The vision behind the UT Tyler School of Health Professions will be implemented under the leadership of Dr. Theresa Byrd, the inaugural dean of the school. Byrd discusses her journey in pioneering this initiative, the challenges and the triumphs that have marked her tenure. Discover the intricacies of leading four academic departments, the strategic reasoning behind offering classes both in-person and online, and the excitement that comes from planning the school’s growth.
Byrd also discusses her extensive research work, including a CDC-funded project on prostate cancer treatment decision-making and a cervical cancer screening program for Hispanic women.
MIKE LANDESS: For UT Tyler Radio, I’m Mike Landess. Training the future health care professionals of East Texas is a key objective of UT Tyler’s School of Health Professions. The program got underway in February 2023, starting off with an $80 million gift from the East Texas Medical Center Foundation. The inaugural Dean of the School of Health Professions is Dr. Theresa Byrd, and she’s our guest today. Welcome.
THERESA BYRD: Thank you. It’s good to be here.
LANDESS: The school includes four academic departments. Could you tell us more about them?
BYRD: Yes, we have four departments. One is public health, which includes some courses, classes on the undergraduate side and on the graduate side, and then there’s the School of Health Policy, Economics and Management, which offers an MHA degree. Then we have kinesiology, which has many different degrees. We also have rehabilitation sciences, where we have master’s in occupational therapy, and we have a speech language pathology program, and it’s growing and has moved over to the hospital campus.
LANDESS: Now these classes are in person and online. I understand the reasoning was to provide additional educational opportunities, so folks wouldn’t have to leave the region to get them.
BYRD: Exactly. A lot of the people who come into these programs are already working. We have a lot of non-traditional students and because we’re such a rural area, we have a lot of folks who really can’t come in every day, and so having an online program is really helpful for them because, of course, they can do it at night in their jammies if they want to.
LANDESS: Or in the morning with their jammies. You have 37 years of experience with health care education. What’s been your biggest challenge so far in your role as the inaugural dean?
BYRD: Well, I think the biggest challenge has been getting, since it’s a new school, but the programs are not new, so, we’re just reconfiguring, getting the faculty all on the same page, and they’re awesome. We have awesome faculty. Getting them all on the same page, figuring out where we want to go from here and really putting into action that plan for getting some of our programs accredited that need to be accredited, finding space for some of our programs. So, it’s been really fun, and Tyler is such a friendly place. It’s really been a lot of fun just to get everything kind of started up so that we can grow, and I hope we can grow exponentially. That’s my goal.
LANDESS: How closely do you work with UT Health East Texas?
BYRD: So far, I have not worked very closely with them, although I have been doing some research that involves records from them–the hospital records–but I hope that we will be working closely. We’ve just moved our occupational therapy program over into one of the hospital buildings there on the North Campus, and so they’re getting used to their new digs, and I’m sure they will be working very closely with folks there.
LANDESS: That brings us to the next question, which is the first class of students at the new UT Tyler School of Medicine is underway. Will your program have any interaction with them during their studies?
BYRD: Yes. I’ve already had interaction with the medical students in my past jobs. I’ve always, well, I worked out of medical school, but I’ve also always worked with medical students. We’re hoping to start an MD-MPH dual degree.
LANDESS: What is that?
BYRD: That would allow medical students and public health students to work together. The medical students would be getting a master’s in public health along with their medical degree. The way we’ve worked it in other institutions is that some of their credits come from the medical school and the rest come from the master’s in public health program, so that within those 4 years they graduate with both degrees. We’re hoping for that to happen soon.
LANDESS: In addition to your other responsibilities, I understand that you’ve been a co-investigator on a CDC-funded project to understand men’s decision-making in prostate cancer treatment and to develop a decision aid for prostate cancer treatment decisions. As a prostate cancer survivor who managed to survive and keep his prostate, as a matter of fact, where it belongs, I’m curious as to what kind of discoveries you’ve made.
BYRD: That research was really fascinating because we were looking at how men make decisions about the various treatments that there are for prostate cancer, including just watchful waiting, just waiting to see. And then we looked at their spouses’ ideas about that. And it was really very different. So the men, from a values perspective, were less likely to want to do surgery, more likely to want to watch and wait, and their wives were like, “I don’t care, I don’t want him to die, do the surgery.” So we found that the decision-making was different between the two, and so we came up with ways for couples to be able to discuss and decide what would be the best treatment for them. But since then, I’ve moved on. Probably my claim to fame is a cervical cancer screening program that I developed over a period of about 15 years with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called “Amigas.” And it’s a program that’s delivered by community health workers and was very, very successful in a clinical trial in increasing cervical cancer screening among Hispanic women. So we were really proud of that one. And then I’ve done work in colorectal cancer screening as well.
LANDESS: Goodness, you are really busy and all over the map with the different things that you’ve got going on. So what are your goals for the program between now and the end of your first year?
BYRD: Well, my goals by the end of the first year would be to have the master’s in public health ready to be accredited. So we’re working on that right now with our accrediting body and also the HPEM program, which is the Health Policy, Economics and Management Program, for them to get their accreditation, and they’re in line to do that. So we’re both of us working on that right now, and then I would really like to see us grow, especially our master’s programs, and really reach out more to the areas around us that are rural, and especially the health departments who have a lot of people who work there but are not trained in public health. And so I’d like for us to be able to be reaching out to folks who are already in the industries and help them to get their master’s degrees.
LANDESS: And they could do that online.
BYRD: Yes.
LANDESS: They wouldn’t have to travel all the way into Tyler.
BYRD: Right, for the MPH and the MHA. They’re both online.
LANDESS: What’s been your biggest victory so far in the short time that you’ve been in your role?
BYRD: My biggest victory…
LANDESS: Well, one that you went home and said dang, that was great.
BYRD: I think the biggest victory was we had, right at the first couple of months, we had a faculty staff retreat. And during that retreat, because I’m telling you the faculty and staff are so awesome, we were able to come up with our mission, our vision and what we wanted to accomplish in the first 5 years, with people who have volunteered to be the champions for those things. So that was really fun. I enjoyed doing that.
LANDESS: Well, we’re glad you’re here.
BYRD: Oh, thank you.
LANDESS: Are there any final thoughts you’d like to share before you go?
BYRD: Well, I guess my final thought is I love Tyler. It’s so beautiful. I live in a little town called Lindale. It’s the cutest little town ever. And, I have to say, the people here are just amazingly friendly. So I’m really excited to be here and get this thing going.
LANDESS: Our guest has been Dr. Theresa Byrd, inaugural dean of the UT Tyler School of Health Professions. To hear this conversation again or to share it, go to KVUT.org. I’m Mike Landess for UT Tyler Radio.
(Transcripts are automatically generated and may contain phonetic spellings and other spelling and punctuation errors. Grammar errors contained in the original recording are not typically corrected.)
