Newsroom Archive

A pair of JPS Health Network physicians has been honored as Healthcare Heroes by the Fort Worth Business Press for their groundbreaking work to save lives and make them better.

Dr. Fayette Williams, Division of Maxillofacial Oncology & Reconstructive Surgery Director at JPS and Interventional Pulmonologist Dr. Paras Patel will receive their awards January 16 at Texas Christian University.

Williams was honored for his breakthrough work perfecting an operation to replace the jaw bone of patients, who lost theirs through disease or accident, with one of their fibulas.

Pulmonologist Sherif Al-Farra has been named the Physician of the Year at JPS Health Network for 2019.

Dr. Al-Farra specializes in sleep issues. He’s created a sleep study program at JPS where more than 1,000 patients a year can find help, sometimes alleviating a long term health problem in one or two days.

“We’re always looking for ways to improve patient care,” Al-Farra said. “And sleep programs are something that have been under-recognized. Sleep apnea, if left untreated, can lead to serious health problems including heart attacks and strokes.”

A lot has changed in the world of medicine over the past 50 years.

But one thing that has remained constant for the last five decades is that neonatologist Dr. Donald Nelms and nephrologist Dr. Kermit Olson have been making rounds at JPS Health Network, providing a combined century of service to Fort Worth and Tarrant County while training the doctors that followed in their footsteps.

JPS Health Network leaders have announced that they’ve begun building a new laboratory data recording and communication system that will make patient care both safer and more efficient.

Called Beaker, the software is made by the same company that created the Epic patient information management system and the MyChart patient information portal JPS currently uses. Because of that, it will work seamlessly with the other patient communication software at the health network.

Where is JPS Health Network President and CEO Robert Earley today?

Chances are, if you don’t see him roaming the halls and making the rounds with team members inside health network buildings, he’s on the road telling the JPS success story to yet another rapt audience.

A routine dental appointment led to a devastating discovery for Nick McMillon.

An X-ray revealed a void in the middle of his jawbone near his chin that his dentist initially thought was an abscess. Upon further investigation, however, the problem turned out to be much more serious: It was a tumor that created a hole about the size of a quarter in McMillon’s mandible.

Just 10 years after he performed his first robotic surgery at JPS Health Network, Dr. Fernando Garcia has completed his 1,000th operation using the da Vinci Surgical System.

“When the da Vinci robots started to appear, a lot of surgeons and hospitals dismissed the idea,” Garcia said. “But we’ve found that they add an element of precision, allowing surgeons to get into places they couldn’t using more traditional methods. They open up a new world of possibilities.”

In the first year following the move to put behavioral health specialists on the job at JPS Health Network clinics, 386 high risk patients were identified and helped with much-needed treatment when they otherwise might not have been.

Zelia Baugh, Executive Vice President and Behavioral Health Administrator, said identifying behavior health issues as soon as possible and starting treatment is key to helping patients most successfully – and most efficiently.

There is a big difference between trying to save the lives of Navy sailors and Marines wounded in battle and trying to solve the health issues of patients at a civilian hospital in Texas.

But Dr. Carlos Rodriguez, who retired from the Navy in 2018 after 24 years of service to become Director of Emergency General Surgery at JPS Health Network, said he has found both career paths can be equally rewarding.

When American service men and women need the help of an oral and maxillofacial surgeon in the coming years, there’s a good chance JPS Health Network will play a role in helping to make them better.