First UTSW job: Faculty Associate/Clinical Social Worker in the Child and Adolescent Division, Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic.

Best part about my job: I have enjoyed the variety of duties in my job. I work on a multidisciplinary team to provide clinical work, teach students, supervise residents, and have led projects or started new initiatives that have helped the Department of Psychiatry grow and expand our clinical services.

How co-workers describe me: A strong leader, excellent teacher, and expert in her field who is caring, compassionate, and a joy to work with.

Best UTSW memory: One spring afternoon, during a busy day in clinic at the Exchange Park Building (later called the Paul M. Bass Administrative and Clinical Center), Seventh Floor, tornado sirens went off. We had to move all the patients into interior rooms. One room was an old file room with stacks of boxes in it. Later, one of my patients asked me if we had done this “drill” before and I said, “No, this is a first,” to which the patient replied, “I don’t want to repeat this,” and I agreed.

My proudest UTSW accomplishment: I was recommended by a past lead investigator, Professor of Pediatrics Patricia Hicks, M.D., to oversee the UTSW arm of the fourth phase of a national research study following low birth weight infants. Dallas was one of nine sites. I was the only non-M.D. investigator on this project, called Infant Health and Development Program, Phase IV, Multisite Project, which ran from 2004-2006. Findings from the trial were published in the journal Pediatrics in 2006.

I’m really good at: Listening and being a healing presence for those in need.

Hobbies: Baking. I have baked and delivered pound cakes to faculty and staff in our clinic during the holidays for many years. This past year I gifted 75 cakes, and the number has grown each year.

Surprising fact: I have delivered the Graduate School of Social Work commencement address at three universities: UT Arlington, the University of Houston, and West Texas A&M University.

Final note: I was premed in 1973 at UT Austin and planned to come to UTSW. I learned some things about myself and changed my major to medical social work and earned a Bachelor of Social Work degree as one of the first B.S.W. graduates from UT Austin in 1978. In January 1982, I went to graduate school. This was during the time of landlines and typewriters. The big challenge was commuting one day each week by Southwest Airlines to Dallas to attend class at UT Arlington and continuing to live in Amarillo, Texas, and work full time. I earned my M.S.S.W. in December 1982. I finally found my way to UTSW in May 1989 and joined the Department of Psychiatry, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

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