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Vivian L. Smith Foundation Gives $250,000
to Advance Medical Training
The Vivian L. Smith Foundation was established by Vivian L. Smith, wife of Houston oil and real estate icon R.E. " Bob" Smith, to support innovations of all kinds. True to its founding mission, the Smith Foundation has recently committed $250,000 to The University of Texas Medical School at Houston to help advance training innovations for future physicians.
The new Surgical and Clinical Skills Center at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston is the first of its kind in the Southwestern United States.
Photo courtesy of Laerdal
The gift will support the Medical School's new Surgical and Clinical Skills Center (SCSC), a unique learning facility that will combine an established clinical training program with the latest computer technology and surgical simulation equipment.
The 14,000-square-foot center at the Medical School will support undergraduate, resident and continuing medical education in surgical and more delicate microsurgical training, as well as clinical skills training and assessment.
"As medical therapies become increasingly complex and patient safety, which must always be foremost in our minds, increasingly scrutinized, the kind of innovative learning the SCSC will provide is an essential part of modern medical education," said Stanley G. Schultz, M.D., dean of the Medical School.
"We are deeply grateful to the Vivian L. Smith Foundation for helping us create this entirely new, advanced learning facility," he said.
The SCSC will present trainees with the capabilities to learn and repeatedly practice complicated procedures, including surgical and microsurgical techniques, using simulated patients and manikin technology that mimic the drama of "real-life" medical care - all without discomfort or risking injury to actual patients.
Students will be able to saw, drill and place screws on model bones as they train in orthopaedic techniques. They will practice responding to emergencies like heart attacks and acute respiratory distress on state-of-the-art manikins whose conditions and responses to therapies change according to the "care" they receive. They will examine and interact with standardized patients played by actors in model clinical settings. And with each different type of training, videoconferencing will enable instructors to evaluate and critique students in action, as well as to educate physicians and students at other locations.
"This comprehensive center is the first of its kind in the Southwestern United States to combine both clinical and surgical skills training across such a multitude of disciplines. It is specifically designed to instill a level of excellence in medical trainees that will translate directly to the patients they will serve in their communities," Schultz said.
The Medical School aims to raise $15 million, including equipment donations, to build out and supply the SCSC. The Smith Foundation's gift will name one of the simulated operating suites and help fund equipment and resources for that suite.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston has committed $4 million of the total goal toward the build-out of the space, and corporate partners Alcon Labs, Biomet, Circon and Mercury Medical have all made donations of equipment. Along with the Smith Foundation, Stryker Corporation, one of the world's largest medical device companies, also made a major gift to the center.
In addition to the SCSC gift, the Smith Foundation recently committed $100,000 to the Medical School for student scholarships.
Over the past eight years, the foundation has contributed to the UT Health Science Center for scholarship support and ground-breaking research and training programs at many of the schools, including lead gifts to nursing scholarships and the new Center for Nursing Research at the School of Nursing, the Weatherhead P.E.T. Center at the Medical School, and the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases.
By Amber Buckley, Development