January

A new year is upon us, and I urge you take a moment to reflect upon all that has been achieved and to consider the challenges ahead. We ended the year by recognizing the outstanding work of our faculty on December 15 and 16, at the Bryan and Temple campuses, and I want to once more highlight the good work done by the awardees.

February

Another month has flown by, and we remain busy in our endeavors. The Legislature is now in session, and we continue to monitor the hearings and proceedings but it is still too early to tell what our budget might look like for the upcoming biennium.

March

We have been quite busy this month with events, service activities and administrative undertakings, and I hope you take a moment to read and share our news.

April

We have been quite busy this month with events, service activities and administrative undertakings, and I encourage you take a moment to read and share our news. If you’ve turned on your television, radio or smartphone lately, it’s hard to get past the bad news. Political unrest and economic uncertainty abound, and global and national issues are impacting our communities daily.

May

We have been quite busy this month with events, service activities and administrative undertakings, and I encourage you take a moment to read and share our good news.

June

We have been busy this month with events, service activities and administrative undertakings, and I encourage you take a moment to read and share our good news. In the past few weeks we have demonstrated our commitment to primary care and the health of Texans through several events in our communities.

July

The legislative session has finally come to a close, and we thank our supporters in Austin and throughout the state, especially Senator Steve Ogden, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Our resulting budget requires that we maintain the good stewardship of our funds, to be sure, but let this experience serve to remind us that we have weathered the storm, and we are stronger for it.

August

Despite the scorching summer temperatures, our daily business continues, and we have accomplished much in the past few weeks. Our second-year students are back in class, and the new clinical building on the Bryan campus, which houses our Humanities Department as well as our clinical skills and psychiatry faculty, is open for business.

September

We are now less than 150 days away from our LCME site visit for accreditation, and I want to thank everyone—faculty, staff and students—for your continual hard work to make us the best medical school for Texas.

October

We are now less than 120 days away from our LCME accreditation site visit, and I want to thank everyone—faculty, staff and students—for your continual hard work to make us the best medical school in Texas in preparation for this critical event. We will be holdng a mock site visit on November 17 and 18 to help us get ready for the real deal and shortly afterwards our final documents are due in to the LCME.

November

We are now less than 100 days away from our LCME site visit for accreditation, and I want to thank everyone—faculty, staff and students—for your continual hard work to make us the best medical school for Texas. Our mock site visit on November 17 and 18 went well, but we are not taking anything for granted and will continue to work hard until the real site visit in February. The stakes are undeniably greater, and we must make sure that everything related to our previous citations is addressed and remedied.

December

As I take time to reflect back on the year, it is apparent that we have faced and overcome many challenges: LCME/SACS, class expansion, budget cuts, the opening of the new Dallas campus and strategic planning in the face of an uncertain external environment. The successes we have achieved have been the result of your dedication and team work and I want to thank every one of you, faculty, staff and students, for your hard work. I couldn’t be more proud of our College of Medicine community, and I feel very fortunate to be your dean.