A nother project on the network links the Health Science Center's family practice residency programs at Corpus Christi and McAllen with physicians who are on call at the emergency room at University Hospital in San Antonio. University Hospital is one of the Health Science Center's teaching hospitals. Virtually every type of specialist is available to our San Antonio family practice residents in the University Hospital emergency room. We are the health science center for South Texas. There is a great need out there for health care.
Many patients are indigent.
The federal government has designated 26 of the region's 38 counties as underserved, meaning they lack the health care personnel deemed adequate and available in other parts of the United States. The network also carries educational programs, most of which go to small classroom settings and use smaller, portable audio- visual units. Physicians and nurses in South Texas simply request a specific topic, and the Health Science Center arranges the link- up. And dental hygienists, lab clinicians and occupational therapy students soon will receive interactive instruction with a hook-up to the School of Allied Health Sciences . A bachelor's program in occupational therapy is scheduled to begin in May at UT Pan American at Edinburg, and much of the program will rely on instruction originating at the Health Science Center.