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TCEQ: recommendations to improve accountability

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The Sunset Advisory Commission is tasked with evaluating the efficiency of over 130 Texas state agencies. A November 2022 news article points out that the group has not reviewed TCEQ's operations for over a decade (Douglas & Martinez 2022). The article also summarizes the Sunset Advisory's recommendations to improve regulation of polluting industries in Texas: 

  • suspending a company's compliance history after major accidents (complicating approval of future permits)
  • increasing of non-compliance penalties from $25,000 per day to $40,000 per day
  • increasing the notice for public hearings and possbility to submit comments up to 36 hours after the hearing


Read more in the Sunset Advisory Commissions 2022–23 staff report.

TCEQ's mission and scope

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"TCEQ regulates air, water and land pollution and had a $429 million budget in 2021; it oversees more than 250,000 permits ranging from small-scale landscape irrigation to major petrochemical plants." (Douglas & Martinez 2022).

"TCEQ Commissioner Jon Niermann said the agency’s permitting decisions could not be racist because the TCEQ does not choose the location of industrial facilities." (Douglas & Martinez 2022)

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The purpose of this program is to help instill into nurses, doctors, social workers and more with the ability to mix their clinical practice with the ability to interpret, recognize and be moved by stories of illness according to their mission statement. This program is for those that want to improve the effectiveness of their care by increasing their familiarity with the skill of narrative medicine. 

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Columbia University was one of the first medical schools to open a program in Narrative Medicine. This program was built within their College of Physicians and Surgeons. Rita Charon is the executive director of the program and is on the forefront of spreading the need for narrative medicine in the medical field. Colleagues of hers also believe that medicine has become too professional and clinical, and doctors focus on treating medical problems based off symptoms, not the patient. The educational program at Columbia created the opportunity to earn a Masters of Science degree in Narrative Medicine in 2009, making to one of the first programs devoted to only narrative medicine. 

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Sara_Nesheiwat
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This prgram is only offered in-camous adn takes roughtl 2-6 terms  to cp,plete. earnign the degree requires 38 points. Menaing fuill time studnes can copelte the program in one academic year and a summer. The degree requirements include  five Core Courses in Narrative Medicine (22 points) and the Research Methodology course (4 points), which is required for all students who have not taken a graduate-level course in research methodology. The other 12 to 16 points may include any combination of additional Topics in Narrative Medicine courses, elective courses chosen from other departments, Independent Study and/or Capstone (two to four points).

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Sara_Nesheiwat
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Requirements to apply are a Bachelor’s degree or its equivalent and demonstrable evidence of promise in the field of narrative medicine according to the admissions website. Ultimately, those looking to enter the medical field in any capacity are the main targeted demographic for this program. The goal is to instill into doctors, nurses, PAs, social workers, etc, the idea of incorporating narrative medicine into their clinical work. Those predisposed to healthcare fields are likely optimal candidates for this program.