New UT Southwestern Moncrief Medical Center at Fort Worth enhances access to care for Tarrant County residents

Moncrief Medical Center
Left to right: Mayor Betsy Price, Charlie Moncrief, Dr. Daniel K. Podolsky, W.A. “Tex” Moncrief Jr., and Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, cut the ribbon during dedication ceremonies for the UT Southwestern Monty and Tex Moncrief Medical Center at Fort Worth, which opens June 5.

DALLAS – June 1, 2017 – UT Southwestern Medical Center dedicated its new Monty and Tex Moncrief Medical Center at Fort Worth today, adding more than a dozen specialty areas of its distinctive academic medical practice to the heart of Fort Worth’s burgeoning Medical District.

Designed and built to meet the health care needs of the area, the new three-story, 110,000-square-foot multispecialty outpatient facility will provide local access in 16 specialties to UT Southwestern’s innovative patient care, informed by state-of-the-art technology, leading-edge research, and clinical trials. The UT Southwestern Moncrief Medical Center at Fort Worth complements UT Southwestern’s existing local presence at the neighboring Moncrief Cancer Institute, which also encompasses a satellite of UT Southwestern’s Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in the region.

“We are delighted and privileged to be able to further expand our academic medical center presence and innovative care across the Dallas-Fort Worth region, and to be a part of the Fort Worth Medical District, which has demonstrated impressive impact and sustained growth,” said Dr. Daniel K. Podolsky, President of UT Southwestern, who holds the Philip O’Bryan Montgomery, Jr., M.D. Distinguished Presidential Chair in Academic Administration, and the Doris and Bryan Wildenthal Distinguished Chair in Medical Science.

Faculty specialists on-site will include experts in audiology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, urology, otolaryngology (ear-nose-throat), ophthalmology, optometry, dermatology, and neurology, as well as subspecialty areas of internal medicine, including allergy and immunology, endocrinology, and rheumatology. Physicians at the UT Southwestern Moncrief Medical Center at Fort Worth have hospital privileges at nearby Texas Health Resources Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth, as well as at UT Southwestern’s William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital in Dallas.

UT Southwestern has many ties to Fort Worth and the surrounding communities, ranging from historic affiliations with John Peter Smith Hospital, Tarrant County’s public hospital, to the recent formation of Southwestern Health Resources, an integrated network with Arlington-based Texas Health Resources that includes 31 hospitals and 300 clinics and spans a 16-county service area with more than 6 million residents.

The UT Southwestern Moncrief Medical Center, made possible by an extraordinary commitment from W.A. “Tex” Moncrief Jr., is UT Southwestern’s first named campus outside of Dallas.

“Mr. Moncrief’s $25 million commitment was instrumental in the development of this facility, and is an extraordinary fulfillment of the promise he made to his father to help take care of the medical needs of the residents of Fort Worth and North Texas,” Dr. Podolsky said.

Over the years, the Moncrief family also has contributed nearly $14 million from the William A. and Elizabeth B. Moncrief Foundation and from Tex Moncrief in direct support of UT Southwestern programs and facilities on its Dallas campus, including the W.A. Monty & Tex Moncrief Radiation Oncology Building. This is in addition to the $75 million given to the Moncrief Cancer Foundation to support the UT Southwestern Moncrief Cancer Institute in Fort Worth.

“My dad would be pleased that the Moncrief Radiation Center that he created in Fort Worth years ago has evolved into the Moncrief Cancer Institute and is now accompanied by the UT Southwestern Moncrief Medical Center at Fort Worth to help take care of the medical needs of the citizens of Fort Worth and North Texas,” said W.A. “Tex” Moncrief Jr. “UT Southwestern is known worldwide as a premier academic medical center that is fundamentally changing medicine through excellent clinical care, groundbreaking research, and the outstanding education that it provides the next generation of physicians and caregivers.”

Patient services at the new Medical Center will help reduce travel needs for existing UT Southwestern patients and provide easier access for future patients as the area continues to grow.

“We have many patients driving from Fort Worth, Arlington, Southlake, and Hurst-Euless-Bedford to access the kind of world-class academic care not available elsewhere in the region,” said Dr. Bruce Meyer, Executive Vice President for UT Southwestern Health System Affairs, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and holder of the T.C. Lupton Family Professorship in Patient Care, in Honor of Dr. John Dowling McConnell and Dr. David Andrew Pistenmaa. “Our hope is to ease some of those travel needs for specialty diagnostic and follow-up care.”

About W.A. “Monty” Moncrief

Mr. W.A. “Monty” Moncrief was one of Texas’ legendary wildcatters. In 1931, he drilled one of the first wells in the East Texas oil field and made a major discovery extending the field. The Lathrop well came in at 18,000 barrels a day. The market was flooded with East Texas oil. Moncrief and his partners decided to sell their East Texas interest for $2.5 million. It later sold for over $37 million to Standard Oil Company. Mr. Moncrief then used the funds from the sale of his East Texas property to discover other major fields in West Texas, Florida, and Louisiana. 

About W.A. “Tex” Moncrief Jr.

W.A. “Tex” Moncrief Jr. was born in 1920 in Fort Worth, and later graduated from the University of Texas in 1942 with a degree in petroleum engineering. After working as an engineer in the East Texas oil fields, he received a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve and was trained at Harvard as a communications officer before serving in the Pacific.

After the war, he returned to Fort Worth and went into the oil business with his father. It was Tex Moncrief who made huge discoveries of natural gas in Wyoming, as well as major discoveries on the Gulf coast, in Texas and Louisiana.

Mr. Tex Moncrief has also been a huge supporter of athletics at the University of Texas and Texas Christian University, where the field is named after him and his father. He served on the Board of Regents from 1987 to 1993, was named to the Texas Philanthropy Hall of Fame in 2001, and was honored as a Distinguished Alumnus by the University of Texas Exes in 2008. 

About the Fort Worth Medical District

The Fort Worth Medical District is home to Tarrant County’s major hospitals, as well as dozens of independent medical clinics. A 2014 University of North Texas study of the district’s health care facilities documented a $4.2 billion annual economic impact in Fort Worth, and $5.5 billion in Tarrant County, along with nearly 39,000 jobs.

About UT Southwestern Medical Center

UT Southwestern, one of the premier academic medical centers in the nation, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institution’s faculty has received six Nobel Prizes, and includes 22 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 18 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 14 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. The faculty of more than 2,700 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians provide care in about 80 specialties to more than 100,000 hospitalized patients, 600,000 emergency room cases, and oversee approximately 2.2 million outpatient visits a year.

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Media Contact: Remekca Owens
214-648-3404
remekca.owens@utsouthwestern.edu

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