Congratulations to Dr. Celia Pechak, Assistant Professor, Physical Therapy; Dr. Eugenia Gonzalez, Assistant Professor, Occupational Therapy; Dr. Connie Summers, Assistant Professor, Speech Language Pathology; and Dr. Stephanie Capshaw, Associate Clinical Professor, Occupational Therapy!  Their work in interprofessional education and service learning in Guatemala has resulted in the following article, accepted for publication in the Journal of Allied Health:

Pechak C, Gonzalez G, Summers C, Capshaw S. Interprofessional education: a pilot study of rehabilitation sciences students participating in interdisciplinary international service-learning.    

Christina Sobin, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences, presented a platform lecture summarizing the results of her translational research program examining effects in brain of early developmental low-level lead exposure at the annual conference of the Neurobehavioral Teratology Society meeting, Tucson, Arizona, in June. Dr. Sobin started this program of research in 2007 to benefit the health and well-being of children in the El Paso border region. The program started with child studies, and the child study results guided the development of a specifically relevant animal model. Following on Dr. Sobin's commitment to always provide needed services while conducting research, this program has provided free blood lead level and neurocognitive testing for over 700 public school children in the El Paso border region.  

"Lead exposure is an old problem that requires new solutions. Lead is uniquely damaging to the developing brain. We focus on effects of exposure that produce blood lead levels far below those previously used to determine intervention. It is well known that no level of lead exposure is safe for children. Nonetheless, many people gave up on the problem of chronic low-level exposure years ago because environmental lead is ubiquitous and source removal, the only known intervention, can be impossible to accomplish. Technological advances are now allowing us to re-examine this old problem with new approaches and the findings are striking. Among approximately 700 school children living in low-income neighborhoods, over half had detectable blood lead levels, and those levels were associated with poorer memory and motor dexterity. In follow-up translational animal studies, we showed that the volume of a specific brain region critical for learning and memory is reduced in animals with blood lead levels similar to those in over 60% of child participants, and neuroimmune cells in that region, required for neuro-protection and normal brain development, were missing. All of these findings require replication. We hope our work will encourage other investigators to take up this line of questioning and contribute to our understanding of this national child public health problem."  

UTEP students who contributed to this work included Mayra Gisel Flores Montoya; Marisela Guitierrez; Miguel Cervantes; Mayte Barbosa; Omar Solis; Benjamin Valencia; and Jasmine Guerra. Dr. Sobin's scientific collaborators include Mari Golub (UC Davis); Bruce McEwen (The Rockefeller University); Karen Bulloch (The Rockefeller University); Rodrigo Armijos (UTEP); Tanner Schaub (New Mexico State University); and Natali Parisi (New Mexico State University).

The Interdisiciplinary Health Sciences PhD program currently has 31 students enrolled.  Since the program's inception in 2005, this program has contributed to the advancement of border scholarship by conferring 16 PhD degrees.  Over the past academic year alone, 7 of our doctoral students completed their degrees. Three of our most recent PhDs successfully defended their dissertations during summer 2013. 

Silvia Flores Luevano (defended July 2^nd) started our program in 2008.  Prior to beginning her doctoral degree, Dr. Flores had completed her Master's degree in Environmental Health and a medical degree with specialization in pediatrics.  "I started the PhD program because for many years I had been doing clinical practice and I wanted to develop research and teaching skills.  I wanted to look for a way to contribute in bigger ways to the field of child health."  For ten years prior to entering the program, Dr. Flores had been working with asthmatic children and she saw the great need for novel treatment approaches.  For her doctoral dissertation, she decided to study associations between asthma and nutrition by analyzing data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey program (NHANES).  "I wanted to discover new knowledge that would give us novel ways to help asthmatic children.  The results showed that a high percent of children have deficiency in vitamin D which was highly related to an increased risk of allergy and asthma." 

Ximena Burgos-Monzon (defended July 3^rd) also started the IHS PhD program in 2008.  Dr. Burgos completed a Master's degree in Health Promotion at UTEP and before that, completed her Bachelor's degree in Nutritional Sciences Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez.  "I am interested in the prevention of chronic diseases, which is one of the reasons I studied nutritional sciences back in 2000.  Many diseases can be prevented by keeping a healthy diet." For her doctoral dissertation, Dr. Burgos studied dietary patterns among Hispanics living in the El Paso border region.  She also examined the associations between diet, obesity and cardiovascular disease risk factors.  "I found approximately equal proportions of two major dietary patterns in this border population, the Western and the Prudent diet. The western diet included foods that were very high in calories and energy but not very nutritious. The other pattern was healthier and included foods like fruits, vegetables, fish and chicken.   The findings indicated that we need to identify factors that influence food choices, for example, availability and affordability of healthy foods."

Rena DiGregorio (defended July 23^rd) was one of the first students to join the IHS PhD program.  Dr. DiGregorio was trained as a registered nurse and had worked in clinical practice and hospital administration for 23 years.  She was inspired during her administrative work by her experiences in women's services.  Her scholarly endeavors began with clinical observation.  She noticed that the facial expressions among many women transitioning to motherhood were not always happy, but instead, reflected sadness during a time that most people assume should be joyful.  "I wanted to learn how to apply research methods to determine whether these clinical observations could be measured objectively."  In her doctoral dissertation, Dr. DiGregorio prospectively examined the impact of stress and coping in pregnancy and the post-partum period.  "I found that perceived stress exerted relatively little influence on depressive symptoms, however coping style was associated with severity of depression.  The qualitative results were among the most interesting.  Surprisingly, the greatest perceived stressors were body image issues and the stress of mood lability.  These are not stressors talked about in the literature and they are not currently used as predictors." 

Our new PhDs exemplify what our program is attempting to achieve.  Dr. Flores, Dr. Burgos and Dr. DiGregorio came to our interdisciplinary program with years of academic and/or clinical experience.  They had the insight to realize that becoming research scholars would empower them to become leaders in shaping the future of their respective fields.  Through their hard work and scholarly accomplishments they have achieved the highest academic rank.  They are now prepared to create new knowledge, and improve health in the border region and beyond.  Congratulations Dr. Flores, Dr. Burgos and Dr. DiGregorio.