Robby G. Wesley, DO

Associate Professor of Medicine-Division of General Internal Medicine
Associate Program Director-Internal Medicine Residency Program
Quality Officer-Division of General Internal Medicine
Site Director-LBJ Outpatient Center UT Medicine Clinic
Associate Director of Medicine Subspecialties-LBJ Outpatient Center
Co-Director-Primary Care Career Focus Track
McGovern Medical School at UTHealth

Email: robby.g.wesley@uth.tmc.edu
Phone:  713-500-6743

Educational Teaching Philosophy

For roughly the first thirty years of my life, I spent most of my time in learning being the student.  When I entered teaching, I quickly realized that my learning style was just one way to learn a topic.   Helping other learners through challenging topics, I learned the importance of adapting to the learner.  In my role as Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency, I was paired with many learners who needed the right tools to meet their educational styles to succeed.  Although testing was standardized, the methods for learners to accumulate, synthesize, and apply knowledge was nothing but standardized for these residents.  Over the past decade, I have enjoyed discovering the style of learning that has helped residents overcome the labels of “poor test taker” and finding personalized learning methods to help improve their journey in adult learning.

Beyond this longitudinal relationship with my learners, in medicine, we are in a unique role of having our patients engage in adult learning.  It was only after being a patient that I appreciated the fear and nervousness that patients face.  I realized that I needed to provide caring and empathy before facts and disease processes.  Once patients have their concerns addressed and rapport is established, physicians can play a vital role to help patients get past medical jargon and understand their disease process.

I hope to enhance my ability to help learners find their educational style that will lead to success.  I also hope to help myself and others in their medical training find ways to help our patients succeed in learning about their disease state as we learn to better establish techniques to gain trust, rapport, and compassion.

 Area of Expertise/Interests

  • Educational Leadership
  • Medical Student and Residency Mentorship
  • Quality Improvement

 My aims in all activities are:

  • Finding opportunities for all learners to contribute to a collaborative learning process
  • Using quality improvement to improve internal processes to be more efficient and see sustained outcomes
  • Recognizing bias

 Past and Current Educational Activities:

  • Resident Training and Supervision
    • General Medicine Wards
    • General Medicine Continuity Clinic
  • Integrative Clinical Exercise/Problem-Based Learning
  • Core Faculty Bedside Teaching Rounds
  • Doctoring Course Preceptorship Program
  • Longitudinal Integrated Curriculum
    • Internal Medicine Clinic Site Director
  • Associate Program Director-Internal Medicine Residency Program
  • Resident Quality Improvement Program-Internal Medicine Residency Program
  • Co-Director-Primary Care Career Focus Track

 Honors/Awards/Appointments

  • The Herb Fred, MD Award
  • Dean’s Teaching Excellence Awards
  • Harris Health System Physician of the Quarter
  • Houston’s Top Doctors, H Texas Magazine
  • Harris Health System Hero
  • Top Doctors, Houstonia Magazine
  • Herbert L. and Margaret W. DuPont Master Clinical Teaching Award
  • Inaugural Champions of Learning Environment

 Selected Educational Publications

  • Wesley, R. & Aisenberg, G. To Err is Human; To Report, Divine:  Improving Resident Utilization of the electronic Incident Report System (e-IRS), Quality Improvement Abstract presented at The University of Texas System Shared Visions Conference, San Antonio, TX, April 21, 2016.  (*presented).

 

  • Patel, V. & Wesley, R. Stopping Waste on the Wards: Decreasing Unnecessary Daily Lab Draws.  Quality Improvement Poster presented at American College of Physician/Texas Academy of Internal Medicine Associates Day, Houston, TX, April 30, 2016.  (*presented).

 

  • Calhoun, K., Dike, U., Gerwer, J., Herman, A., Todai, J., Wesley, R. Improving Utilization of Lumbar Puncture Among Internal Medicine Residents at Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital.  Quality Improvement Poster presented at the Edward Randall, III Internal Medicine Quality Fair, Houston, TX, May 11, 2018.  (*presented).

 

  • Chaudhri, A., Wesley, R., Orlander, P., Rianon, N. Fractured Outpatient Screening:  Decreasing Osteoporotic Fracture Risk in Our Aging Population. Quality Improvement Poster presented at the Edward Randall, III Internal Medicine Quality Fair, Houston, TX, May 17, 2019.  (*presented).

 

  • Guerrieri, RA., Wesley, R. Painless Jaundice, Pancreatic Cancer.  In Toy EC and Aisenberg GM (Eds.). Case Files Internal Medicine, Sixth Edition.  287-294.  McGraw-Hill Education, 2021.

 

  • Guerrieri, RA., Wesley, R. Acute Glomerulonephritis.  In Toy EC and Aisenberg GM (Eds.). Case Files Internal Medicine, Sixth Edition.  295-304.  McGraw-Hill Education, 2021.

 

  • Improving QI Teams: Implementing PDSA to Improve Mentoring and Project Completion. Internal Medicine Residency Program, July 2018.