Day came, which is when the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), or The Match, lets U.S. medical students know if they matched with a U.S. residency program, or graduate medical education program, Dr. Scantlebury was left out in the cold.
Match Day is important because completing a postgraduate residency program that is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) is one of the requirements for obtaining a medical license to be able to practice medicine.
At the time, Dr. Scantlebury did not receive a letter of recommendation to apply for a residency as a surgeon from her medical school.
“Without that medical school recommendation, I did not match,” said Dr. Scantlebury. “Without that, no one was going to take a chance on me despite having excellent grades in surgery. I struggled.”
Becoming a Transplant Surgeon
Her excellent grades in surgery during her medical school rotations at Harlem Hospital were enough to help her obtain a one-year provisional residency at Harlem Hospital, with help from Dr. Barlow. With Dr. Barlow’s guidance, she was able to turn that provisional residency into a full residency in general surgery and completed her additional four-year training at Harlem Hospital as a medical resident.
“I saw it as an opportunity to prove myself,” Dr. Scantlebury said.
Under Dr. Barlow’s continued guidance, she was pushed to pursue a fellowship in pediatric research to give herself a competitive edge in becoming a pediatric surgeon. But once she began applying to pediatric surgeon training programs, she quickly realized that fellowship alone wouldn’t be enough to give her an edge.
“I was the only Black in the room,” said Dr. Scantlebury. “Most of the White men were applying for the second and third time and there were only 12 spots in the whole country for pediatric surgeon training.”
When she interviewed at the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Surgery and Transplant, she was told that her resume was not competitive enough to secure a job as a transplant surgeon. However, that interview led to her being introduced to Dr. Thomas Starzl, the pioneer of liver transplantation at Pitt.
Dr. Starzl persuaded her to complete another two-year fellowship program in transplant surgery to become a pediatric transplant surgeon. She went on to complete a clinical fellowship at the Pitt’s Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute.
“That opened the door for me to do transplant research. But when I got there Pittsburgh was doing a phenomenal number of transplants because of new drugs,” said Dr. Scantlebury. “One hundred livers a year and 400 kidneys a year. There wasn’t enough room to be in the lab. We were U.S. certified and had a license to practice surgery and we ended up taking care of the patients.”
Through that fellowship she was able to travel across the country performing liver and kidney transplant surgeries. From that point she decided that she wanted to be a transplant surgeon specializing in pediatric surgery.
“General surgeons did transplants but Pediatric surgeons didn’t do transplants so it made me interesting,” Dr. Scantlebury said.
Dr. Scantlebury remained at Pitt as a transplant surgeon from 1988-2002. In 1989, she received her Doctor of Surgery, becoming the first African-American female surgeon, she received the “Gift of Life Award” from the National Kidney Foundation and was appointed an assistant professor at Pitt School of Medicine. In 1996, she was given the Carlow University Woman of Spirit Award for being an inspiration to young women.
At Pitt, she continued to rise through the ranks becoming an associate professor, but even with all her success she still encountered racial obstacles.
“When you think about Pittsburgh, it’s still very rural and midwestern as opposed to eastern,” said Dr. Scantlebury. “Many of the folks there were like, ‘You can’t be my surgeon,’ and that sort of thing. The struggles were real.”
A Top Doctor in America
By 2002, things began to change at Pitt when she noticed her colleagues moving up into higher ranking leadership roles. She began to explore other opportunities, primarily in the South.
She considered taking a leadership role in New Orleans, but was more intrigued by the University of South Alabama (USA) that also had a transplant program. She was recruited by USA to become a surgical professor and director of USA’s Gulf Coast Regional Transplant Centre.
“They had a Black physician leading the program who had been murdered and then a White physician who had moved so the program was in limbo,” said Dr. Scantlebury. “That was an opportunity for me to relaunch that program.”
Dr. Scantlebury would spend the next six years of her career at USA as the only transplant surgeon on their staff. There was a level of harsh and open racism in South Alabama that she faced during that time, according to Dr. Scantlebury.
“People in the South were openly racist and they made no ifs, ands or buts about it from that standpoint,” Dr. Scantlebury said.
But, with support and word of mouth from the local Black community, she was still able to make a difference and save lives.
In 2003, she was named as one of the “Best Doctors in America” and later that year was inducted into the United Negro College Fund’s Achievers Hall of Fame. She also received praise for her work from the Caribbean American Medical and Scientific Association when she was given the Order of Barbados Gold Crown of Merit.
She was listed as one of the “Top Doctors in America” twice more in 2004 and 2006. Later in 2006, she began doing more work that she felt was important, which was educating Black communities about their risks for kidney disease and breaking down the myths about transplants.
She also worked with other transplant surgeons across the country and helped form the Coalition on Donation and the National Minority Organ and Tissue Education Program called Linkages to Life.
“You have to know your history and what your risks are because often times things are perpetuated through a family but not necessarily genetically,” Dr. Scantlebury said. “You have to talk about it and know your numbers, know your cholesterol and understand your risk factors. Understand what put you in that position and what needs to be done about it.”
By 2008, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) changed the rules of having one surgeon being able to remove a kidney from a living donor and put it into the recipient. This meant USA would have to hire another transplant surgeon to assist Dr. Scantlebury to continue their program.
“I was a single surgeon so I couldn’t do both. I had to bring someone from University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital (UAB), which was four hours away from Mobile in Birmingham,” Dr. Scantlebury said.
USA eventually dissolved their transplant program.
Paving the Way for Future Physicians
In 2008, she moved on to Delaware where she became the director of the kidney transplant program at Christiana Care Health System. She remained there until she ended her career as a transplant surgeon in October 2020.
Now, when she’s not traveling the country giving lectures or helping with a medical mission in her homeland of Barbados, you can find Dr. Scantlebury in Fort Worth working to build the next generation of physicians and Empathetic Scholars at the TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine.
Her presence is impactful beyond measure, according to Dr. McBride.
“The fact that our students are being taught by the first African-American female Transplant Surgeon does not go unnoticed by our medical students or Dean Stuart Flynn,” said Dr. McBride. “She is soft-spoken, but is powerful, knowledgeable and most importantly serves as a mentor and role model for our medical students. “
Dr. Scantlebury doesn’t take the Fort Worth medical school’s mission lightly or her role in helping shape the medical training of future physicians.
“We have a lot of things to be grateful for when it comes to those who have paved the way before us,” Dr. Scantlebury said. “But when I think about the social inequities we have to realize that there are opportunities out there and that we all have potential. We all need to have that potential fostered and developed and recognized and given an opportunity to excel.”
FORT WORTH – For their first in-person class since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, second-year medical students saw human anatomy from a whole new perspective.
“The technology is amazing,” said Ruthvik Allala, a second-year medical student at the TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine. “With cadavers you have a lot of variability in between because it’s different bodies. With the HoloLens you see a textbook version of what you would see if there was a perfect anatomical representation of something. It makes it easier to understand within a broad scope. Having the chance to do both is going to be great for medical students going forward.”
The experience was the first of 40 Learning and Pondering Sessions (LeAPS) during Phase 2 of medical school.
In LeAPS, the 60 medical students are put into small groups once every week where they can focus on connections between the basic sciences and clinical sciences in a supportive team-based learning environment.
“They are learning about their Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC) curriculum as well as spiraling in basic science from the first year,” said Whitney LeFevre, M.D., assistant professor at TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine.
The first LeAPS was titled, “When One Patient Becomes Two,” and was centered around pregnancy and the newborn baby.
The students rotated through four hour-long sessions where they took part in interactive discussions about getting pregnant and the first trimester; simulation of a female patient in active labor; a postpartum visit with a mother and child; and a newborn baby experiencing problems post-delivery.
“I think our students are really lucky that they get clinical learning a few days each week from day one,” Dr. LeFevre said. “Now in Phase 2, we’ve sort of flipped that and they are in the clinical learning environment most of the time and we only have them one half day” where we can combine all of the learning.
Module 1: Getting Pregnant and The First Trimester
The medical students were presented with three different cases: a female patient and her spouse who have hopes of conceiving a child; a pregnant patient who is no longer with her spouse; and a follow-up visit after counseling.
“It helps them (medical students) understand that having a healthy mom helps you have a healthy baby,” Dr. Lefevre said.
The students discussed counseling, which is often referred to as preconception care. The goal is to optimize, whenever possible, a woman’s health and knowledge before planning and conceiving a pregnancy in order to eliminate, or at least reduce, the risk associated with pregnancy for the woman and her future baby.
On the flip side, if pregnancy is not desired during this type of counseling, the students learned how current contraceptive use and options can be discussed to assist the patient in identifying the most appropriate method for her and to reduce the potential for an unplanned pregnancy.
The session also covered difficult counseling topics, like discussing abortion options if the patient is experiencing pregnancy issues or complications.
“What that really tells us is that there are other factors that really play into a patient’s decision or the way they decide to do something,” said Kavneet Kaur, a second-year medical student at the Fort Worth M.D. School. “Our role as a medical provider is to be there for them and to support them and also find out what those factors are so we can get them the appropriate resources.”
Module 2: Simulation of a Female Patient in Active Labor
Kevin Riviera, second-year medical student at TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine, delivers a newborn mannikin during a child birthing simulation session on March 4, 2021.
The joy of experiencing childbirth and delivering a baby for the first time is something most medical students never forget. For Kaur, she had gone through that experience one day earlier at her LIC.
“The great thing about LIC and being in clinic from day one is that I go to my LIC and I see a patient and I see a baby delivery,” Kaur said. “Then, I come in the next day and I do my LeAPS and we have a simulation of pregnancy and a delivery so I can relate easily.”
For the first portion of the simulation, the students were put into groups of three to four and each student was assigned a role: resident, attending or nurse.
The simulated female patient was 25 years-old and an A1 diabetic presenting in active labor. Her labor progress has been slow and she’s on Pitocin for labor augmentation. She also developed a fever an hour earlier and was given antibiotics. The woman has been pushing for two hours and now the baby’s head is finally crowning.
“As this is happening I’m relating what I did in my LIC and in my OB-GYN rotation,” Kaur said. “I know what I’m supposed to do. I know what I’m supposed to say to the patient. I know what it feels like so I’m more comfortable.”
The students also switched roles and went through a simulation where their team prepared the resuscitation table for a newborn after delivery. They also went over basic Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) steps to take if a baby has poor tone and is not breathing or crying at birth.
At the end of each session, the students debriefed with their classroom instructors to fill in gaps on both cases, answer questions and practice anything they wanted to practice again.
“They are seeing this stuff in clinic and they are starting to bring that into the conversations,” Dr. LeFevre said. “It’s great to see them start to put pieces together of things that they’ve experienced into the clinical learning here on campus.”
Module 3: The 4th Trimester and HoloAnatomy
TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine students use the Microsoft HoloLens™ and HoloAnatomy™ Software Suite during a Learning and Pondering Session (LeAPS) on March 4, 2021.
For the third session, the medical students put themselves in the role of a primary care physician.
The first half of this session focused on a two-week postpartum visit. The students were the primary care doctor for the mom and the baby and had even been present for the child birth. As the students prepped themselves to have a conversation with the mom, Dr. LeFevre wanted them to keep some points in mind for the visit: the main components of the postpartum visit; understanding the Phq9 and Edinberg Depression Scales, taking care of mom is taking care of the baby; and lactation resources for mom if she hasn’t been able to breastfeed.
“It’s sort of relating OB-GYN and pediatrics and family medicine that they are all doing weekly,” said Dr. LeFevre. “Seeing how they all kind of connect and integrate.”
The second half of the session used the Microsoft HoloLens ™ and HoloAnatomy™ to review some basic pelvic anatomy with the medical students. During the exercise, the students were asked to describe the blood supply to the uterus, tubes and ovaries, describe the course of the ureter from kidney to the bladder in the female pelvis and identify common landmarks during pelvic surgery to avoid that can lead to bleeding and urinary tract complications.
Seeing the anatomy come to life right in front of the students using the HoloLens is quite different from how anatomy is taught at other medical schools, according to Dr. LeFevre.
“It’s really cool how they can see the three-dimensional reality,” said Dr. Lefevre. “I learned anatomy on a cadaver in my first year of medical school and I never went back to it and then I was expected as a clinical student to know everything in a three-dimensional way.
One way to describe using HoloLens and HoloAnatomy together is like having images from a textbook jump off the page and give you the ability to look inside and around every layer of the anatomy in a real-world environment, according to second-year medical student Allala.
“You put it on and it’s pretty intuitive,” Allala said. “I’m excited for the future of it and I’m excited for our MS-1s (first-year medical students) because they are learning a lot of their anatomy through it and it should pay dividends for them and us and really push our anatomy knowledge pretty far along.”
Module 4: Newborn Exam and Respiratory Distress of the Newborn
Charna Kinard (right), second-year medical student at TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine, provides oxygen to a newborn mannikin during a child birthing simulation session on March 4, 2021.
For their final session, the medical students were introduced to a manikin of a 37-week newborn child.
While in the nursery, the baby developed respiratory issues two hours post delivery. The students were put into groups that performed the steps of a newborn exam.
“As a baby is born and as they grow physiologically they’re having changes that are happening to them as they develop,” Kaur said. “Being able to understand the differences from when they are one-month-old to three-months-old and the different reflexes they should be having and those small details from the developmental milestones that’s what we were trying to get.”
They also had to learn to identify signs of distress in a newborn to wrap up their session.
“All of these LeAPS are just a great way for them to start pulling those pieces together and seeing how we think about patients clinically,” Dr. LeFevre said.
FORT WORTH – Gifts from family, friends, and colleagues have ensured that a name synonymous with excellence in cardiovascular medicine will forever be attached to the School of Medicine. TheRobert S. Capper, MD, Endowed Scholarship has been created to honor the career accomplishments of Dr. Robert Capper, father of School of Medicine Chair of Clinical Sciences Dr. David Capper.
In a career spanning seven decades, Dr. Capper was a pioneer of interventional cardiology, opening a private practice in 1964 and soon thereafter conducting the first interventional cardiology procedure in Fort Worth. Dr. Capper later founded Consultants in Cardiology, a large practice group that recently changed its name to Texas Health Heart & Vascular Specialists.
“Scholarships are vital to our school and make a tremendous difference in a student’s life,” said David Capper, M.D., Chair of Clinical Sciences. “We created this fund to benefit students who, like my father, have a passion for patient-centered care and benefit from financial assistance to fulfill their dreams of becoming a physician. My dad still feels a great indebtedness to the generous donors who contributed for his own medical scholarship. I am grateful and humbled to share this fund with our students.”
In addition to his clinical career, Dr. Robert Capper and his wife, Joyce, volunteered their time to multiple community organizations. Most notably, Dr. Capper (pictured above) chaired the 2004-05 philanthropic campaign behind construction of the Texas Health Harris Methodist Heart Center.
The scholarship will support its first medical student in the 2022-23 academic year.
FORT WORTH – TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine faculty members April Bleich, M.D., department chair of OB-GYN; Kelly Pagidas, M.D., department chair of Medical Education; and Shanna Combs, M.D., assistant professor and OB-GYN Clerkship Director, joined us for a discussion about the steps women can take to protect themselves from long-term reproductive health problems.
During the discussion the trio discussed how women can take control of their overall health by knowing the signs of problems developing in their reproductive health.
You can watch the full discussion below.
Here is a list of resources women can use to get more information about women’s reproductive health:
FORT WORTH – A donor couple who wishes to remain anonymous has provided a generous gift to the second class of medical students at the TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine in Fort Worth. The anonymous donors have funded tuition for the 2021-22 academic year for the entire class of 60 students at the School of Medicine in addition to previous anonymous gifts to the school.
This second class of students, who started medical school in July 2020, will have their second year paid for by the donors. The first class of students, who began medical school in July 2019, received a generous gift from Paul Dorman to fund their first year.
“On the heels of Mr. Dorman’s gift for the first class, this gift is truly transformational for these students,” said Founding Dean Stuart D. Flynn, M.D. “I am truly honored and humbled by this tremendous gift to our students that will have a momentous impact on their trajectory and future.”
The average medical school student graduates with more than $250,000 in debt. This can limit their choice in which area of medicine they would like to pursue for their residency. It also weighs heavily on a student who has already attended approximately 20 years of schooling.
“This generous gift will change the lives of these students,” said Texas Christian University Chancellor Victor J. Boschini, Jr. “Medical school is challenging enough. This gift will alleviate some of the burden of debt as our students focus on learning and leading in providing capable and compassionate patient care. I am so grateful for this extraordinary gift to these future physicians.”
The students of the Class of 2024 recently were told of the gift. “The first year of medical school is hard, and with the pandemic, this has even been harder,” said student Lauren Moore. “This gift means so much. I’m so grateful.”
Student Sam Sayed added, “I’m speechless as well. But I know this just makes me want to work harder to make the school and my classmates proud. And I’m incredibly grateful.”
FORT WORTH – TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine assistant professor Lori Atkins, M.D., along with special guests City of Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price and Fort Worth native and Juneteenth activist Opal Lee were guests on FWMD LIVE on March 16 giving advice to women about staying fit over the age of 50.
During the discussion trio discussed how women can fight back against aging, weight gain, hormonal changes and improve their overall health. They also shared some tips on how they manage their personal health on a daily basis.
You can watch the full discussion below.
Here is a list of resources women can stay active and engaged in the Fort Worth community:
Mohanakrishnan Sathyamoorthy, M.D., professor and chair of internal medicine at the TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine, visited with Fox 4 and explained how behaviors can change for those who have received the full vaccination against COVID-19.He told the news outlet that he sees three major takeaways from the recent guidance given by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
Two fully vaccinated groups of people can safely gather together indoors
One group of fully vaccinated people can safely gather indoors with a non-vaccinated group if they are considered low-risk
A fully vaccinated individual who comes in contact with a COVID-19 positive individual does not have to follow the original quarantine guidelines if no symptoms are experienced.
Sathyamoorthy also said that everyone staying the course, continuing to socially distance and wearing a mask in public gatherings is key.
“This has been a marathon of an incredibly stressful event for all of us — in this country and throughout the world — but think of us as in this marathon toward the last couple of miles, and we’ve just got to push through to finish this thing together,” he said.
