Pat Ireland Nixon didn’t go out of his way to stir up trouble. He simply followed his moral compass.

It was that compass that led a shy, sickly country boy down a path that would help change the course of San Antonio’s future.

On the fifth floor of the Dolph Briscoe Jr. Library at The University of Texas at San Antonio’s academic health center, more than 6,000 rare medical books and artifacts line the shelves and rest behind glass, offering visitors a tangible portal into centuries of discovery, and a firsthand reminder of how the past continues to shape medical education today.

For the first 12 years of his life, Chandra Subedi lived in a rundown bamboo and thatch hut without electricity or running water. Born in a refugee camp in southeastern Nepal, this was the only life he knew. Often, monsoon winds tore mercilessly through the region, shredding the tents and bamboo huts in their wake. During heavy rains, the preteen, his three older siblings and parents, wrapped themselves in plastic coats to shield themselves from the heavy liquid drops pouring from the sky.

At this year’s Practical Applications of New Agents in Oncology conference, hosted by UT Health San Antonio’s Mays Cancer Center, keynote speaker Daniel Von Hoff, MD, reflected on a breakthrough that began in San Antonio.

After a routine endoscopy revealed esophageal cancer, Juan Trevino, 68, was told he was too high-risk for surgery because of his other health conditions. Facing limited time and few options, he and his wife, Gloria Trevino, turned to an innovative, minimally invasive procedure available at only a handful of centers in the country — one that would ultimately give him a second chance at life.

First-year fellow Colton Jones, MD, is driven by the potential to prevent colorectal cancer — now the leading cause of cancer-related death among people under the age of 50 in the U.S.