School of Health Professionswww.shp.utmb.edu

Want to brush up your skills on Blackboard, and learning technology?

Please join me for a sequence of three 75 minute courses, developed to assist faculty and staff. These courses mix the nuts and bolts of Blackboard with best practices in online learning and teaching.

Each class will have an open lab period at the end to work on and discuss your individual courses. All faculty and staff who manage Blackboard courses are welcome to attend.

-Patience Wieland

Class 1: Communication on Blackboard, Course Structure, Creating Content, and More Offered

• 9:00-10:15 AM;
• 10:30-11:45 AM;
• 1:00-2:15 PM;
• 2:30-3:45 PM

on Thursday, February 26th, and Monday, March 2nd

Class 2: Assessments and Grading, Microlectures and More Offered

• 9:00-10:15 AM;
• 10:30-11:45 AM;
• 1:00-2:15 PM;
• 2:30-3:45 PM

on Tuesday, March 3rd, and Wednesday, March 4th

Class 3: Course Tools in Blackboard, Health Science Learning and Trends. Offered

• 9:00-10:15 AM;
• 10:30-11:45 AM;
• 1:00-2:15 PM;
• 2:30-3:45 PM

on Monday, March 9th and Tuesday, March 10th

All courses held in Rm 1.808 LRC in SHP/SON Building. All faculty and staff who manage Blackboard courses are welcome to attend.

Physical Therapy Assistant Professor Dr. Steve Fishers' Photography Featured in Galveston Monthly Magazine

Dr. Steve Fisher, from UTMB SHP Physical Therapy, has his photography featured on the cover of Galveston Monthly Magazine Feb. 2015 edition. Congratulations to Dr. Fisher on such a great photo feature! See more at the link below.

See full Galveston Monthly Magazine - Feb 2015 Edition

On the cover...

The cover this month is a photograph titled "Crab Traps" that was taken by Steve Ross Fisher. Steve had seen the pier in this image many times. It overlooks Galveston Bay facing the island. Then one afternoon while exploring around he saw that someone had pulled up those crab traps. They were resting on the pier in a zig-zag pattern, which seemed to lead the eye to that strange spoil mound in the distance. He knew he had to come back at sunrise the next morning. He did and made some exposures, but none really seemed to work. He had to keep going back over the next couple weeks to work out the composition - and wait for an early morning low tide.

Luckily, the traps were not moved. On a very cold morning with a wintry sky things came together. He used a long exposure because he wanted that "mind's eye" view of how he remembered old crab traps on a pier when he was young. Growing up in the Houston-Galveston area, Steve learned to appreciate the spare, understated beauty of our coastal landscape. Self-taught in his approach to photography, he strives to create images that emphasize these minimalist visual qualities.

In addition to his photographic pursuits, Steve received a PhD in Rehabilitation Science from UTMB at Galveston and is currently a faculty member at UTMB. More of his work can be seen at steverossfisher.com.

Electronic Activity Monitors Could be Helpful in Clinical, Public Health, Rehabilitation Settings

O&P Business News, February, 2015

In a recent report, researchers found electronic activity monitors may represent a medium by which clinical behavioral interventions could be translated for widespread use in clinical, public health and rehabilitation settings.

"Electronic activity monitors are very popular, but there is little empirical research on their effectiveness. Our hope in performing this content analysis was to provide some insight to researchers and consumers about how closely these monitors adhere to standard practices in behavioral activity intervention," Elizabeth Lyons, PhD, MPH, assistant professor in the department of nutrition and metabolism at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, told O&P Business News. "Our results demonstrate that these monitors do hold quite a bit of promise... It will be interesting to see if integrating electronic activity monitors into interventions can produce more sustained increases in activity than standard procedures."

Read full article at O&P Business News

American Cancer Society awards Dr. Elizabeth Lyons $712,000 grant

During the summer semester, we hold two-weeks of pro bono clinics for people in the community with rehab needs. It was during the 2014 neuro clinic that we came to know Mr. P and his family. He'd had a spinal cord injury, and unfortunately, he was sent home with no equipment, no potential for f/u therapy, and no real instruction for the family. His team of student physical therapists did a great job of getting him on his way to better function and provided his family with a great deal of valuable education. We were able to get him plugged in to some community resources for some additional pro bono therapy and equipment assessment.

Elizabeth Lyons, PhD, MPH, was awarded a total of $712,000 for her five-year project entitled, "Self-Monitoring Activity: A Randomized Trial of Game-Oriented Applications."

Though habitual physical activity has been associated with a decrease in the risk of multiple negative health outcomes, including breast cancer recurrence and mortality, most breast cancer survivors do not engage in sufficient exercise. In this project, Dr. Lyons and her team will study a novel intervention that uses narrative-based active video games to encourage uptake and maintenance of habitual physical activity among postmenopausal women breast cancer survivors. The results of Dr. Lyons' innovative research could potentially be used on a widespread basis in clinical and community settings.

Assistant Professor in our Department of Nutrition and Metabolism, Dr. Lyons earned both her Master of Public Health and her Doctor of Philosophy in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She went on to complete predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center before joining UTMB in 2011. A member of the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, the Obesity Society and the American Heart Association, she is on the Editorial Board for Games for Health Journal.

DPT Students Display Compassion, Concern for Their Fellow Man

During the summer semester, we hold two-weeks of pro bono clinics for people in the community with rehab needs. It was during the 2014 neuro clinic that we came to know Mr. P and his family. He'd had a spinal cord injury, and unfortunately, he was sent home with no equipment, no potential for f/u therapy, and no real instruction for the family. His team of student physical therapists did a great job of getting him on his way to better function and provided his family with a great deal of valuable education. We were able to get him plugged in to some community resources for some additional pro bono therapy and equipment assessment.

The family had told the team that they had built a ramp so that they could get him in/out of their home, and later, Dr. Seale was made aware of just how inadequate and unsafe this ramp was (see before pictures). Dr. Seale reached out to a church in Seabrook to see if they could help. Their Methodist Men Group volunteered and soon set about evaluating and making plans. They could do the work, but could not cover the materials. They asked if I could come up with maybe up to $1000 for supplies. The third year class president, Claire Conroy, was contacted and asked if the class could consider some fundraising. She promised to ask about it in their meeting later that day. They voted to provide a $1000 donation from class funds to cover the cost of the ramp materials.

Read full article here

SHP Faculty and Staff participate in this year's Salvation Army Angel Project

Dean Elizabeth Protas is pictured with some of the faculty and staff who participated in this year's Salvation Army Angel Project. 25 children were adopted by the group. This is the school's fourth year of supporting this worthy project.

Dr. Kenneth J. Ottenbacher awarded $600,000 grant from U.S. Department of Education

November 21, 2014

The U.S. Department of Education awarded Kenneth J. Ottenbacher, PhD, OTR, a total of approximately $600,000 for his three-year grant entitled, "Readmission and Disability Outcomes Related to Post Acute Care."

Unplanned hospital readmission among individuals in high-cost impairment groups who receive post-acute care services is a significant health care concern. Dr. Ottenbacher and his colleagues will examine hospital readmissions for individuals in high-volume, high-cost impairment groups receiving post-acute care services to determine what factors are associated with hospital readmissions from post-acute care settings and create and test predictive models to identify people at high risk for rehospitalization.

The findings of this research will address priorities of the Affordable Care Act, assist in validating readmission as a National Quality Indicator for post-acute care settings and help reduce health care costs.

Dr. Ottenbacher is Professor and Director of Rehabilitation Sciences and Russell Shearn Moody Distinguished Chair in Neurological Rehabilitation. He is also Director of our Center for Recovery, Physical Activity and Nutrition and Associate Director of our Sealy Center on Aging. A leader in rehabilitation sciences, Dr. Ottenbacher has published more than 320 peer-reviewed articles and four books. His research has been continuously funded for nearly three decades.

Dr. Ottenbacher serves as a member of several scientific societies, such as the American Heart Association, American Geriatrics Society, Gerontology Society of America, American Occupational Therapy Association and American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. His accolades include a Presidents' Commendation Award from the American Occupational Therapy Association and American Occupational Therapy Foundation, an Outstanding Service Award from the Association of Academic Phsysiatrists and the Edward Lowman Award from the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Dr. Ottenbacher is a founding member of our Academy of Research Mentors.

Dr. Carolyn Utsey awarded $400,000 grant for School of Health Professions program

Carolyn Utsey, PT, PhD, Associate Professor and Chair for Physical Therapy, has been awarded a two-year grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to fund the implementation of the School of Health Professions' Bridge Physical Therapist Assistant to Physical Therapist program.

The roughly $400,000 Minority Health Research and Education Grant Program award will help enable the SHP to admit and retain two culturally diverse student cohorts for the Bridge PTA to DPT program, consisting of 20 students in 2015 and 24 in 2016. Other SHP goals for this project include completing online course development tools, developing key clinical education sites and formalizing a consortium of Texas PT Education Programs to offer a Bridge curriculum on campuses beyond UTMB.

Dr. Utsey received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Baylor University, then went on to earn a Physical Therapy certificate from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and both a Master of Education in Allied Health Education and a Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Psychology from the University of Houston. Throughout her career, she has received more than a dozen educational grants. In 2010, she won the prestigious William Gould Memorial Outstanding Physical Therapy Faculty Award from the Texas Physical Therapy Association.

Congratulations to Dr. Utsey and her SHP colleagues for this outstanding achievement.