Barry University’s School of Podiatric Medicine Dean, Dr. Jeffrey Jensen along with his wife Celia, donated $25,000 to establish the “Dr. Robert Warriner III Scholarship for Research in Neuropathy Prevention” at the Paul & Margaret Brand Research Center.
The scholarship, pledged over five years, will be used to provide research scholarships to Barry podiatric medical students researching neuropathy prevention. This is the fifth research scholarship established at the Paul & Margaret Brand Research Center.
The scholarship, named to honor Jensen’s colleague, Warriner who is recognized among the nation’s foremost physicians and researchers in hyperbaric medicine, wound management, and continuous quality improvement in medical care. He is currently the Chief Medical Officer of Diversified Clinical Services, the largest provider of wound care services in the United States.
The new scholarship will provide one annual $2,500 research scholarship to a qualified podiatric medical student at Barry judged by the faculty to have submitted the best publishable paper based on their research with a Barry faculty member in the area of neuropathy prevention. The additional $2,500 of the gift will be used by the School of Podiatric Medicine to fund research costs associated with conducting the research activities of the awarded research scholarship.
Warriner served on the Board of Directors of the Wound Healing Society and is a committee chair for the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society. Warriner is a graduate of the Vanderbilt Medical School in Nashville, Tennessee. He completed an internship in general surgery and residency in anesthesiology and completed a fellowship in anesthesiology and critical care medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He later served four years of active duty in the United States Air Force as the Director of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Wilford Hall USAF Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas and Chief of Anesthesia Services at USAF Hospital Luke in Glendale, Arizona.
For six years Warriner practiced anesthesia and critical care medicine at Conroe Regional Medical Center in Conroe, Texas. He eventually provided access to hyperbaric medicine for patients at the hospital. This led to an investigation of the concept of a wound care and hyperbaric medicine center, and in 1990, Warriner became the founding medical director of the Southeast Texas Center for Wound Care and Hyperbaric Medicine, supported by a 12-patient multi-place hyperbaric chamber. As an expert in the field of wound care, Warriner has spoken nationally and internationally on his experience as a wound care physician and his research with wound care and hyperbaric medicine. His position at Diversified has enabled him to write medical policy, clinical practice guidelines, and to educate thousands of physicians and nurses on the complex needs of wound care patients. Having developed peripheral neuropathy from chemotherapy, Warriner is particularly interested in the problems of neuropathy as a contributing factor to foot ulceration and healing failure.
The mission of the Paul & Margaret Brand Research Center is to create a world class research site utilizing the collaborative efforts of basic and clinical sciences. The research will result in publications in peer-reviewed journals, enhancing Barry University's academic and scholarly reputation as well as the resident and student experience at Barry. The School of Podiatric Medicine is emphasizing endeavors to spur student research in the areas of vascular medicine of the lower extremity, podiatric sports medicine/biomechanics, diabetic limb preservation, podopediatrics, and neuropathy prevention, among others.