SAN ANTONIO (Oct. 30, 2007) — The Economic Development Administration (EDA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce is awarding $1 million to support construction of a state-of-the-art ambulatory surgery center at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D., president of the Health Science Center, thanked Sandy K. Baruah, assistant secretary of commerce for economic development, and Pedro Garza, regional director of the EDA’s Austin regional office, for this significant Fiscal Year 2007 investment by the EDA.
The $3.9 million ambulatory surgery center will be one of the many clinical areas of the $95 million UT Medical Arts and Research Center.
“The EDA’s timely help will enable UT Medicine to expand its outpatient space for surgical procedures and promote the training of future physicians and surgeons,” Dr. Cigarroa said. “We are grateful that the EDA continues to be a strong partner with the Health Science Center in ensuring the success of its teaching, research, patient care and service missions.”
Composed of Health Science Center faculty physicians, UT Medicine San Antonio is the largest multi-specialty practice group in South Texas. By 2009, the group will have a new practice site in the 250,000-square-foot UT Medical Arts and Research Center, now under construction across the street from the Health Science Center’s Greehey Academic and Research Campus at 8403 Floyd Curl Drive.
“The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio has done remarkable work and is among EDA’s most valued partners in the Southwestern Region,” Garza said. “Working with President Cigarroa, EDA has invested a total of $2.6 million to construct and equip highly specialized facilities that will employ innovative approaches in training Texas’ health care and biosciences workforce of tomorrow. We are especially proud of our partnership with the Health Science Center, and we look forward to the dividends this investment will pay in the Texas economy in the years ahead.”
The EDA in 2005 granted $1.6 million for a training facility at the Health Science Center. That facility, now called the H-E-B Clinical Skills Center, provides an environment in which hundreds of medical and other health professional students learn to examine and communicate with patients in realistic exam rooms under simulated conditions.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is the leading research institution in South Texas and one of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an operating budget of $576 million, the Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $15.3 billion biosciences and health care sector in San Antonio’s economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $35 billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to six campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. More than 22,000 graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and allied health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas. Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney disease, orthopaedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing, allied health, dentistry and many other fields.