The Doctors (Could Be) In Austin…
UT missed its chance at a medical school more than a century ago. Now our time has come again. Here, see the resources UT already has in place and the successes from elsewhere it could replicate. Then meet the key players behind the medical school—and find out what it could offer our University, Austin, and Texas.
The birth of The University of Texas was an old-fashioned one—the kind before parents necessarily even knew for sure how many babies they were having.
In 1881, when the vote was taken on where to establish UT, it was like expecting one newborn and delivering twins. There would be a main campus in modest Austin. But the medical school would be in Galveston, the state’s largest and most prosperous city.
Austin wasn’t necessarily upset. This was state politics—the price of getting the main academic campus at all. Tyler and Waco had both wanted the new University of Texas to be located in their respective cities. Austin came to a compromise with Houston and Galveston that allowed Austin to get the rest of UT.
For decades, UT-Austin did consider the UT Medical Branch in Galveston its medical school, referring to it as part of the larger university in progress reports and official documents.
Even so, experts recognized early on that not having the medical school located on the main academic campus was a missed opportunity. Reformer Abraham Flexner, whose report on medical education forever changed the way U.S. doctors were trained, wrote of UT: “It seems a regrettable mischance that located the medical department away from the university. Were it placed at Austin, it would apparently gain in every way.”
That was in 1910. Perennial calls have been raised ever since for a medical school to be established alongside UT-Austin. But nothing has ever been executed.
Now, as Central Texas’ population grows wildly for the third decade straight, the enthusiasm to get it done feels higher than ever before. Leaders at multiple levels, from the state legislature to the city mayor’s office, from hospital to university, agree on the need. They have even started to pony up money.
Still, there is a lot to understand. Who’s behind this big new push? Where could such a school be located in a city where space is at premium? Although most of the funding has already been pledged, are county residents willing to invest in the rest? What do people and institutions stand to gain? Hover over the text, and it will magnify so you can explore the issues behind a major public-policy question and think about how your alma mater could or should change.
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5 Comments
It’s time has come!
People coming together to make a difference! Let’s do it!
no!
My name is Vernon Moore, III. I’m the Vice President of Finance and Chief Business & Financial Officer at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler (UTHSCT). I graduated from The University of Texas at Austin in 1983 and I’m a Life Member of Texas Exes.
The other day I was reading my current copy of “The Alcalde” and found your article on page 60 very interesting (The Doctors Could Be In…Austin). The most interesting part of the article was your reference and map showing UT’s five Academic Health Science Centers (UTSW, UTHSCSA, UTHSCH, UTMB, and UTMDA). The reason that I found it interesting is that UT has six HSC’s. UTHSCT has over 850 employees, which includes over 100 faculty members.
I know that the academic focus in Texas is metro centric. Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, and Austin gain most of the attention in Texas (occasionally Waco, too). But there are great things going on academically all across Texas.
At UTHSCT, we have three separate Graduate Medical Education Residency Training Programs. In fact, we just opened the first new Residency training program in Texas since 2002. Our physician graduates have the highest Texas retention rate at 80%. In fact, Dr. David Lakey, DSHS Commissioner, was one of our Faculty. We have almost 200,000 visits per year at our Hospital and Clinics. We are also Region 1′s Anchor for the new Medicaid 1115 Waiver that is currently being implemented across Texas.
We have a Biomedical Research Department that has a higher percentage of grant funded Faculty than any other UT campus. The majority of our grant support comes from the NIH. Our most recent faculty recruit was just awarded a $1.1 million STARS award from the UT Board of Regents (BOR). In fact, the UT BOR’s will convene their November meeting at our Biomedical Research Building and will tour our new Cancer Treatment and Research Center that is located within our new Academic Center, which they recently awarded an additional $21 million to complete the auditorium, student classrooms, and medical library.
Our new Masters program of Biotechnology just received its first cohort of students. These students will join other students from The University of North Texas and other schools who currently matriculate at UTHSCT.
I could go on about our contributions to Healthcare and Academics in Texas, but I’m sure you get my point. We are an important cog within Tyler, East Texas, UT System, and Texas as a whole. While we support a new Medical School in Austin, we also need to emphasize the importance of expanding medical education into the non-metropolitan areas of Texas. We at UTHSCT are working hard to pave the way to bring a medical school to East Texas within the next couple of decades. As a proud Texas Ex, I would appreciate if “The Alcalde” would recognize our campus in future articles concerning UT academics. Thank you.
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