Outcomes Report 2023-24

Innovation in Clinical Care Through Multidisciplinary Teams

The multidisciplinary approach emerged in oncology in the 1980s, and in recent years it has gained popularity in other disciplines as a way to reduce complications by uniting the expertise of various medical and surgical specialties. It saves time, improves quality, and reduces costs, and most importantly, it improves outcomes and provides patients with a better all-around health care experience. With this in mind, we continue to expand our commitment to providing multidisciplinary patient-centered care. Our patients prefer it, and it’s the way of the future.

In this UTHealth Houston Neurosciences Outcomes Report, you’ll read about our growing number of multidisciplinary programs. These teams of expert clinicians have helped us provide high-quality, efficient care to our patients, and in our view is the ideal way to treat complex conditions. We also highlight a very small portion of our extensive ongoing research: Dr. Sunil Krishnan is investigating the use of active targeting of tumors with small quantities of gold administered before radiation therapy. Dr. Rodrigo Morales is investigating whether chronic wasting disease, a prion disease fatal to deer, moose, elk, and other cervids, may also be of risk to people who consume meat from infected animals.

Dr. David Sandberg is conducting studies we hope will improve the outlook for children with recurrent brain tumors, which currently is extremely poor. Dr. Paul Schulz and researchers at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics at UTHealth Houston have produced data suggesting that vaccination against influenza appears to lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in people over 65. Dr. Yoshua Esquenazi Levy is testing the safety and feasibility of delivering a dendritic cell vaccine to adult patients diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme.

Congratulations to Dr. Mya Schiess and her team for receiving a prestigious Edmond J. Safra Fellowship in Movement Disorders, and to Dr. Hui-Wen Lo, who received a $750,000 Faculty STARs Award from The University of Texas System to support a new program that works to identify effective therapies for hard-to-treat brain metastases.

We are pleased to announce that the Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston was ranked No. 4 nationally in research funding awarded by the National Institutes of Health for calendar year 2023, according to the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research. A special thanks to our clinician-scientists for sparing no effort in getting science funded at the highest levels, and also to our students who do the work.

Knowing that the doctor-patient relationship is at the heart of medicine, we would like to thank former patient Mary Kate Mims, who, after 30 years of struggling with excessive daytime sleepiness was diagnosed with idiopathic hypersomnia and treated via telehealth by Dr. Sudha Tallavajhula; to Kavya Patel who came back to life thanks to the care of teams led by Dr. Biswajit Kar and Dr. Nitin Tandon; to Jamey Williams, who found relief from central sleep apnea under the care of Dr. Aparajitha Verma; to Jon Huffman, who has participated in many clinical trials for Huntington’s disease led by Dr. Erin Furr Stimming; and to Terry Hendrix, who found relief for severe back and neck pain through radiofrequency ablation by Dr. Nadya Dhanani.

We want all of our patients to say, “I received exactly the care I wanted and needed, when I needed it, and it was delivered with compassion and caring.” A special thanks to our stellar team of clinicians and researchers who are making this happen.

With best wishes,

Louise D. McCullough, MD, PhD
Professor and Chair
Roy M. and Phyllis Gough Huffington Distinguished Chair
Department of Neurology
Co-Director, UTHealth Houston Neurosciences
McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston

Jacques J. Morcos, MD
Professor and Chair
John P. and Kathrine G. McGovern Distinguished Chair
Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery
Director, Cerebrovascular and Skull Base Neurosurgery
Co-Director, UTHealth Houston Neurosciences
McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston