TTUHSC Training Future Health Care Providers at Dallas Campus

• By Suzanna Cisneros
• March 29, 2024
• Education

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) recently hosted a Dallas Ribbon Cutting and Celebration (March 20). The TTUHSC Dallas campus is home to the Jerry H. Hodge School of Pharmacy and the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health and provides resources for multiple programs within the School of Nursing.

TTUHSC President Lori Rice-Spearman, Ph.D. said the university’s presence in the Metroplex comes as a response to students who value a degree from TTUHSC’s prestigious programs. By offering degrees here, students can receive the best in the nation’s health care education without leaving the Dallas–Fort Worth area.

“Our goal for our Metroplex location is to make our nationally-recognized academic instruction accessible in order to help address the shortage of health care professionals,” Rice-Spearman said. “We want to continue building our community partnerships and seek to build new ones where we can work together to identify innovative solutions to meet health care needs.”

Rice-Spearman said TTUHSC has 8,726 alumni in the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex, which is approximately 21% of all TTUHSC alumni. TTUHSC supports the Dallas economy contributing $36.4 million annually and sustaining about 150 jobs statewide from university-related operations at the campus.

The Jerry H. Hodge School of Pharmacy was the first TTUHSC school established in Dallas. The school’s Dallas and Lubbock campuses opened in 1999 for third- and fourth- year students three years after the school opened in Amarillo. At that time, students began in Amarillo and then transitioned to either Dallas or Lubbock for their third and fourth years because there was such a need for pharmacists in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. In 2018, the Dallas campus accepted its first four-year class.

More than 250 pharmacy students come from the Dallas–Fort Worth campus. The TTUHSC pharmacy school offers a curricular distinction for all pharmacy graduates to earn a recognition of a Concentration in Special Populations, including a required training in geriatrics, pediatrics and rural health/underserved community care. The training uniquely prepares pharmacy students to meet the health care needs of diverse patients in both rural and urban communities. Pharmacy students have the opportunity to complete dual degrees of Pharm/MBA and/or PharmD/MPH within four years of training.

In addition to its educational priorities, the pharmacy school supports significant research programs in clinical pharmacology and experimental therapeutics; and real-world evidence on medication use with about 1,719 square feet of dedicated laboratory research space on the Dallas campus.

Outside of academic offerings, the Jerry H. Hodge School of Pharmacy faculty and pharmacy residents work collaboratively with their colleagues across the enterprise to provide patient care through various contracts with external health care institutions, community pharmacies, nursing homes and clinics including patient care services at the North Texas VA Healthcare System, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Senior Care, Access TeleCare and at an underserved clinic.

In 2021, the TTUHSC School of Nursing expanded its Traditional BSN program and seated the first class of students at the Methodist Mansfield site. Approximately 350 nursing students are living in the Dallas–Fort Worth region while completing TTUHSC programs. This includes students enrolled in the Dallas/Mansfield-based BSN programs and online in the RN-BSN and graduate (MSN/DNP) programs.

The Accelerated BSN program started in 2013 and has grown from an early admission of 10 to 45 students annually, and this site receives the highest number of applicants during each admission cycle. The program has graduated 222 students since its inception in Dallas. For undergraduate programs, TTUHSC’s School of Nursing has a total enrollment each year of approximately 125 students (Accelerated and Traditional BSN combined).

The Mansfield program has graduated 67 students since 2023 with 79% of graduates accepting nursing positions in the North Texas/ Dallas–Fort Worth area. The School of Nursing collaborated and established clinical affiliations with several major health systems including Methodist Mansfield, Medical City Healthcare, Parkland Health, Baylor University Medical Center and Cooks Children’s Medical Center.

In addition, the Dallas TTUHSC campus is the home base for the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health. The institute was established to create a new approach to women's health care.

“Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center has 1,215 students from the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex enrolled across our enterprise, and an additional 726 students in medicine, nursing, pharmacy and health professions at clinical sites across the Dallas area,” Rice-Spearman said. “Our TTUHSC Dallas campus is truly a home for our students both on our campus and in the community, providing a place for innovative learning, and being a collaborator in helping to shape the future of health for this region and for our great state.”