Bacteriology & Antibiotics

Biography

I am the lead pathologists’ assistant (PA) certified by the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) with a master of health science degree appointed for 9 years as an instructor at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and a clinical adjunct professor of Quinnipiac University’s Pathologists’ Assistant Program. My clinical work includes recognizing and sampling macroscopic disease within surgical pathology specimens postoperatively or during surgical intraoperative consultation at Ben Taub General Hospital. Occasionally, I cover St. Joseph Medical Center and BCM’s West Belfort lab in this capacity. With optimal patient care as my goal, I decrease the workload of the pathologists and residents who I simultaneously teach by leading through example. After observing and assessing various pathology trainees, including fellows, pathologists’ assistant students, medical students and shadowing undergraduates, I developed a passion to strengthen both pathology residency and pathologists’ assistant programs which is reflected in my curriculum development efforts. For example, by request of the residents, I conduct monthly Interesting Gross Case Workshops currently teleconferenced at a national level to two PA programs. I received Spring 2016’s Fulbright and Jaworski Faculty Excellence Award in Teaching Evaluation verifying the quality and quantity of my educational efforts. Because literature and statistics expose gaps in pathology residency education and dwindling interest to enter the pathology field by medical students, I created and directed the 2017 All-City Anatomic Pathology Symposium sponsored by BCM, which introduced the field of pathology to medical students and undergraduates and offered recapitulation to residents and fellows and ASCP CMLE credits to PAs. The symposium fostered citywide collaborative teaching platforms for pathologists and PAs. The planning committee was comprised of academic PAs-members of the local PA professional organization, Pathassist of Texas in Houston, LLC, founded and presided by myself. While planning this academic feat, American Association of Pathologists’ Assistants offered me speaking engagements for 2 consecutive years and requested my help to incorporate academic PA education into their educational plan. My suggestions produced roundtable discussion groups/workshops for 2 annual conferences. While revolutionizing the PA field as a respected and recognized academic resource for pathology learners, as an example to my colleagues, I strengthened my faculty portfolio by expanding my research and scholarly efforts, an area of weakness for PAs. I designed five research projects with 4 receiving IRB approval. I serve as a first author on four manuscripts with one accepted and one published. In addition, I am a PI for Baylor College of Medicine Tissue Resource, TCGA Tissue Source Repository Tissue Source Site for Clinical and Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) Phase III funded by National Institute of Health, Genome Research Institute and National Cancer Institute. To further implement changes in pathology education, I am a resident in the 6th cohort for the University of Houston’s Executive Doctorate in Professional Leadership Program (EdD) which focuses upon educational needs in medicine and problem-solving strategies through intensive research, thus continuing BCM’s mission of improving health through science, innovation, teamwork and excellence.

Research Interest

Pathology