Dean’s Message
A Focus Towards the Future
Dear friends,
The UT Health San Antonio Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine has been diligently making advancements in education, research and patient care with an eye towards the future.
The community of San Antonio faces many health challenges, and our efforts in the medical school are being developed to mirror those challenges as we develop new programs.
The rising epidemic of obesity in San Antonio has resulted in increases in Type 2 diabetes, cancer and even neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s dementia. Our diabetes research efforts have been escalated to include more basic research and will continue to escalate as we seek to better understand how to stop this devastating disease.
In addition, we have undertaken major initiatives to redevelop our UT Health Cancer Center through an affiliation with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and have focused our efforts on understanding the cancer health disparities which have emerged in our community. These disparities are found with liver cancer, kidney cancer and uterine cancer—which are all thought to be associated with obesity.
We expect to “go live” with our MD Anderson affiliation late this year.
We also have gone to great lengths to establish the Biggs Institute for Alzheimer and Neurodegenerative Diseases, which will be housed on the eighth floor of the Medical Arts & Research Center (our main outpatient clinic facility).
We have actively sought out researchers in diabetes research, health disparities, cancer care and neurodegenerative diseases, and will continue to enhance our efforts in these areas to answer the needs of our community. These are exciting times in our institution, and we hope that you join us in our enthusiasm to develop these new programs.
Best regards,
Ronald Rodriguez, M.D., Ph.D.
Interim Dean
Long School of Medicine
