TMC PULSE

t m c » p u l s e | a p r i l 2 0 1 5 36 ACCOLADES JAMES H. BRAY, PH.D., associate professor of family and community medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, was elected as the 2015 president of the Texas Psychological Association (TPA). TPA's mem- bership is comprised of more than 1,500 practicing psychologists and graduate students in the state of Texas. As president, Bray plans to work with the TPA staff to ensure that the practice of psychology is protected and expanded during the 2015 Texas Legislature. He has served on the TPA Board of Directors since 2013. EVAN DOUGLAS COLLINS, M.D., orthopedic sur- geon at Houston Methodist Hospital, was recently named chairman of the Houston Methodist Center for Performing Arts Medicine (CPAM). Collins is chief of the Houston Methodist Hand & Upper Extremity Center and a published author. Prior to joining the faculty at Houston Methodist Hospital and accepting a faculty appointment at Weill Cornell Medical College, he was the director of the Hand Fellowship and Chief of the Hand and Upper Extremity Department for many years at Baylor College of Medicine. He has served for the last two years as vice chairman of the CPAM. MICHAEL COLLIGAN, RN, lead perfusionist at the Texas Heart Institute, received the 2015 Best Paper Presentation Award at the 36th Annual Seminar of the American Academy of Cardiovascular Perfusion for his paper entitled, "The Optimal Number to Use When Estimating Patient Blood Volumes for Cardiopulmonary Bypass." Colligan received his M.S. in pharmacology and toxicology while complet- ing the perfusion training program at the University of Arizona, and currently serves as a clinical coordi- nator and instructor for students at the Texas Heart Institute School of Perfusion Technology. BRIAN J. DUNKIN, M.D., medical director of the Houston Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation & Education (MITE), will be installed as the new president of SAGES, the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons at the society's annual meeting. SAGES was founded more than 30 years ago with the mis- sion of improving quality of patient care through education, research, innovation and leadership, principally in gastrointestinal and endoscopic surgery. Dunkin is a recognized leader in the field of minimally invasive surgery, surgical endoscopy, and the use of computer simulation to teach gastrointestinal endoscopy. JOAN C. ENGEBRETSON, DRPH, RN, who holds the Judy Fred Professorship in Nursing at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Nursing, was inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (AAN). A 2014 class of 168 new inductees joins about 2,200 fellows who are recognized by the AAN as nursing leaders in education, management, practice and research. Engebretson is a clinical nurse specialist in maternal child health and is certified as an advanced holistic nurse. She is also a Fellow in the Society for Applied Anthropology. ARTURO E. HERNANDEZ, PH.D., professor and director of developmental psychology at the University of Houston (UH), is among this year's recipients of the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award. The award honors his work in mapping how the brain processes language. Hernandez believes this research could have applications for genetics, learning disorders, people with difficulty learning language or children with language delay, speech or sound issues. He is also the director of the Laboratory for the Neural Bases of Bilingualism at UH and is the author of the book, "The Bilingual Brain." THOMAS "TREY" WESTBROOK, PH.D., associate professor of molecular and human genetics and of biochemistry and molecular biology at Baylor College of Medicine, has been named The Academy of Medicine, Engineering & Science of Texas' 2015 Edith and Peter O'Donnell Award winner in med- icine, a prestigious honor given annually to one scientist across the state for outstanding innova- tion in medicine. Westbrook has made significant contributions to medicine by using novel technol- ogy developed in his lab to discover new genes that contribute to cancer. R. PATRICK WOOD, M.D., has joined LifeGift, a nonprofit organization that offers hope to individ- uals needing transplants in 109 Texas counties, full time as chief medical officer. Wood joined LifeGift as medical director in 1991 and has served on the Board of Directors for the past decade. In addition to being a former president of the Texas Transplantation Society, he has served on a number of United Network for Organ Sharing committees. He also established the liver transplant programs at the University of Texas, Memorial Hermann Health System, Texas Children's Hospital and CHI St. Luke's Health-Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center.

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