Mentoring the future of public health

In every healthcare university, there are leaders whose journeys, passions, and commitments shape the experiences of students and the future.

The Beyond the CV series looks past the bios of the deans leading UTHealth Houston’s schools to explore their personal motivations, defining moments, and guiding philosophies.

This month, Eric Boerwinkle, PhD, reflects on his career, leadership, and the future of public health at UTHealth Houston. Boerwinkle serves as dean of UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, where he is the M. David Low Chair in Public Health and the Kozmetsky Family Chair in Human Genetics.

Why did you pursue a career in public health?

I'm not sure that I pursued the career as much as the career pursued me. There's a great line in the Harry Potter series that the wizard doesn't select the wand; the wand selects the wizard. I think one has opportunities in life. Some people just watch opportunities go by, and some people grab them with gusto.

Early on in my career, I was involved in scientific projects as a young scientist. Then, when I had an opportunity to grow that work, and specifically to grow it in humans and look at human health, I definitely grabbed it and didn't look back.

I was pretty good at math, and I could begin to apply principles that were developed really for agriculture, to understand how we got wheat and corn and all of this, to how we could understand the genetics of traits in humans and try to use that to improve human health.

Once I went down that path, I really never looked back. It was a relatively new field, and I was really the right person at the right time. You can call it luck, you can call it serendipity. But I really do think it's important for young scientists, when they have opportunities, to not be afraid to grab them, make mistakes or fall flat on their face. I'm an expert at it. And so, in my case, it was important that I grabbed this opportunity and grew it into a great research program here in Houston.

You've accomplished so much in your career. How do you keep evolving professionally and stay motivated?

Well, for me, evolving and staying motivated is really why I do this. I need to stay excited, and I need to stay contemporary. Learning new things and applying new methods is really important to me. It keeps me energized and excited about the science.

I think the other aspect of it is that it's not so much about the methods, new widgets, or new tools, it's about working with people. I like working with people, particularly working with young people. They understand novel methods. They're driving the technical and methodological parts of the field. I gravitate toward team science and building large groups of investigators, which brings new methods, new methodological perspectives, and contemporary questions.

The key is that you have to like and appreciate people, and you also have to get excited about something new and not think that the way you did it yesterday is the way we're all going to do it tomorrow. In fact, that's in some ways the death knell. You have to think about what we're going to be doing tomorrow.

Tell us about a proud moment in your career where you greatly impacted a student and why that means so much to you.

I've been very fortunate to work with a lot of great people, particularly a lot of great young people, students, and trainees. In some ways, my job really is to promote students and their work.

The key really is to create opportunities. I'm in a position where I can create those opportunities by bringing people together and creating an infrastructure or a circumstance that a student could never create by themselves.

So, by creating an opportunity for a student, putting them in that place, and then letting them run with it, it's good for them, it's good for me, and it's good for the scientific enterprise and the school itself.

I've been very fortunate to have really bright young trainees and young faculty working with me. Creating those opportunities and letting them run with things promotes the science, promotes the school, and promotes their careers. And I just go along for the ride.

Is there a standout moment during your time as dean that makes you most proud?

I think, as dean, I'm probably most proud not so much of what I've done personally, but of promoting the whole field of public health here within UTHealth Houston and, frankly, within the Texas Medical Center and across public health in Texas.

I became the dean of UTHealth Houston School of Public Health as an opportunity to share and build the potential of public health at UTHealth Houston. I think the potential is huge.

We're very fortunate, really, to reside in what people like to say is the world's largest medical center. I prefer to say it's one of the world's best medical centers. And that means there's not only work that I call “heroic medicine,” treating those who are very ill and very much in need. That's important, and I'm not degrading that work at all. But I think it's also important that we focus our attention on how we can help the greatest number of individuals and really prevent disease. What that means is focusing on young people. You know, once you're 67 years old, it's hard to prevent disease itself. We need to start when they're seven years old and think about good nutrition, good exercise, and avoiding bad behaviors.

What do you think makes UTHealth Houston and the School of Public Health unique compared to others?

There are really two aspects that make UTHealth Houston School of Public Health special.

The first is its presence within the Texas Medical Center. You know, the Texas Medical Center has multiple medical schools. It has multiple nursing schools. It has one school of public health. And we're like Switzerland, we work with all of the hospitals, we work with all of the medical centers, and we work with everyone in our community: the city, the state, and the county.

And really, it's about serving the people, the people of Houston and the Greater Houston area. There are a lot of needs here. There are extremely wealthy people and extremely poor people. There are people who are very healthy, and there are people who are very sick. And we pride ourselves on serving everyone in the community.

I'd say the second aspect of the school that makes us special is Texas itself. The School of Public Health is unusual in that we have a truly statewide presence. We have faculty, staff, and students throughout the state, and it's a big state.

It's important that we take the latest and greatest knowledge in public health and make sure we're bringing it, for example, to rural communities. Rural communities are often forgotten when it comes to healthcare.

What qualities do you want graduates to leave with as they pursue the next steps in their career?

I've been very lucky to work with young people, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and young faculty, and I hope that the school and the mentoring infrastructure we have in place imparts, first and foremost, a sense of curiosity and a real desire to understand the unknown.

The other is service, taking the knowledge you gain from the school and using it to help people in the community. There are literally hundreds of ways to do that. I think too many people put public health into a little bucket: that we serve only poor people, or we serve only people of color, or we serve only immigrant communities. We serve everyone.

What excites you most about the future of public health and public health education, and how is the school preparing for that future?

First, I'm excited about the future of public health. I would say I'm excited for two reasons.

The first is the absolute need for us to focus more on prevention and less on treatment, and that's true across the board. Everyone understands prevention when it comes to cardiovascular disease or diabetes. But we also need to be looking at the prevention of conditions we don't normally talk about. We need to be looking at the prevention of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. We need to be looking at prevention when it comes to mental health conditions.

I think the other reason I'm excited about public health is the growing opportunity to better understand how we're spending our money in healthcare. The School of Public Health here in Houston has something called the All-Payor Claims Database. We can use healthcare data and information about healthcare payments to better understand the entire health and economic infrastructure and landscape.

Tell us one thing about yourself that most people don't know.

I have really been fortunate throughout my life being able to spend a lot of time outdoors. I love anything outdoors and spend quite a bit of time fishing. I could care less about catching fish. I'd just like to be outdoors; it's almost an excuse.

The city of Houston has a lot to offer people outdoors. Everyone knows the parks, like Hermann Park and Memorial Park. I also think there's a growing opportunity with the connections along our bayous. Those bicycle paths are also great walking paths.

Beyond that, there are a lot of great things to do in and around Houston that are just a short drive away. The wildflowers here are fantastic, and we have incredible birding several times a year.