| Gary Brewton, MD, FACP | |
| Trained at some of the most prestigious institutions in the United States, Dr. Brewton has served the community in a variety of roles over the years: • As a medical student, he was one of the founders of the Montrose Clinic (now Legacy Community Health Services), writing the detailed health plan and treatment protocols that got the Clinic started on a solid foundation. • Following graduation from Baylor College of Medicine, he served a year with the National Health Service Corps in El Paso, Texas, working at the understaffed Centro Medico del Valle near the historic Ysleta puebla, one of the oldest (1682) settlements in Texas. • He saw his first person with what would later be known as AIDS in 1982 while still in training at the Houston Veterans Administration Hospital. As a resident he became a resource for HIV/AIDS related information. He attended the First International Conference on AIDS in Atlanta, Georgia in 1985, and was invited to join the faculty of the University of Texas System Cancer Center-M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute, working in the HIV/AIDS clinic there. One of the first full-time HIV clinical researches in the city, he rose to the rank of Assistant Professor before he left M.D. Anderson when the Institute for Immunological Disorders, a hospital and clinic set up by UT-M.D. Anderson, closed its doors in 1987. • From 1987 to 1998 Dr. Brewton worked with the group of HIV/AIDS and cancer specialists known as OnCol Medical Associates, which provided state-of-the art care in facilities that included a reference immunology laboratory, an infusion pharmacy paired with an infusion center with on-site pharmacists and nurses that enabled people to receive high quality care while remaining comfortable at home, negatively-pressurized inhalation therapy rooms, clinic spaces, classrooms, and meeting rooms. At present, he continues his work in advanced HIV care, providing his patients access to the latest treatments available through expanded access programs before they are available to the general public by prescription. • In 1993 the leaders in Internal Medicine nationwide elected him a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. • For 1996 and 1997 he was elected by his peers Chief of Staff of Twelve Oaks Hospital. • Since 1998 he has developed expertise in the use of the Electronic Health Record (EHR). • In April 1998, Dr. Brewton realized a long-held vision by opening a private practice office to provide primary care for adults. One of his greatest professional joys has been the ability to talk to patients and listen to them at a leisurely pace. He has always endeavored to give the kind of personalized care that many people find missing in medicine today. • He routinely recertifies his credentials as an AIDS expert. Most recently in 2009 he passed the recredentialing examination of the American Academy of HIV Medicine. • In 2007, he entered seminary on a part time basis in the Houston-Galveston program of Perkins School of Theology-Southern Methodist University. Part of the motive of this has been to give voice to the unmerited suffering that he observed during the "bad years" of HIV/AIDS as a physician, as a partner of someone who died, and as a member of the community, especially the particular community at Bering Memorial United Methodist Church. Those who suffer include not only the infected but also all the others of us who have been affected. Apart from HIV/AIDS, gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgendered (GLBT) people suffer because of discrimination by fundamentalists and by the church hierarchy who deny them full participation in all aspects of church life. Yet both church and family are central to the upbringing of many people. The stories of people with HIV/AIDS and the stories of GLBT Christians are linked in many ways, especially stories of rejection. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said that unmerited suffering is redemptive. The quiet courage of those who endured and continue to endure is not always appreciated. In the midst of suffering, great beauty can be present. Dr. Brewton's plan is to study how telling the stories of people who have suffered may be a means of healing for the community at large. He is grateful for the support of the faculty at Perkins, his immediate and extended family of origin, and his family of choice at Bering. His hope is to practice a "bivocational ministry" of physical and spiritual healing. He is a certified candidate for ordination as an Elder in the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. |
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