Creative Community Engagement
UT Southwestern made a concerted effort to connect with the community this year in new and different ways.
Teams got creative with events to bring people together to learn about the transformative work underway at UT Southwestern. Supporters, civic leaders, community members, and the science community engaged with our expert physicians, scientists, and scholars at an inspiring number of different online events.
UT Southwestern caregivers commit to correcting racial inequities in health care
The UTSW community came together to show support for racial justice with a White Coats for Black Lives rally on campus in June.
As coronavirus cases surged in the fall, UT Southwestern researchers expanded the participation of the DFW COVID-19 Prevalence Study to allow anyone living in Dallas or Tarrant counties to register online to participate, a change from the previous invitation-only requirement. The study seeks to understand how many people have the virus and why some communities are hit harder than others.
In the spring, UT Southwestern launched the web series “What to Know” focused on local, regional, and international health care problems that initially focused on the COVID-19 pandemic but has since expanded to other relevant medical topics. Dr. John Warner, Executive Vice President for Health System Affairs, moderates the series by speaking to UTSW health care experts and leaders from other industries.
UT Southwestern successfully launched its Science Café biweekly community engagement series in 2020 to provide deep dives into the science of health care. Topics to date have included scientific observation, mindfulness, infectious disease modeling, sleep, neurosurgery, scars and burns, breast cancer, prosthetics and nerve injury repair, immunology of the brain, concussions, prostate cancer, and culinary medicine.
The sounds of science filled the halls of UT Southwestern Medical Center at Frisco on Saturday, Feb. 8, as hundreds of wide-eyed children and their parents enjoyed an afternoon of medical discovery at the inaugural medIDEAS festival. The event featured informational booths focused on our Frisco medical specialties and an art exhibit from Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute faculty and staff members.
In October, UT Southwestern hosted Science in the City, in conjunction with the annual behind-the-scenes lab tours program convened by The Dallas Morning News as a virtual event. This year’s special event, Spooky Science in the City, took on a Halloween theme and featured brain and cancer lab tours, spine care services in Frisco, and curated science experiments and activities that attendees could conduct at home.
Dr. Mujeeb Basit, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, engaged nationally with the Paley Center of New York for a panel on health technology during COVID-19 moderated by a New York Times health care reporter. Dr. Basit’s expertise in infectious disease modeling and risk assessment factored into the panel focus on how technology breakthroughs played a major role in forecasting, educating, and caring for the American public during the pandemic.
Webinars from the Experts
From culinary medicine to kidney cancer to the latest advances in multiple sclerosis, UT Southwestern experts share helpful guidance about managing health conditions during a pandemic.
UT Southwestern’s Milette Siler, an oncology dietitian and culinary medicine lead instructor, led a webinar discussion on healthy eating and cooking, providing direction on how to make healthy and delicious personal pizzas from her “pandemic pantry.” Among her tips were opting for 100% whole grain crust bases, low-sodium ingredients and, to improve cardiovascular health, eating two servings of legumes a week.
UT Southwestern hosted a virtual “backyard BBQ” conversation about multiple sclerosis with Drs. Benjamin Greenberg, M.D. and Nancy Monson, Ph.D, two of UT Southwestern’s leading MS clinicians and researchers. Joining from their own backyards, they discussed the latest advances in MS research and how to deal with managing the disease during a pandemic.
UT Southwestern faculty members Drs. Claus Roehrborn, Margaret Pearle, Jodi Antonelli, and Brett Johnson in September hosted a webinar discussion about kidney stones, including how to recognize symptoms and the latest research on management strategies. Check out past and future webinars at engage.utsouthwestern.edu under the online events tab.
