Honors for UT Health Northeast Professor

TYLER — UT Health Northeast professor Jeffrey Levin, MD, (pictured) recently received the Marcus Key Award from the Texas College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (TxCOEM). In addition, a poster by several UT Health medical professionals about a new way to manage emergency room (ER) patients who don’t need emergency care won first prize at the annual meeting of the Texas Medical Association (TMA) in San Antonio.

Dr. Levin, who is chair of the Department of Occupational Health Sciences at UT Health, received the award during TxCOEM’s annual meeting held in conjunction with the TMA meeting. This award recognizes Dr. Levin’s “devotion to occupational and environmental health,” said an announcement from TxCOEM. The award is named for Marcus Key, a dermatologist and the first director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Dr. Levin also was one of just six physicians to receive the TMA Award for Excellence in Academic Medicine, Silver Level at the meeting. The award is a special recognition for academic physicians who are excellent teachers, role models, and medical professionals. Dr. Levin founded the Occupational Medicine Residency Program at UT Health in 1994 and has more than 25 years’ experience in occupational medicine.

The UT Health poster presented at the TMA meeting showed how ER patients who don’t have actual medical emergencies were screened and then given the option of seeing a doctor in the Family Health Center. “Our goal is to get people connected with family practitioners. We want to provide primary care for patients who don’t need to be seen in the ER,” said Brenda Lee, director of healthcare quality at UT Health. The system benefits the patients as well as UT Health, because Medicaid and many insurance companies won’t pay the full cost of ER care unless the patient has a true medical emergency, according to UT Health Northeast officials.

Lead author of the poster was Jonathan MacClements, chairman of UT Health’s Department of Family Medicine. James Menard, MD, was the second author and other members of the project team were Brenda Lee, MSN, RN; Michele Bosworth, MD; Minh Le, MD: and the staff of the Family Health Center and the ER.