Medical Solutions

Learn about how UNT alumni are saving lives and finding cures.

UNT has a history of producing pioneering physicians and researchers. Here’s a sampling of other UNT alumni who have made a difference in the medical world.

• The late Benjy Brooks (’40 M.S.) became Texas’ first pediatric surgeon in 1958 after completing her surgical training at Harvard Medical School. She established the Division of Pediatric Surgery at the University of Texas Medical School, researched congenital defects and burn treatment and was inducted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame in 1985.
• The late C. James Carrico (’57) was the first physician to treat a wounded President Kennedy in Dallas' Parkland Memorial Hospital when he was brought in Nov. 22, 1963. Carrico later taught surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the University of Washington. He became chief of surgery at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. His father was the late Kit Carrico, chair of the North Texas chemistry department for 26 years.
• Hyun-soon Chong (’99), a cancer researcher and professor at Illinois Institute of Technology, researches developing safe, effective and targeted drugs for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.
• Mark Laney (’80), a pediatric neurologist and president and CEO of Heartland Health in St. Joseph, Mo., led the health-care system to receive the prestigious 2009 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, given by the U.S. President for a commitment to excellence.
• James Pawelczyk (’89 Ph.D.), associate professor of physiology and kinesiology at Penn State, flew on a 16-day Spacelab flight aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1998 to research the effects of microgravity on the brain and nervous system in a lab in space.
• Rosalyn Reades (’02), an Honors College graduate and all-time leader of the UNT women’s basketball program in assists and steals, was only the second UNT student to be named a semifinalist for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. She’s now saving lives as an emergency medicine physician in Dallas. She was named to the UNT Athletic Hall of Fame in 2007.
• Frank Spencer (’44), a Korean War veteran whose arterial repair surgeries prevented many amputations during the war, completed a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at North Texas in two and a half years, gained acceptance at Vanderbilt School of Medicine in Nashville at the age of 17, and became one of the nation’s leading thoracic surgeons.