Underwood

Center for

Digestive

Disorders

Maybe at last the heat is relenting, and we can look forward to more pleasant climes ahead? Meanwhile, the Underwood Center continues to move forward, making progress on all fronts. From all the fruitful deliberations that took place with colleagues from across the Greater Houston Area over the past several months a committee structure emerged. These committees are now active tackling such important topics as Patient Experience, Community Connections, Quality and Research. Recognizing the central role that endoscopy plays in the practice of gastroenterology and gastrointestinal surgery, an Endoscopy Task Force has also been established to optimize endoscopic practice across the system. On July 1st we welcomed new classes of surgical residents and gastroenterology fellows and are, again, most impressed by how quickly they become adept in caring for their patients and how eager they are to learn. We are so fortunate to attract such talented trainees. Very recently, several of us attended and spoke at the Texas Society for Gastroenterology and Endoscopy in San Antonio – an outstanding meeting attended by over 300 health care practitioners from across the state. HMH held its first ever HMH “mixer” at the event – a wonderful opportunity to meet with colleagues from across the city. Here in Houston our efforts in community education continue with a recent “Lunch and Learn” which explored, to a packed audience, how the gut’s interactions with its microbiome can lead to inflammation and disease not only in the gut itself, as in inflammatory bowel disease, but also in the heart, liver, and brain. Clearly a topic that generated much interest for this lay audience. Click here to see photos from the event. Now we look forward to the American College of Gastroenterology Post-Graduate Course and Annual Meetings in Vancouver where several GI fellows and internal medicine residents will present their research –for a full report look out for the next newsletter. At exactly the same time our surgeons will be heading to the annual meeting of the American College of Surgeons in Boston. One important item for your calendar – the First Annual Josephine Hughes-Sterling Neurogastroenterology Lecture will be delivered by one of the most distinguished gastroenterologists of our generation, Dr Michael Camilleri from the Mayo Clinic, at 5 p.m. on Thursday November 16th, 2023, in the Research Institute auditorium. Don’t miss it!

Fall is a time of rejuvenation after the exceptionally long summer. Despite the record-breaking temperatures, we continued to work diligently in Surgery. We are building our Robotic Surgery program expanding our repertoire of liver, pancreas, and colon, intestines, and gall bladder procedures. We are also creating one of the most comprehensive robotic education courses for medical students, residents, and practicing surgeons. This year also is shaping up as another year of exceptional quality and safety results across all surgery disciplines, something we take pride in and work hard to ensure our top ranking, nationally. We are working diligently on increasing our new patient access and organizing around delivering Outpatient care and monitoring our superior patient satisfaction scores. We continue to publish, research, and teach with the idea of truly leading G.I. Surgery and Surgical Care. Finally, this year, we started a new named lecture for Dr. Wade Rosenberg to honor his leadership in G.I. Surgery and recognize his contribution to the Underwood Center. As the last quarter of the year starts, we are already looking forward to 2024 and to more challenges and accomplishments.