Education
As a major academic health center, we have the opportunity to create a unique training experience for students. For two decades, our team has been training graduate level healthcare students and professionals through hands-on visits to patients’ homes. These home visits provide healthcare professionals with a better understanding of patients’ environments, developing their intervention skills and equipping them with empathy regarding the challenges that patients face within their homes.
UT Health Courses
We currently offer 4th year medical students a 6-month longitudinal elective, Medicine and the Environment. Students are introduced to TILT through case studies in grand rounds lectures and by exploring studies on the underlying pathophysiology. Students conduct an environmental walk-through of their own home to increase personal awareness of exposures for their patients.
Variations of this course are being offered to Physician Assistant and Nurse Practitioner students. In addition we are reaching out to Doctor of Osteopathic (DO) Medical Schools in Texas and in other states to provide TILT education through lectures and conference presentations.
The TILT “Lunch and Learn” series, intended for dental practitioners and staff, is a luncheon-style lecture series which educates these professionals on healthy alternatives to chemicals often used in this setting, encouraging them to minimize exposures for their patients and staff.
Team members from the Hoffman TILT Program regularly participate in Grand Rounds, a medical school tradition through which researchers are able to present to other health professionals and future health professionals. Grand Rounds tend to focus on topics of current relevance, emphasize practice and clinical experience, and incorporate the newest research and treatments in an area.
Extending Our Reach
We have recently been invited to share our educational program with the Texas Family Medicine Leadership Conference. Our goal with this presentation is to invite other medical centers to join us in replicating our efforts across the state.
Continuing Medical Education (CME) Courses
Our TILT team is collaborating with health professions educators and leading scientific experts in environmental exposure assessment to create CME accredited courses. (CMEs will be offered Spring 2018).