Minutes of TCGEC Executive Committee Meeting Held 22 May 2003, Rm. N701, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
The meeting began at 10:00 am in the above room. All nine institutions were represented by these persons: Dr. Maxine Hammonds-Smith, TSU; Ms. Doreen Garza, UT-PanAm; Drs. Susan Wittjen, Kelley Moseley, and Gerald Goodman, TWU; Dr. Stan Ingman, UNT; Dr. Judy Drew, UTMB; Dr. Judy Warren, TAMU; Dr. Ellen Stevens, UH; Dr. Vauny Faye, UT-HSC Houston; and Dr. Bob Roush and Ms. Mehrnaz Gill, Baylor College of Medicine.
Following a welcome and introductions, discussion items on the main agenda items for the meeting were these:
1) Evaluations of the last PDI - Dr. Roush reported that the 44 attendees were 85% female and mean age = 49 years; 29% were minorities; 29% had doctorates, 33% held master's degrees, and 19% had baccalaureate and associate degrees, respectively; 50% were nurses, with the other half consisting of community health workers, educators, LTC administrators, psychologists, social workers, health administrators, and students. The top six presentations were made by Dr. Thomas Cole on stories of late life healing and meaning; Alice Williams of Libby's Place on adult day services; Sue Mayfield-Geiger's reading from Love is Ageless: Stories about Alzheimer's Disease; Dr. Susan Wittjen on Geroethics; Dr. Christi Holland's research on persons whose spouses have dementia; and Dr. Henry Ostermann's presentation on bioterrorism preparedness for responders to older people.
2) Plan the next PDI - Much discussion was held of whether or not to repeat the "Senior Friendly Communities" theme in Galveston next spring or to work jointly with the Texas/Mexico Border initiative like we did in 2000 on Padre Island for something there this fall. It was decided to have the next PDI in Houston the first week of April 2004 at a location away from the Medical Center that has better parking and may be less expensive than medical center hotels - e.g., St. Luke's Methodist Church. The working title for the PDI will be "Advances in the Care of Older Adults." We discussed having keynote morning and luncheon talks followed by separate breakout sessions for practitioners and agency and lay persons. We would have our reception on Thursday night of the first day and end at noon Friday. Enrollees would take the balance of the 40 hours at other TCGEC-sponsored events throughout the year and from the TCGEC Distance Learning Menu. We will focus on these disciplines and topical areas: medicine, nursing, allied health, dentistry, pharmacy, LTC, social work, and mental health with emphases on AD, Geroethics, Ethnogeriatrics, falls, CHD, nutrition, meds, osteoporosis, elder abuse, geropsychiatry, and oral health. Having the next PDI in Houston would not, however, preclude our working with UT-PanAm for a fall meeting on Padre Island should they choose to hold another border issues conference with an aging track. We would also make contact with Jane Bavineau's RWJ grant on community-wide elder care to see how we can work with that large group of Houston-area professionals. Drs. Judy Drew and Bob Roush will communicate to discuss assigning certain persons responsibilities for tracks for the next PDI. Another meeting will be held in early fall to move this process along so announcements can be made in mid fall for the April 2004 PDI.
3) Further ideas for the next grant cycle - By this time next year, we will have finished our fourth year and will begin to think about new areas of Texas to serve, new members and means to operate a state-wide consortium and new program areas, such as that mentioned by Dr. Goodman about what health care professionals need to know about helping children and young adults cope with their aging parents, grand- and greatgrandparents, especially those with dementias, those in nursing homes, and those nearing the end of their lives. This and other ideas for discipline-specific, program-specific, geographic-specific and interdisciplinary activities will be considered based on needs identified that are deemed still not being fully met.
4) Gathering data for the next Uniform Progress Report due in January 2004 - Dr. Roush pointed out the need to use the form distributed to keep track of all enrollees and program completers this year;
5) New business - We heard from Dr. Susan Wittjen about her having digitally videotaped role-playing sessions with students and faculty on hot topics in geroethics that are being put on CD-ROMs so they can be mailed to persons who may not have as much Internet connectivity as others but who can go through these learning modules on their computers at their leisure. Dr. Roush announced that a new GEC was approved for UTMB, a long-time TCGEC institutional affiliate and that that would not change our operations the next two years of our grant inasmuch as they will be working in more rural areas with AHECs in Deep East Texas, an area in which we've not been as extensively involved as in other areas of the state. Dr. Roush pointed out that Texas is the nation's second most populous and second largest state; thus, having another GEC headquartered 50 miles from TCGEC headquarters should not be viewed as overlap since the nine TCGEC institutional members cover much of central, north and south Texas. We wish our colleagues in Galveston well in their service to older Texans living in easternmost Texas. We also commended Dr. Hammonds-Smith on the publication of her wonderful new book on intergenerational aging of families.
Following a working lunch, we adjourned at 1:30 pm.