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Telemedicine Clinic Debuts at School,
Thanks to Cullen Trust Grant
Officials from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and Cantu Elementary in the Alton colonia debuted the Rio Grande Valley's first school-based telemedicine clinic Feb. 10. A special ceremony marked the university's commitment to providing much-needed health care to the 700 students of the rural, border-region school.
Wielding the scissors to cut the ribbon at a new telemedicine clinic at Cantu Elementary School in the Rio Grande Valley are Margaret McNeese, M.D., associate dean for student affairs and professor of pediatrics at the UT Medical School at Houston, and Rafael Olivarez, the school's principal. With them are, front, left, Sandra Llanez, school nurse; back row, from left, L. Maximilian Buja, M.D., executive vice president for academic affairs at the UT Health Science Center at Houston; Isabelle Jeffress, M.D., director of the health science center's Student Health Clinic; and Kelly Bolton, nurse, Student Health Clinic. Jeffress is one of the telemedicine consultants.
Photo courtesy of Mission Consolidated Independent School District
Colonias - the Spanish word for neighborhoods - are unplanned communities, many of which lack plumbing, electricity, drainage and paved roads.
The clinic, which is headquartered in Cantu Elementary's nursing office, allows the school nurse to use a special stethoscope, dermascope and otoscope, beaming back audio and video images to UT physicians in real time. The school nurse can consult with doctors on a variety of health issues, and the children of this traditionally underserved and economically disadvantaged area can receive health information and advice from physicians hundreds of miles away.
Margaret McNeese, M.D., medical director of the program, was on hand for the ribbon-cutting and demonstrations of the long-distance technology. McNeese, who is associate dean for student affairs and professor of pediatrics at the UT Medical School at Houston, expressed appreciation to The Cullen Trust for Health Care for a grant that funded development of the technology.
For the last 16 years the UT Health Science Center has regularly provided free primary health care through visits of a mobile health clinic to the area, but with the opening of the telemedicine clinic, students won't have to wait for the mobile clinic to have their health needs met.
"We are very aware of the need for immediate health care in this region," said Kathleen Becan-McBride, Ed.D., coordinator of the health science center's Texas-Mexico Border Health Projects. "We are seeing large numbers of children with Type II diabetes in the area, and adults in the Valley have twice the rate of diabetes than the rest of the state. Seventy-five percent of the adults are overweight or obese, which causes a whole host of additional health issues."
During the last fiscal year, the mobile clinic provided primary health care to 4,552 patients. This does not include the more than 1,000 children from 20 schools in Hidalgo County that were immunized just during August.