About our school
Welcome to the School of Medicine!
In almost every state in our country, medicine is being practiced by graduates of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine. We have an exciting story to tell… a story retold and reinvented each time a graduate makes a mark on the world.
Since 1969, we have graduated more than 2,700 physicians. Our original charter was to place more physicians in West Texas, an area of the state where many counties had none. Today, we are proud that more than 20 percent of the practicing physicians in West Texas graduated from our medical school and/or residency programs.
Our departments conduct research and foster scientific discovery that translate into better health solutions. From aging, cancer, diabetes, anesthesiology, and infectious diseases – just to name a few – the School of Medicine’s strategy to enhance research programs is through supporting the faculty, students, residents, and staff with every available professional resource and expertise. A major initiative for the school is to provide quality lab space, recruit creative, innovative research faculty, and to develop graduate students and postdoctoral fellows for lifelong careers in medical research. Accomplishments during the last two years include: the renovation and construction of research space in Amarillo, El Paso, and Lubbock and continued and aggressive faculty recruitment with attractive start-up packages, and substantial increases in endowed chairs and external funding.
Texas Tech Physicians, our new region-wide practice name, is the largest group practice in West Texas with more than 450 full-time clinical faculty. The wide range of specialties and sub-specialties comprising the practice allow us to touch the lives of more than 224,000 patients each year. Expansion is underway in all of our regional facilities. In Lubbock, the new 150,000 square foot Texas Tech Physicians Medical Pavilion will open in September 2007. Design and construction of a new state-of-the-art research building is underway in Amarillo. The Permian Basin is increasing Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Internal Medicine services in the Tanglewood Facility in Midland, and the Family Medicine practice in Abilene continues to grow. Work is ongoing in El Paso to make the first four-year medical school on the Texas-Mexico border a reality.
I hope you share with me in the excitement of the many changes and positive efforts being made to make the School of Medicine a premier place to work, study, and receive the latest medical care and treatment in West Texas!
Steven L. Berk, M.D.
Dean, School of Medicine
(806) 743-3000