TCOM alum honored for project about home births

October 15, 2018
Education

A UNT Health Science Center graduate won a national leadership award for creating an educational web resource to help patients who are considering a home birth.

Chandler Sparks, DO, MPH, a 2018 graduate of the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine and a Rural Scholar, was one of 30 people selected as a Family Medicine Leads Emerging Leader by the American Academy of Family Physicians.

The program included a scholarship, participation in national conferences and intensive workshops, as well as completion of a project based on each scholars’ track of study.

Dr. Sparks, who is also a Captain in the U.S. Air Force, created Texas Home Birth, which provides information about how the practice of home birth is regulated in Texas, and explains the training of providers who perform it. The academy selected the resource as the best project in Personal and Practice Leadership.

Judges noted there currently is not enough reliable information on home births available to physicians and their patients.

“I’d like the resource to be put in the hands of women and parents in Texas who are considering out-of-hospital birth, as well as physicians with patients who might be considering it,” Dr. Sparks said.

Dr. Sparks is a first-year family medicine resident at St. Louis University School of Medicine.

Dr. Michael Clearfield the inaugural winner of the Beyer, Everett, and Luibel Memorial Medal

For more than two decades, Dr. Michael B. Clearfield, DO, MACOI, FACP, has developed the Department of Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine into one of the largest and most productive academically in the osteopathic profession, serving as the chair from 1982-...

Our People

|Sep 28, 2023

HSC’s Dr. Kari Northeim and Parker County collaborators awarded SAMHSA grant for rural EMS training and education

Dr. Kari Northeim, School of Public Health assistant professor of population and community health at The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, has been awarded the SAMHSA Rural EMS Training and Education grant in conjunction with HSC community partners, Parker County Hospi...

Research

|Sep 28, 2023

SBS researchers publish innovative study in Nature Scientific Reports

People with leg amputations, including those with diabetes, run the risk of overuse injuries like osteoarthritis, muscle atrophy or bone breaks in their intact limbs. Now, new research is quantifying the impacts of amputations and diabetes, a leading cause of amputation, on those overuse ...

On Campus

|Sep 28, 2023

HSC’s Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine to host symposium on ‘Creating Change in Health Care Delivery’

Americans have soured on the U.S. health care system, according to a Gallup poll taken earlier this year. Most of those surveyed rate health care quality as subpar, including 31% saying it is “only fair” and 21% — a new high — calling it “poor.” The U.S. ranked nearly last compared w...

Newsroom