Marie Charlotte Schaefer (June 24, 1874 - May 27, 1927) was an early Texas physician and the first woman to become a faculty member of the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB).
Schaefer was born in San Antonio, Texas and attended San Antonio High School where she graduated as the salutatorian in 1893. [1] After high school, she taught for a year and then enrolled in the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in 1895. [1] She earned her medical degree in 1900 and then did a year-long residency in pathology at the John Sealy Hospital. [1] At the hospital, she worked on the pathology of hookworms. [2] [3]
In 1901, she became the first woman faculty member of UTMB. [4] She gave the opening speech on the first day of school at UTMB in 1912. [5] In 1915, she became a full professor of embryology and ten years later in 1925, a full professor of histology. [6] On May 27, 1927 she suffered from a sudden illness due to heart disease and died the same day. [1] Schaefer was buried in San Antonio and former students of hers served as pallbearers. [1] Schaefer's medical drawings are in the collection of the UTMB Moody Medical Library. [7]
John Sealy Hospital is a hospital that is a part of the University of Texas Medical Branch complex in Galveston, Texas, United States.
Galveston is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of 209.3 square miles (542 km2), with a population of 53,695 in 2020, is the county seat of surrounding Galveston County and second-largest municipality in the county. It is also within the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area at its southern end on the northwestern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
Galveston County is a county in the U.S. state of Texas, located along the Gulf Coast adjacent to Galveston Bay. As of the 2020 census, its population was 350,682. The county was founded in 1838. The county seat is the City of Galveston, founded the following year, and located on Galveston Island. The most-populous municipality in the county is League City, a suburb of Houston at the northern end of the county, which surpassed Galveston in population during the early 2000s.
The University of Texas System is a public university system in the U.S. state of Texas. It includes nine universities and five independent health institutions. The UT System is headquartered in Downtown Austin. Its total enrollment of nearly 240,000 students is the largest university system in Texas. It employs 21,000 faculty and more than 83,000 health care professionals, researchers and support staff. The UT System's $30 billion endowment is the largest of any public university system in the United States.
The Texas Medical Center (TMC) is a 2.1-square-mile (5.4 km2) medical district and neighborhood in south-central Houston, Texas, United States, immediately south of the Museum District and west of Texas State Highway 288. Over 60 medical institutions, largely concentrated in a triangular area between Brays Bayou, Rice University, and Hermann Park, are members of the Texas Medical Center Corporation—a non-profit umbrella organization—which constitutes the largest medical complex in the world. The TMC has an extremely high density of clinical facilities for patient care, basic science, and translational research.
The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) is a public academic health science center in Galveston, Texas, United States. It is part of the University of Texas System. UTMB includes the oldest medical school in Texas, and has about 11,000 employees. In February 2019, it received an endowment of $560 million.
The Archdiocese of Galveston–Houston is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction—an archdiocese—of the Catholic Church in the United States. The archdiocese covers a portion of Southeast Texas, and is the metropolitan see of the ecclesiastical province covering east-Texas. The archdiocese was erected in 2004, having been a diocese since 1959 and the "Diocese of Galveston" since 1847. It is the second metropolitan see in Texas after the Archdiocese of San Antonio.
The Galveston Island Trolley is a heritage streetcar network in Galveston, Texas, United States. As of late 2006, the total network length was 6.8 miles (10.9 km) with 22 stations. The Galveston Island Trolley is operated by Island Transit. The rail system reopened in 2021, after having been out of service for 13 years following severe damage caused by Hurricane Ike in 2008. Subsequent to the 2008 closure, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Federal Transit Administration agreed to fund repairs. In January 2017, a contract was approved to restore three of the trolleys at a cost of $3.8 million. At that time, the trolleys were expected to be ready to return to service in 2018, but the date was later postponed to 2019 and later to 2021. By November 2020, two reconditioned trolleys had returned to Galveston. The line reopened for service in October 2021, limited to three days a week for now.
James Lee Kessler, the founder of the Texas Jewish Historical Society, was the first native Texan to serve as rabbi of Congregation B'nai Israel in Galveston, Texas.
As one of the oldest and more historically significant cities in Texas, Galveston has had a long history of advancements and offerings in education, including: the first parochial school (1847), the first medical college (1891), and the first school for nurses (1890).
The Transitional Learning Center(TLC) is a post-acute brain injury rehabilitation facility headquartered in the island city of Galveston, Texas. It was started by the non-profit Moody Foundation in 1982, in response to a brain injury suffered by a son of trustee Robert L. Moody. The center provides survivors of acute brain injury with rehabilitation services needed to help patients overcome their injuries and regain independence. In order to provide additional space for post-acute brain injury rehabilitation, in 2008 the center opened a branch facility in Lubbock, Texas, to help serve needs of people throughout the southwest United States. TLC Director of Neuropsychology, Dr. Dennis Zgaljardic, is a past president of the Houston Neuropsychological Society.
The Galveston National Laboratory (GNL) in Galveston, Texas, United States, is a high security National Biocontainment Laboratory housing several Biosafety level 4 research laboratories. The lab is run by the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) for exotic disease diagnosis and research. The GNL is one of the 15 biosecurity level 4 facilities in the United States and the largest one in the world located on an academic campus.
The Shriners Children's Texas is a 30-bed non-profit pediatric burn hospital, research, and teaching center located on the campus of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, US. Part of a 22-hospital system, it is one of the three Shriner's Hospitals that specialize exclusively in burn care and consists of an intensive care unit with 15 acute beds and a reconstruction and plastic surgery unit with 15 reconstruction beds along with three operating rooms and beds for orthopedic and spine care. The hospital is verified as a burn center by the American Burn Association and accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. In 2012, the hospital joined the Texas Medical Center as its 50th member institution.
The Sealy & Smith Foundation is a charitable foundation incorporated in Texas and based in the island city of Galveston. It was established in 1922 by John Sealy, II and his sister Jennie Sealy Smith with a charter stating a mission to:
"support of a charitable undertaking in the City of Galveston, Texas, for the construction, remodeling, enlarging, equipping, and furnishing of the John Sealy Hospital, and other hospital building or buildings in the City of Galveston in connection with the John Sealy Hospital in said city, and endowment thereof, for the use of the people of said City of Galveston and providing them with the necessary medical care and attention therein."
Herman Aladdin Barnett III was an American fighter pilot, surgeon and anesthesiologist. He became the first black graduate from the University of Texas Medical School in 1953.
Benjy Frances Brooks was an American pediatric surgeon affiliated with several hospitals in Houston. She was the first woman in the surgery department at Harvard Medical School and the first woman to become a pediatric surgeon in the state of Texas. She founded the pediatric surgery division at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Brooks actively conducted research throughout her career in addition to working as a pediatric surgeon.
Dawn Buckingham is an American physician and politician who is Land Commissioner of Texas. She was elected in November 2022 and sworn in on January 10, 2023. She was a state Senator from 2017 to 2023. She worked as a surgeon before being elected Land Commissioner. She is the first woman in Texas history to serve as Land Commissioner.
Jochen Reiser is a physician-scientist and a healthcare leader. He is the President of the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) and CEO of the UTMB Health System, which includes the oldest Medical School and Nursing School in the state of Texas. As Chief Executive Officer, he oversees the enterprise which includes multiple campuses, five health science colleges, the Galveston National Laboratory (BSL-4) and the Correctional Health Care Services for most of Texas. Before UTMB, he served as the Ralph C Brown MD Professor and the Chairman of Medicine at Rush University Medical Center. Dr. Reiser's research has provided important mechanistic insights into the molecular pathogenesis of kidney diseases. Dr. Reiser discovered the role of suPAR as a global, circulating risk factor for chronic kidney disease (CKD) as well as for acute kidney injury (AKI). suPAR is investigated as potential causative agent contributing to many kidney diseases including focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). These studies have broad clinical significance and lay the foundation for creation of novel diagnostics and pharmaco-therapeutics with potential benefit for a large patient population. His studies on suPAR molecule were featured in Science in 2018. Dr. Reiser has been an advocate of science and innovation for two decades and was named as an inventor on multiple patents. He is co-founder of Cambridge, MA-based Walden Biosciences, an ARCH Venture Partners joint-venture biopharmaceutical portfolio company dedicated to develop first-in-class therapeutics for kidney diseases.
William Keiller was a Scottish born anatomist who trained in anatomy at the Edinburgh Extramural School of Medicine and was appointed as the first Professor of Anatomy at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston, a post he held for 40 years. He served as Dean of the UTMB Medical School and as President of the Texas Medical Association. Many of his anatomical drawings and paintings are preserved and displayed at the Blocker History of Medicine collection at UTMB Moody Medical Library.
Sally Abston (1934-2008) was an American surgeon and scientist. She is noted as the first woman surgical resident at the University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston (UTMB), where she also worked as part of the faculty.