Message From the Chief Medical Officer

As Braxton Taylor’s story illustrates, it takes an entire team to guide a patient from illness or injury to a return to meaningful participation in the community. There is no one right way to accomplish that goal; we do it by working together to touch each aspect of the individual’s life.

That collaborative approach is mirrored in our research program. The new TIRR Memorial Hermann Research Center houses professionals in four seemingly disparate labs who work together synergistically to bring innovations to the bedside, the therapy gym, the outpatient care setting and the community. Investigators in the Neurorecovery Research Center, the Brain Injury Research Center, the Spinal Cord Research Program and the Independent Living Research Utilization program share the common goal of transforming lives and instilling hope in people whose lives have been significantly altered by illness or injury. Those shared goals create fertile ground for the discovery of solutions that will reduce activity limitations and participation restrictions on the individual level, and remove environmental and social barriers in the community.

Rehabilitation doesn’t stop when a patient walks out our door. It ends only when the people we treat are valued participants in the world around them.

Gerard E. Francisco, MD
Chief Medical Officer
TIRR Memorial Hermann
Chair, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
McGovern Medical School at UTHealth