Coastal Bend Health Education Center
General Mailing Address:
6300 Ocean Drive
Natural Resources Center, Suite 3500
Corpus Christi, TX 78412-5503
Phone:
(361) 825-2804
Fax:
(361) 825-2809
The Coastal Bend Health Education Center is a joint effort of the Texas A&M Health Science Center, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, Del Mar College, Coastal Bend College and the Texas Agricultural Extension Service and Experiment Station. CBHEC also is associated with Coastal Bend area hospitals, including Driscoll Children's Hospital, Corpus Christi Medical Center and Christus Spohn Hospital System. Since its inception in January 2000, CBHEC has made considerable strides in providing health educational services and programs to the greater Coastal Bend area of Texas.
CBHEC is now working to coordinate all continuing medical education departments in the Coastal Bend area in order to deliver higher quality medical education for area clinicians. The center plans to make CME lectures accessible to rural hospitals by means of televideo technology. Already, all hospital systems in Corpus Christi have been brought into this effort, as have private entities like pharmaceutical companies and port industries. Each of the participating entities are committed to coordinating resources and avoiding duplication of programs. In addition to CME programs, continuing health professional education for nursing and allied health in the center are being coordinated.
CBHEC's efforts toward establishing a Coastal Bend Diabetes Education Center reflect the critical need to address this health problem in the area. CBHEC has entered into an alliance with Driscoll Children's Hospital and Diabetes Care of South Texas for creation of a diabetes education center that will provide a patient hands-on approach -- one that emphasizes education for the patients and their families. The health education center hopes to bring more health care entities in the region into this program in the future.
In response to a shortage of nurses in the area, CBHEC also is striving to make nursing recruiting a coordinated regional effort, as opposed to the current situation in which hospitals and nursing schools all conduct their own individual recruiting programs. CBHEC has contacted leaders from all of these institutions and has helped create a consensus to form a single coordinated recruitment effort. The center's leadership hopes to make a difference in training, recruiting and retaining nurses by maintaining this consortium of hospitals and schools.
One of the primary goals of the center is for medical students from the Coastal Bend area to have the option of receiving training close to home and observing medicine as practiced on an everyday basis in the community. The Partnership for Primary Care program emphasizes primary care and provides opportunity and encouragement for students to return to the Coastal Bend area to practice following graduation. The program is now being expanded for the benefit of dental health in the region as well. CBHEC hopes to attract academically distinguished students from rural high schools in the region for recruitment into Baylor College of Dentistry, much as the Partnership for Primary Care is already doing with the College of Medicine.
CBHEC is pursuing even more initiatives in health education. School of Rural Public Health faculty members associated with the center are delivering the SRPH's M.P.H. program via distance education to the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and Texas A&M University-Kingsville campuses. Meanwhile, nutrition and dietetics faculty are building baccalaureate and master's education for dietitians, and developing dietetics internship programs for students from rural areas. Communication disorders faculty are working to deliver health screening related to speech and hearing disorders to citizens in the Coastal Bend area.
Finally, CBHEC is working to establish rotations for medical residents in geriatrics and rural medicine to assist in care of the elderly and to increase the number of doctors practicing in rural counties. The health education center hopes to coordinate participation of family practice and pediatric residents in rural medicine rotations, and to increase the interest of young physicians in staying in rural counties to practice.
Map and Directions to the Coastal Bend Health Education Center
