School of Health Professions adds two new Chairs
By Lin Lofley
The UT Southwestern School of Health Professions will open the academic year with new departmental chairs: Dr. Temple Howell-Stampley in Physician Assistant Studies and Dr. Jeffrey Browning in Clinical Nutrition.
“Following rigorous national searches, we are very pleased that our search committees were able to identify two outstanding individuals from the rich UT Southwestern talent pool,” said Dr. Jon Williamson, Dean of the School of Health Professions. “Having this type of home-field advantage will allow Dr. Howell-Stampley and Dr. Browning to more effectively integrate their programs with Medical Center initiatives.”
Dr. Howell-Stampley, Professor of Internal Medicine, is a graduate of East Carolina University School of Medicine and joined the UT Southwestern faculty as a clinician-educator in 1997. After completing an internal medicine residency at UT Southwestern in 1996, she worked under Dr. Ronald Victor, studying the effects of obesity and the sympathetic nervous system on the development of hypertension in African-Americans.
Following a brief diversion into private practice, Dr. Howell-Stampley’s passion for patient care, education, and mentorship led her back to UT Southwestern. She was most recently Medical Director of the William T. and Gay F. Solomon General Internal Medicine Clinic.
Dr. Howell-Stampley has served as an advocate for improved patient care through organizational optimization. She also has been a champion for team-based care models that emphasize the critical role of advanced practice providers in successful health care delivery systems, and is a mentor for Cary Colleges, which is one of UT Southwestern’s Academic Colleges.
“The practice of medicine is evolving,” Dr. Howell-Stampley said. “The clinical integration of advanced practice providers into our teams is what we are all seek to expand. By doing so, we will be able to optimize the quality of care we deliver to our patients, thus positioning ourselves as leaders of patient care in our local community and around the country.
“Our participation in the Southwestern Health Resources network will also serve to expand the footprint of our physician assistant program, in both education and clinical care.”
Dr. Howell-Stampley praised her predecessor, Dr. Phillip “Eugene” Jones, Professor Emeritus of Physician Assistant Studies, for the remarkable work that was done over the past 24 years as the head of that Department.
“He was an amazing leader, not only here at UT Southwestern, but also on the regional and national level,” she said. “He built an outstanding PA education program that is well-respected and definitely one of the top programs in the country.”
Dr. Browning, an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and in the Advanced Imaging Research Center, joined the UTSW faculty in 2004. In his new role, he hopes to expand the reach of students into research areas.
“There’s definitely an opportunity to expand what we’re doing. The environment at UT Southwestern is outstanding and provides a very fertile foundation to expand our research efforts in the nutrition sciences,” Dr. Browning said.
A member of the UT Southwestern Medical School Class of 1998, he completed his internship and residency at University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine – in 1999 and 2001, respectively – and then came to UT Southwestern for a fellowship in gastroenterology. During a subsequent National Institutes of Health fellowship, he established a translational research program that uses stable isotope tracers to study metabolism in nutritional diseases such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Dr. Browning is one of UT Southwestern’s Disease Oriented Clinical Scholars.
“The importance of nutrition in health care is increasingly recognized,” Dr. Browning said, “from overnutrition and the rising prevalence of obesity and diabetes, to the role that undernutrition and malnutrition play in health care outcomes in the inpatient and outpatient setting. Ensuring that our patients’ nutritional needs are addressed can have an important impact on disease and quality of life.”
His goals for the Clinical Nutrition Department include enhancing research productivity and expanding clinical operations. A long-term goal is establishing a multidisciplinary nutrition consultation service at William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital that can combine the expertise of physicians and dietitians. Such a service would improve patient care and provide additional educational opportunities for physicians and dietitians in training.
