Preventive Medicine Residency Program, Program Director University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) McAllen, TX
Opportunity
Preventive Medicine Residency Program, Edinburg, Texas
Program Director
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley is recruiting a Program Director for a new Preventive Medicine Residency Program at Doctors Hospital at Renaissance in Edinburg, Texas. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley is a multisite, academic, community-based program located in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. We offer university-based training at a regional academic campus, which sits minutes away from the Gulf Coast.
The South Texas area is a unique multicultural coastal region filled with rich history, wild life and plant life, and beautiful weather. This region is a birders paradise in a Gulf Coast area with beautiful and unspoiled wetlands and beaches, crowded only with birds, fish and dolphins. The program is located in a lush semi-tropical region that is at the threshold where Latin American and U.S. cultures meet. Though it is one of the dynamic, least expensive and fastest growing areas in the country the South Texas population has a number of economic, health and educational disparities. This is a place where you can enjoy the best life has to offer and make a difference.
The ideal candidate for this position must possess the following: (a) 3-5 years of experience as a faculty member in an ACGME accredited Preventive Medicine residency program, with 3 or more years GME administrative experience; (b) exemplary clinical skills; (c) an interest in research (clinical and/or basic); and (d) experience in teaching resident physicians and medical students in an ambulatory or inpatient setting. Applicants must be board-certified in Preventive Medicine and eligible to obtain a Texas medical license.
The individual in this position will:
Background:
The 75th Texas Legislature made a major commitment to improve education and health professional opportunities in the South Texas/Border Region by mandating the creation of a Regional Academic Health Center to serve the Cameron, Starr, Hidalgo, and Willacy counties of Rio Grande Valley of Texas. The Regional Academic Health Center (RAHC) is a research and medical education endeavor in which programs are directed at distinctive regional needs and conducted in affiliation with health professionals and educational entities of the region.
Over the past decade, the Texas Legislature and the UT System have collectively invested over $79 million in infrastructure and other resources to support medical education and research in Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr and Willacy counties. The facilities include three buildings currently organized and operated under The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio Regional Academic Health Center (RAHC) a medical education building and an academic and clinical research building in Harlingen and a medical research building in Edinburg along with a building in Brownsville for the school of public health under the University of Texas Health Science Center Houston.
Approvals from the University of Texas System Board of Regents (May 3) authorizing UT System Chancellor Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D. [2], to move forward with plans to establish a medical school in South Texas (in Austin as well) represents the beginning of the transition of the UT Health Science Center-San Antonio Regional Academic Health Center into an independent, free-standing, comprehensive and research-intensive regional medical school, with its own president and structure for South Texas. The schools will train a health care workforce in rapidly growing areas of the state with substantial physician and health professional shortages, increase biomedical research, and improve health care for Central Texas, South Texas, and the Rio Grande Valley. The medical schools will also lead to the commercialization of discoveries made by their researchers and significantly strengthen the economic vibrancy of their local communities and regions, while more importantly bringing these life-saving discoveries to the patients bedside.
Plans for a full-fledged medical school for the Rio Grande Valley have been in the works since the early 1990s, when legislators began documenting how the Valleys fast-growing and historically underserved region needed to better recruit physicians likely to commit to the area.
The Board of Regents publicly and explicitly acknowledged its commitment to the development of a medical school in South Texas, contingent upon the following factors:
Actions to date to support this initiative include:
The UT System is joining together with a regional coalition of community leaders to successfully transition the Regional Academic Health Center into the free-standing, comprehensive, research intensive medical school the Rio Grande Valley deserves.
It is hoped that by 2018, the freestanding medical school will:
Nationally, more than 70 percent of physicians typically end up practicing medicine in the same region where they graduated. By providing excellent medical education opportunities to students in South Texas, we anticipate that graduates will remain to improve the delivery and quality of health care.
The Organization:
The University of Texas System
Educating students, providing care for patients, conducting groundbreaking research and serving the needs of Texans and the nation for more than 130 years, The University of Texas System is one of the largest public university systems in the United States, with nine academic universities and six health science centers. Student enrollment exceeded 215,000 in the 2011 academic year. The UT System confers more than one-third of the states undergraduate degrees and educates nearly three-fourths of the states health care professionals annually. The UT System has an annual operating budget of $13.1 billion (FY 2012) including $2.3 billion in sponsored programs funded by federal, state, local and private sources. With roughly 87,000 employees, the UT System is one of the largest employers in the state.
The UT System has been utilizing the strength and assets of UT Health Science-San Antonio (UTHSCSA) in much the same way that in 1959 UTHSCSA used the strength of UT Southwestern in Dallas and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston to get its medical school off the ground. In addition, the establishment of the medical school in South Texas will be part of a paradigm shift from the current model of separate universities and health science centers spread across the state. The new medical school will be established within the new institution, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, which was recently formed with the closure of the two Rio Grande Valley universities (UT Pan American and Brownsville). The vast majority of the top medical schools in the U.S. are associated with a large university, and research expenditures generated from universities with medical schools are significantly higher than those of universities without medical schools.
The school of medicine will be developed initially through the use of facilities at the UTHSCSA, including four buildings that are part of UTHSCSAs Regional Academic Health Center in Harlingen, Edinburg and Brownsville. Today roughly 100 medical students receive part of their medical education at the RAHC and between 30 and 35 graduate medical residents study and work at hospitals across the Valley each year. With the new school of medicine, UT plans to increase graduate medical residents to 150 per year and place them in hospitals throughout the Valley.
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV)
A New University with a Long History
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley was created by the Texas Legislature in 2013 in a historic move that brings together the resources and assets of UT Brownsville and UT Pan American and, for the first time, makes it possible for residents of the Rio Grande Valley to benefit from the Permanent University Funda public endowment contributing support to the University of Texas System and the Texas A&M University System.
The new university will also be home to a School of Medicine and will transform Texas and the nation by becoming a leader in student success, teaching, research, and health care. UTRGV will enroll its first class in the fall of 2015, and the School of Medicine will open in 2016.
UT Brownsville and UT Pan American
The shared history of The University of Texas Pan American and The University of Texas at Brownsville goes back to 1927, when Edinburg College was founded. In 1973, Pan American opened a second campus in Brownsville, which later became an independent institution of The University of Texas System in 1991. Over the years, the missions and the identities of these great institutions have continually evolved to serve the communities of the Rio Grande Valley.
Now, the evolution and connection between these two institutions is coming full circle as UT Brownsville and UT Pan American are being established as a single, new university and medical school, with a single, new identityThe University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
UTRGV will combine the talent, assets, and resources of UT Brownsville, UT Pan American, and the Regional Academic Health Center, along with other resources, to create a new model of excellence in education.
Eleven colleges and schools will form the academic foundation for UTRGV, including:
When the UTRGV School of Medicine is fully accredited, a College of Medicine and Health Affairs will be formed that will include Nursing, Social Work, and Allied Health.
The Position:
Reports to: The position will initially report to the Chairman, Department of Preventative Medicine at UTRGV and the DIO.
Position Summary:
UTRGV School of Medicine is seeking a full time Program Director for a community based, medical school affiliated Preventive Medicine Residency Program located at the Regional Academic Health Center (RAHC) in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. The incumbent will have protected time for administrative Residency Program Director duties and development of the program, will maintain a clinical practice, supervise residents and teach medical students. Academic rank will be commensurate with the candidates level of experience.
Key Responsibilities
This is accomplished by:
Location
The Rio Grande Valley
The Rio Grande Valley (RGV) or the Lower Rio Grande Valley, informally called The Valley, is an area located in the southernmost tip of South Texas. It lies along the northern bank of the Rio Grande, which separates Mexico from the United States. The Rio Grande Valley is not a valley, but a delta or floodplain containing many oxbow lakes or resacas formed from pinched-off meanders in earlier courses of the Rio Grande.
The region is made up of four counties: Starr County, Hidalgo County, Willacy County, and Cameron County. As of January 1, 2012, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the population of the Rio Grande Valley at 1,305,782. According to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2008, 86 percent of Cameron County, 90 percent of Hidalgo County, 97 percent of Starr County, and 86 percent of Willacy County are Hispanic. The largest city is Brownsville (Cameron County), followed by McAllen (Hidalgo County). Other major cities include Edinburg, Mission, Harlingen, Rio Grande City and Pharr.
The Valley encompasses several landmarks that attract tourists, and is primarily known for South Padre Island. Popular destinations include Port Isabel Lighthouse, Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, and Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park. The Valley is a popular waypoint for tourists seeking to visit Mexico.
Quality of Life
The Rio South Texas region (McAllen-Edinburg-Mission MSA) is one of the most exciting places to work, and play. From semi-pro sports teams to a thriving arts and music scene, there is much to see and do here. Rio South Texas boasts beautiful beaches, plus more than a dozen museums, a nationally-renowned zoo and even a waterpark, making this region a family-friendly destination. Many outdoor adventures await you kayaking, canoeing, biking, birding, running, hiking, golfing, or exploring our many wildlife sanctuaries and heritage tourism attracts those who want to take a stroll down memory lane. Combined with a low cost-of-living, some of the best public and private primary and secondary schools in the state and nation, moderate weather and affordable housing, the Rio South Texas region shines brightly.
Texas is the third largest producer of citrus fruit in United States, the majority of which is grown in the Rio Grande Valley. Grapefruit make up over 70% of the Valley citrus crop, which also includes orange, watermelon, tangerine, tangelo and Meyer lemon production each winter.
Community Statistics
Safe and Secure Communities
Rio South Texas is safe, and among the fastest growing regions in the nation.
Rankings
2013
2012
2011
Cost of Living Comparisons
The cost of living in McAllen ranks consistently below the national average primarily because of low housing prices. The following table provides comparisons between McAllen and other U.S. cities: McAllen ranked as 3rd most affordable city in the nation to live in (Kiplinger, 2012)
South Texas Independent School District (STISD)
South Texas Independent School District (STISD) serves junior high and high school students who live along the southernmost tip of Texas, the region known as the Rio Grande Valley. The district stretches over three counties, Cameron, Hidalgo and Willacy, and overlaps 28 other school districts. When it comes to educating the next generation, the Rio South Texas region is prepared.
The district contains four schools that received gold, silver or bronze medals in U.S. It is the only all-magnet school district in the state. All schools are accredited by the Texas Education Agency and Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Over 95 percent of STISD graduates continue their education at major universities or technical colleges.
Best High Schools rankings:
Higher Education
With well over 70,000 students, and enrollment growing with each semester, the Rio South Texas region is rapidly emerging as the center for higher education along the U.S.-Mexico border. Several higher educational institutions serve the regions growing workforce.
University of Texas-Pan American: Part of the University of Texas system, UTPA in Edinburg serves more than 18,500 students. This four-year university offers undergraduate degrees in numerous subject areas. The university also has two Ph.D. programs, as well as several graduate programs.
For more information on one of the best ranked public universities, visit http://www.utpa.edu/about/overview/
University of Brownsville-Texas Southmost College: Situated right along the shared border with Mexico, UTB-TSC is one of the most historic campuses in Texas. However, UTB-TSC offers students in the Rio South Texas region access to some of the most modern technologies and programs. Here, students can receive two or four-year degrees, as well as Masters and doctoral programs.
To learn more, visit http://www.utb.edu/Pages/default.aspx
South Texas College: This growing college campus offers two-year and four-year degrees to more than 20,000 students in the Rio South Texas region. STC offers technical programs and partners with local industry to ensure the regional workforce meets the needs of businesses today, and tomorrow. STC has campuses in McAllen, Rio Grande City and Weslaco.
For more information on one of the fastest growing college centers along the border, visit http://www.southtexascollege.edu
Texas State Technical College: TSTC provides students in the Rio South Texas with a variety of options for Associates degrees. TSTC makes it easy for students to either pursue a career after two years through a variety of campus services, but also courses are readily transferable to most universities in Texas.
Visit http://harlingen.tstc.edu/ to learn more.
UTRGV has retained the services of Kaye Bassman Intl to assist with the recruitment for this position.
For more information or to refer a qualified candidate please contact:
Eric Dickerson, Managing Director, Kaye/Bassman International Corp.
(972) 265-5245
Ericd@kbic.com
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