Teaching Affiliates - San Antonio
Some staff members of our teaching affiliates hold joint appointments in the School of Dentistry, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, School of Health Professions, Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine or School of Nursing and participate in educational research programs. These institutions constitute an important resource for training students and provide needed laboratory space for conducting research.
University Hospital is UT Health San Antonio's main teaching affiliate and is staffed predominantly by faculty of the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine. The hospital, which serves as one of two Level I Trauma Centers in the region, is owned and operated by Bexar County’s University Health, formerly called University Health System. The hospital is located adjacent to the Long School of Medicine. The 498-bed facility significantly expanded in 2014, with the new 10-story tower connected to the existing hospital buildings. The tower includes an 88-bed Emergency Center, two floors of operating suites and six floors of private patient rooms. University Health has post-graduate training programs in anesthesiology, surgery, internal medicine, obstetrics/gynecology, ophthalmology, orthopaedic surgery, otolaryngology/head-and-neck surgery, neurology, neurosurgery, thoracic surgery, pathology, pediatrics, rehabilitation medicine, psychiatry, radiology, urology and family practice, as well as more than 20 additional subspecialty residencies and fellowships.
University Health's Robert B. Green Campus, located just west of downtown, is an ambulatory health center featuring 103 primary, specialty and urgent care clinics. More than 300,000 outpatient visits are conducted there each year. A six-story advanced clinical pavilion opened on the Robert B. Green campus in 2013.
The South Texas Veterans Health Care System (STVHCS) is comprised of two inpatient campuses: the Audie L. Murphy Memorial VA Hospital in San Antonio and the Kerrville VA Hospital in Kerrville, Texas. The South Texas Veterans Health Care System provides medical, surgical and psychiatric health services for approximately 100,000 veterans. The VA hospital in San Antonio is physically linked to University Hospital by a crosswalk. The Audie L. Murphy facility serves as an additional teaching hospital for medical students and many UT Health San Antonio residency programs. The physicians who practice at this facility are a combination of VA-employed providers and faculty from the Long School of Medicine.
CHRISTUS Santa Rosa is a Catholic, faith-based, nonprofit health and wellness ministry. As one of the top health care organizations in South Central Texas, CHRISTUS Santa Rosa has five hospital campuses located in the South Texas Medical Center, Westover Hills and in New Braunfels, Texas, and it also operates a short-stay surgical hospital in Alamo Heights. CHRISTUS Santa Rosa has an extensive network of primary care physicians supplemented by a broad range of specialty providers serving their many locations. In addition, it offers numerous programs to serve the community. UT Health San Antonio has limited clinical and teaching activity at these sites.
San Antonio Military Medical Center (SAMMC), located at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, is the largest inpatient medical facility in the Department of Defense (DoD). It plays a critical role in graduate medical education, research and patient care, particularly for wounded service members. SAMMC is home to the DoD's only U.S. Army Institute for Surgical Research Burn Center and the only DoD Level 1 Trauma Center in the U.S. The hospital staff provides inpatient care in a 2.1 million-square-foot, 425-bed state-of-the-art medical treatment facility. The hospital, formerly known as Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC), is the largest of the six treatment facilities in San Antonio under the unified command. Other facilities falling under SAMMC include the Center for the Intrepid, Fort Sam Houston Clinic, McWethy Troop Medical Clinic, Taylor Burk Clinic at Camp Bullis, and the Schertz Medical Home. SAMMC supports more than 89 accredited educational programs. There is extensive collaboration between the Long School of Medicine and SAMMC in regard to education of medical students and residents.
Baptist Health System (BHS) is a local for-profit institution owned by Tenet Healthcare. BHS includes five acute-care hospitals (Baptist Medical Center, Mission Trail Baptist Hospital, North Central Baptist Hospital, Northeast Baptist Hospital and St. Luke’s Baptist Hospital), which offer 1,674 licensed beds. All five hospitals have earned Accredited Chest Pain Center designation, as well as Primary Stroke Center certification. The system also operates Baptist Regional Children’s Center, Baptist Breast Center, HealthLink wellness and fitness center and the Baptist M&S Imaging Centers. It provides community health and wellness programs, as well as ambulatory and rehabilitation services. It owns or supports medical office buildings, San Antonio AirLIFE air medical transport, a School of Health Professions and other health-related services and affiliations. UT Health San Antonio physicians have limited clinical duties at some of the BHS locations.
Methodist Healthcare System is a network of hospitals based in the greater San Antonio region and includes nine acute care facilities: Methodist Hospital, Methodist Children's Hospital, Methodist Hospital Metropolitan, Methodist Hospital Northeast, Methodist Hospital South, Methodist Hospital Specialty and Transplant, Methodist Hospital Stone Oak and Methodist Hospital Texsan. The system, comprised also of institutes, surgery centers and family health clinics, delivers a full spectrum of medical care including wellness events, transplant services, pediatrics, dermatology, cardiology, oncology and a complete array other medical services in the South Texas region. As San Antonio's second largest private employer, the various facilities employ more than 11,000 individuals, including 2,700 physicians in all specialties.
The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District/Ricardo Salinas Clinic provides training opportunities for pediatric dentistry residents and dental students under the supervision of pediatric dentistry faculty. Pregnant women, young mothers and children are the primary users of medical and WIC facilities of the center. Close interactions between the medical and dental/WIC clinics promote a significant opportunity to emphasize the relationship between oral health and general health.
The Texas Diabetes Institute, another component of University Health, is located in west San Antonio. The campus includes the Village of Hope, an ambulatory center for children with developmental disabilities, and an outpatient hemodialysis unit. The Texas Diabetes Institute, in conjunction with the diabetes division of UT Health San Antonio, offers all specialty services related to diabetes prevention and treatment, and is home to one of the nation’s leading diabetes research centers. University Health's ambulatory network includes 16 other clinic locations throughout the community.
The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is one of eight academic universities in the UT System, which is also home to five health institutions, including UT Health San Antonio. Although part of the same educational system, UTSA and UT Health San Antonio are separate institutions. As a multicultural institution, UTSA aims to be a national research university providing access to educational excellence and preparing citizen leaders for the global environment. UTSA serves nearly 35,000 students in more than 170 degree programs. Its students and scholars often collaborate with the UT Health San Antonio community through educational, research and community outreach projects in a variety of disciplines.
Clarity Child Guidance Center (CGC) is a nonprofit mental health treatment center providing programs designed specifically for children ages 3-17 suffering from emotional and behavioral difficulties. The facility includes a 52-bed psychiatric hospital and separate outpatient treatment center to provide acute and crisis assistance 24 hours a day, seven days a week; sub-acute residential and day treatment; child, adolescent and family therapy; medication management; psychological assessments; psychiatric evaluations; developmental assessments; neuropsychological assessments; and substance abuse evaluations. Clarity CGC incorporates a multidisciplinary team approach, including board-certified child/adolescent psychiatrists, nurses, psychologists, social workers, therapists, teachers and aides. Through an affiliation agreement with UT Health San Antonio, Clarity CGC is a training site for child psychiatry residents and clinical psychology residents. Social workers and special education and nursing students from several area universities gain clinical experience at this facility as well.
An affiliation agreement is maintained between UT Health San Antonio and the Texas Biomedical Research Institute. This agreement allows the two institutions to share facilities and faculty. The Texas Biomedical Research Institute staff works primarily in the fields of genetics, virology and immunology, and animal models of human diseases. The institute has 527,000 square feet of offices, laboratories and animal space. A large indoor and outdoor animal facility houses a primate colony and other animals to support the biomedical research effort.
An agreement between UT Health San Antonio and the Southwest Research Institute allows cooperation in research. The Southwest Research Institute, an independent, nonprofit, applied engineering and physical sciences research and development organization, has its headquarters in San Antonio.
The School of Dentistry is affiliated with a number of federally qualified community health centers, local health departments, hospitals, school districts, mental health facilities, military facilities, homeless facilities, faith-based clinics and nursing homes in San Antonio, Bexar County and South Texas, as well as U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Indian Health Service facilities located throughout the United States. These serve as clinical training sites in primary care, preventive dentistry, pediatric dentistry, emergency care and hospital dentistry, alternative dental care delivery using mobile and portable dental equipment at outreach sites, and practice management training in the offices of private practitioners. Predoctoral dental students receive training (required and elective) at the various sites, where they are supervised by full- and/or part-time faculty as well as adjunct faculty. Postdoctoral dental students from the various general and specialty residency programs receive training in affiliated hospitals and private practices in Texas.
The School of Health Professions maintains clinical affiliation agreements with more than 250 clinical sites throughout San Antonio and Texas, in which students receive substantial portions of their professional education.
The School of Nursing is affiliated with hundreds of community facilities that serve as practice sites for graduate and undergraduate students. For example, the School of Nursing offers an evidence-based internship model with Methodist Healthcare System. Students in the eighth semester of the Traditional and Accelerated tracks are offered an opportunity to complete their academic work in conjunction with internship hours through a highly selective interview process, thus facilitating the transition to practice. Students complete 260 hours of internship on the same unit and with the same preceptor as their academic clinicals, thus creating a seamless learning environment and streamlining orientation when they are employed by Methodist after graduation.