Ivette Chavarria Torres

An adequate workforce constitutes good public health policy.  As the GME Residency Program Coordinator for Psychiatry, Ivette Chavarria Torres, offers direct organizational leadership to Adult Psychiatry and contributes to an ambitious Texas public health initiative.  The Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium (TCMHCC) is a state-funded public health project which addresses the mental health crisis in Texas.  One aim is the Community Psychiatry Workforce Expansion which sponsors psychiatry residents to serve rural Texas. A second aim creates Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (CAP) Fellowship training programs to deliver more Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists to: (a) address the provider shortage, and (b) treat the growing population of children and adolescents in Texas.  This will sponsor the first CAP Fellowship in the Rio Grande Valley U.S.-Mexico border region, which has been historically underserved.

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine provides innovative medical education for the next generation of diverse physicians committed to improving the lives and well-being of their communities through cutting-edge research and compassionate patient-centered care. In addition, the UTRGV School of Medicine educates biomedical scientists engaged in advancing research on diabetes, cancer and neurological disorders that affect the region. In 2016, The UTRGV School of Medicine welcomed its charter class of 55 medical students. Since then, more than 200 medical students and over 200 medical residents and fellows have served in nineteen hospital-based training programs throughout the Rio Grande Valley and beyond, with more training programs on the horizon.