Capra Symposium focuses on teamwork to complete institutional mission
By Lin Lofley
The key word for the 2017 Capra Interdisciplinary Healthcare Symposium was “collaborate.” Researchers and clinicians from across the UT Southwestern Medical Center campus came together to discuss this year’s theme of “Transforming Medical Education and Patient Care Through Inter-Professional Research.”
Dr. Scott Smith, Assistant Dean for Research at UT Southwestern School of Health Professions, hosted the mid-February event and explained to attendees that the symposium helps bond “the high quality of clinical care at UT Southwestern with the stellar research being conducted here.
“We’re committed to a team approach, and if we do it right then we’ll continue to thrive,” said Dr. Smith, a Professor of Health Care Sciences-Education and Research.
In a series of 25-minute segments, teams of faculty members who have been active in collaborating – sometimes for years – offered their experiences and observations to the audience in the South Campus’ Tom and Lula Gooch Auditorium.
Topics included collaboration models currently in use to study clinical reasoning, Parkinson’s disease, the role of dietary phosphates in the development of high blood pressure, and bone and skeletal muscle interaction in men with prostate cancer who are being treated with Androgen deprivation therapy.
The speakers discussed how they team with researchers from other disciplines in order to advance their studies, perhaps even to successful conclusions.
“By bringing together clinicians and researchers from different disciplines, we are anticipating they will find some common ground and then bring their unique perspectives to develop new questions with potential to move the science forward, and ultimately improve health care,” said Dr. Jon Williamson, Dean of the School of Health Professions.
The symposium concluded with a panel discussion that included the featured speakers, along with members of the School of Health Professions faculty. These included Dr. Fan Gao, Associate Professor of Prosthetics and Orthotics; Sandra Hayden, Assistant Professor of Radiation Therapy; and Dr. Palma Longo, Assistant Professor of Health Care Sciences-Education and Research; Dr. Karen Brewer Mixon, Associate Professor of Rehabilitation Counseling, and of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation; Dr. Masaki Mizuno, Assistant Professor of Health Care Sciences and of Internal Medicine; Dr. Venetia Orcutt, Assistant Professor of Physician Assistant Studies; Dr. Craig Rubin, Professor of Internal Medicine; Dr. Lona Sandon, Assistant Professor of Clinical Nutrition; Dr. Staci Shearin, Assistant Professor of Physical Therapy; Dr. Smith; and Dr. Jason Zafereo, Associate Professor of Physical Therapy, and of Orthopaedic Surgery.
The Capra Symposium has been sponsored annually since 1998 by the late Dr. J. Donald Capra and his wife, Dr. Patricia Capra. She was in attendance in February, as she has been almost every year, and heartily endorsed the topic.
“I have watched with interest the growing commitment to team-oriented care,” she said. “I don’t believe that you can overstate the importance of this approach to health care in the future, and today.”
Dr. Rubin holds The Margaret and Trammel Crow Distinguished Chair in Alzheimer’s and Geriatric Research; the Seymour Eisenberg Distinguished Professorship in Geriatric Medicine; the Sinor/Pritchard (Katy Sinor and Kay Pritchard) Professorship in Medical Education Honoring Donald W. Seldin, M.D.; and the Walsdorf Professorship in Geriatrics Research.
