Volume 9, Issue 4
December 20, 2018

Happy Holidays from SBMI

Happy holidays to everyone in the SBMI Community. We hope everyone enjoys the holiday season as we all share time with friends and family.

The university will be closed Dec. 24, 25 and 26 and Jan. 1, 2019. SBMI will be open on Dec. 27, 28 and 31 with limited hours and limited staff so please call 713.500.3900 if you need any assistance during those days. Regular business hours will resume on Jan. 2, 2019.

SBMI Opens New Building

We are pleased to announce that SBMI’s new building space is now open after 13 months of construction. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on Dec. 19 to celebrate the occasion.

Click here to learn more.

SBMI hosted its fall 2018 poster session on Dec. 10 in the Fayez S. Sarofim Research (IMM) Building. Over thirty SBMI students presented research posters and we want to thank those students for their work and all others in attendance.

Please join us in congratulating the fall 2018 poster session winner – Laura Vincent (MS Student). Her poster titled “Potentially Inappropriate Prehospital Transfusion: Incidence and Consequences” is the winner of the Paul C. Boyle Award for Excellence in Research for this semester.

Click here to view event photos.

Members of the SBMI Community have recently achieved noteworthy accomplishments. We want to recognize them and applaud their achievements.

• The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released new data regarding national performance for the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) program. Based on those figures, SBMI's Gulf Coast Regional Extension Center well exceeds national averages. Visit our website to read a news story on the Center's high performance scores.
  
• SBMI MS student Christy Turer’s co-authored article was recently published in JAMIA. The article is titled “Algorithm to detect pediatric provider attention to high BMI and associated medical risk.”
• Yang Gong, MD, PhD, SBMI associate professor, was selected to speak at HIMSS19. Gong will lead a session titled "Reporting and Learning from Health IT-Related Events Toward Safer Healthcare" on Feb. 13, 2019.
• Professor Dean Sittig, PhD had a co-authored article that was published earlier this month. It is available online: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1460458218814893a.

If any SBMI alumni or current students want to announce a recent professional accomplishment in a future Academic Update, please share the details with Chelsea Overstreet via email at Chelsea.E.Overstreet@uth.tmc.edu. 

SBMI Accepting Competitive Scholarship Applications

SBMI has scholarship funds available. The Office of Academic Affairs is currently accepting applications for spring 2019 semester scholarships.

All SBMI students, both new and returning, are eligible to apply. Applicants must also be in good academic standing and enrolled for spring 2019 courses in a certificate, masters or Ph.D. program.

Consideration for earning a scholarship includes:

• Pattern of academic achievement
• Teaching and mentoring experience
• Leadership experience
• Community service
• Success in overcoming adversity
• Previous and recent publications in the discipline (if any)

Click here to submit the SBMI Scholarship Application. Please note that all submissions are being accepted in Qualtrics and no email submissions will be accepted.

The application deadline is Friday, Jan. 4, 2019 at close of business (5 p.m. CST). If you have questions, please send an email to SBMIAcademics@uth.tmc.edu or call 713.500.3591.

There is an exciting summer 2019 opportunity available and we want to encourage interested SBMI students to apply. A $1,000 internship program hosted within the Texas Medical Center’s TMC Innovation Institute. The program is focused on creating simulations and video games to assist in healthcare marketing, education, research or training efforts.

Potential employers will review the video games and the internship will be featured on a livestream TV show. The show will be about pushing the students through the ultimate internship while creating a serious game in the hopes of earning a job. Any students interested in applying can submit an online application.

Upcoming SBMI Recruiting Events

Several SBMI faculty and staff members will be traveling in the coming months to attend conferences to promote our degree programs. We invite any prospective students or alumni in the area to visit us during these events.

• Feb. 5 - Texas Tech University Health Professions School Fair in Lubbock, TX
• Feb. 11 - Feb. 15 - HIMSS19 in Orlando, FL
• Feb. 25 - Rice University Health Professions Fair in Houston, TX
• Feb. 27 - University of Texas at Austin Health Professions Fair in Austin, TX

• Professor Lex Frieden, MA had a close, professional relationship with former President George H.W. Bush. They worked together to craft and implement the Americans with Disabilities Act. In the wake of his death in late Nov., numerous news outlets interviewed Frieden as he discussed Bush’s legacy.

  • KPRC-TV Channel 2
  • Houston Chronicle
  • KHOU-TV Channel 11
  • Fox 26 News
  • TMC News
  • Disability Scoop
  • Vox

• Professor James Langabeer, PhD, was interviewed on FOX 26 News about the spike in accidental drug overdoses that tends to happen over the holidays and how to prevent drug-related deaths.
• Dean Sittig, PhD, was recently interviewed by two media outlets.
  • He was quoted in Politico when he discussed a new way to catch medical errors using real-time data.
  • He was also featured in a Medscape story about new cloud-based software that can be used to pull structured data from unstructured clinician notes.

Important Dates