From the President - Part 1 of 2

Each issue of the Texas Medical Center News highlights projects of the institutions in the Texas Medical Center that could only be done in an academic medical center.

Of the more than 6,000 hospitals in the country, only about 400 have programs that combine patient care with teaching and research and are members of the Council of Teaching Hospitals.

The Texas Medical Center is the largest collection of academic health care institutions in one location in the United States.

Several stories is this issue of the Texas Medical Center News underscore just how important the academic missions of teaching and research are to patient care. The goal of academic medicine is, after all, to produce the very highest quality of patient care.

The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (page 1) is beginning an important new clinical study of the drug Endostatin, a compound that has been shown in the laboratory to kill tumors by shutting down the blood supply which nourishes them. This therapy has excited many researchers, but they caution that any final demonstration of success in humans may be a few years away.

A pilot study at Texas Children's Hospital (page 9) will test a vaccine that may prevent the recurrence of neuroblastomas - tumors typically found in the abdomen and chest - in children. Initially the tumors may be treated with chemotherapy, but if the tumors recur, the prognosis is grim. The vaccine, made at Baylor College of Medicine, is made from tumor cells altered by gene therapy in order to stimulate the immune system.

These clinical trials are just two projects which have come about after thousands of hours of basic science research in laboratories. It is this research that is a cornerstone in academic health care.

Closely associated with the research that is going on in academic medical centers is the art of teaching. It is this academic health care mission that ensures future generations of health care providers and researchers. In the Texas Medical Center, there are two medical schools, four colleges of nursing, a magnet high school dedicated to the study of health professions, teaching programs in biomedical sciences, public health and virtually all of the allied health fields. Each year, thousands of graduates take what they have learned and apply it within our community and in places throughout our country and in some far corners of the globe.

Next Issue: The Mission of Patient Care in an Academic Health Center

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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URL: http://www.tmc.edu/tmcnews/11_01_99/page_05.html