From the President - Part 2 of 2

The cover story of this issue of the Texas Medical Center News is an interview with Dr. John Mendelsohn, president of The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Mendelsohn discusses the process - sometimes a long one - of taking a new idea in therapeutic care through the testing and laboratory stages and, finally, into the clinical setting. He speaks of the "unusual thrill" of seeing 14 years of laboratory work result in a treatment that will be of immense benefit to patients.

Academic health centers in this country are in the forefront of health care. About 5 percent of America's 6,000 hospitals are partly academic, and there are 125 major academic centers where schools of medicine have primary affiliations with hospitals. The Texas Medical Center is the largest academic health center in the United States.

The phrase "academic health center" itself defines the three missions of the Texas Medical Center - research, education, and patient care. The three missions ultimately benefit patients. Academic health centers greatly benefit their communities with, typically, a network of primary care. Importantly, these centers also have the most specialized services - intensive neonatal care, surgical specialties, organ transplantation, oncologic services, trauma and burn centers and much more. Finally, academic health centers also serve as "safety nets" for the community's underserved population.

Patients come here when standard therapies have not been successful. The research programs and clinical trials at academic health centers may well offer a patient promising new therapies. These trials are vital to medical progress.

Helping people regain their health is what academic health centers do best. Because of the world-class health care here - much of it stemming from research carried out here - patients come to Houston from every state and from throughout the world.

Keeping people in good health and helping them to regain their health is a compassionate and wise mission. The reward is a stronger society with vibrant citizens. They will support legislation on local, state and national levels to ensure the integrity of academic health centers.

We thank the many dedicated people who are studying new ways of treating disease, teaching the next generation of health providers, and treating hundreds of thousands of patients annually in this academic health center, the Texas Medical Center.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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URL: http://www.tmc.edu/tmcnews/11_15_99/page_03.html