UT Tyler School of Medicine interim dean shares progress update

Published 5:45 am Thursday, October 31, 2024

With an interim dean at the helm, the University of Texas at Tyler School of Medicine continues to make progress. From carrying out its mission of expanding health care in East Texas to steadily building a state-of-the-art physical school, the institution is making strides.

After UT Tyler School of Medicine founding dean Dr. Brigham C. Willis stepped down in September due to family reasons, Dr. Sue Cox stepped in as interim dean. Right away, Cox began meeting with the medical students.

In her role, Cox wants to focus on supporting the students from undergraduate, to graduate and those in residencies; recruiting high-caliber medical students and quality faculty and getting the school fully accredited by 2027.

“We know that if students go to medical school in a location, even if they leave for residency, about 60% will return back to that location,” Cox said. “And if we can keep them here for residency, 85% will stay in the area to practice, so that will help improve access to care.”

As 2025 nears, many milestones are approaching for the UT Tyler SOM including the completion of the new Medical Education Building.

The five-story, nearly 248,000-square-foot facility, which will connect the skybridge to the UT Health East Texas Hospital, will allow for hands-on learning of residents in the adjacent hospitals, offering physicians to train and practice without leaving the area. The Medical Education Building will include classrooms, simulation labs, clinical and operating room training spaces, and multipurpose event and lecture spaces for the UT Tyler School of Medicine and graduate medical education programs.

The medical school building will be completed by Oct. 1, 2025, according to Cox. The building will have an education and clinical portion. The clinical portion will be completed three weeks after Oct 1, 2025. After the completion of both sides, students will begin to take classes by Thanksgiving 2025.

The medical education program is divided into three phases: preclinical, clinical and scholarly activity. During preclinical, students focus on basic sciences. In the clinical phase, students do clinical rotations under the supervision of residents or faculty. Lastly, scholarly activity allows them to pursue their interests.

Other upcoming milestones include provisional accreditation, which the school is preparing for now.

In February 2025, the UT Tyler School of Medicine will have its site visit to evaluate its program for provisional accreditation. This is the next step after UT Tyler SOM received preliminary accreditation in 2022. During preliminary accreditation, the SOM was judged on its curriculum and plans before it could accept students.

To receive preliminary accreditation, the school had to meet 12 standards and 93 elements set by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education. For provisional accreditation, the elements are reduced to 49 because they have not started clinical rotations. In order to prepare for provisional accreditation, the SOM has to do data collection which takes anywhere from 12 to 18 months.

As part of the data collection, UT Tyler SOM conducts an independent data analysis from the students. They answer 45 questions about the school. The school then has to address any concerns and turn the data to the LCME.

During the site visit, LCME sends a survey team composed of three to five people to interview medical students, faculty, department chairs and those who work with the budget. Ahead of the site visit, everybody who will be interviewed has to review the data along with the pages related to them. In addition, they practice answering questions.

“They’re judging us real time on the quality of what we’re doing and what we’re thinking we’ll do for our clerkships,” Cox said.

Currently, the second-year medical students are doing their last course before starting clinical rotations. The course is called Uniqueness because it focuses on what makes humans unique. They are learning neuroscience, neurology, emotions and cognition. After they finish the course, they have a boot camp and start clinical rotations in January.

The clinical rotations include 12 weeks of medicine, 12 weeks of surgery, eight weeks of core, four weeks of subspecialty, six weeks of OB/GYN and six weeks of pediatrics, and then there’s four weeks of neurology, four weeks of psychiatry and four weeks of inpatient family medicine.

“When you’re a medical student, sitting in the classroom is not most of our cup of tea,” Cox said. “We want to be in the clinic setting, seeing patients doing things so they’re ecstatic to be moving to that. They’re loving their uniqueness course so far.”

Last year, the now second-year medical students started a longitudinal family medicine rotation. They would go one half-day every two weeks to a family medicine clinic staffed by faculty and residents. In January, they will be assigned to an outpatient family medicine. This may include clinics outside of Tyler.

In June, UT Tyler SOM welcomed their second class of first-year students. The first year students have completed their EMT training and have started their next course called Seasons. In this course, they focus on cardiovascular health and learn how to differentiate diagnosis based on age and other factors.

In addition, they are taking a course on balance. In this course, they focus on renal, pulmonary and some cardiology.

“The students seem to be very happy,” Cox said. “They’re adjusted to medical school quite well.”

Of the 40 students in the second first-year class, 34 have geographic ties to Northeast Texas, 20 are first-generation students, 24 are from rural or small towns, 16 are bilingual and one is a veteran. In addition the class is made of majority women. The ratio of female to male students is 70:30.

Before becoming interim dean, Cox was the planning dean for the medical school. After stepping into the role, she met with faculty, department chairs and plans to meet with medical students individually. She plans to continue with the goals in the strategic plan and the pillars outlined: education, community, research and clinical.

In the last three years, UT Tyler Graduate Medical Education has added multiple residencies including anesthesia. In the future, it plans to add residencies in pediatrics, OB/GYN, dermatology, forensic psychiatric and emergency medicine and family medicine in Jacksonville along with an intervention cardiology fellowship. With more residencies, students are able to continue on their education in East Texas.

“So what will be novel is making sure that it works and that we see in seven years that many of our first-year students and second-year students are out in the community practicing,” Cox said.

UT Tyler SOM received over 2,000 applications and interviewed 300 students for 40 spots in their second class. Cox is proud of the growth of the school.

“It shows us that our admissions process is working, that we’re delivering on what we wanted to do,” Cox said. “We’re [the] medical school for East Texas, and then we need to recruit individuals from East Texas.”