& White Health in Central Texas.
“All of this has led to us growing our
clinical enterprise, including residencies
and fellowships, proportionately,” says
Dr. Cable. The Temple hospital now
hosts 490 residents and fellows in
40 GME programs. Of that number,
about 200 of the positions are “above
the cap” and thus not funded by
Medicare. That extra cost, $3.5 million
annually, comes out of the healthcare
system’s annual operations budget.
“We have tried to be very good
stewards of our funding,” Dr. Cable
says. “We work to be as cost effective
as possible while providing the highest
level of training to our students.”
Fred Slicker Training Texas
Physicians Fund
Nevertheless, Dr. Cable believed
another source of funding was
necessary to sustain the GME program.
“In the future, Medicare will likely
be less involved with the training
of physicians,” he says. Earlier this
year, a new fund was established
in memory of the father of a 2016
graduate who had completed a three-
year internal medicine residency at
Baylor Scott & White, followed by
three years in cardiology, and one
year in interventional cardiology.
Kipp Slicker, DO, was one of
Dr. Cable’s recruits eight years ago
from the Oklahoma State University
College of Osteopathic Medicine in
Tulsa. During the last few months
of his residency in internal medicine,
Dr. Slicker’s father Fred was diagnosed
with, and later died from, multiple
myeloma, a cancer of the blood. In
January, the GME committee at
Baylor Scott & White established the
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THE CATALYST Spring 17 | sw.org
The Fred Slicker Training Texas Physicians Fund is named in memory of
Dr. Slicker’s father, who was treated for cancer at Baylor Scott & White by
his son’s mentor and colleagues during Dr. Slicker’s residency here.
Fred Slicker Training Texas Physicians
Fund to honor Dr. Slicker’s father and
start building a philanthropic stream to
fund the GME program.
Fred Slicker had received radiation
treatment in Tulsa but needed a stem
cell transplant, which was not available
in Oklahoma. Dr. Slicker knew that
Dr. Cable performed autologous stem
cell transplants to treat myeloma, and
soon his father journeyed to Temple
to become Dr. Cable’s patient.
Dr. Slicker says the development
altered his outlook on the education he
was receiving. “It becomes even more
real to you when your mentor is taking
care of your family,” he says.
Mr. Slicker received a stem cell
transplant, and his condition improved.
He lived another four years, surpassing
his original prognosis of two years
at most, and was able to see his son
graduate in June 2016 before finally
succumbing to the disease in October.
“I know he lived longer and had a
better quality of life because Dr. Cable
and his team were taking care of him,”
Dr. Slicker says. That team included
residents and fellows Dr. Slicker knew
from the GME program.
Dr. Slicker says his father strongly
supported his medical education. “He
was so proud of my accomplishments,”
he says. Thinking about how his father
would react to having a fund to benefit
GME named after him, Dr. Slicker
says, “I think that he’d be embarrassed
by it, but I know that its purpose is
what he was all about. I just wish I
could tell him about it.”
Dr. Slicker was one of the first
donors to the fund named in his father’s
memory. “I just want something to
keep the GME program at Baylor Scott
& White going on in perpetuity,” he
says. “The community of it all is what
really attracted me to the program
originally,” says Dr. Slicker, who now
practices cardiology at the Harbin
Clinic in Rome, Georgia.
“The fund is the beginning of
something we hope will be a good
tradition,” says Dr. Cable. To
contribute to the Fred Slicker Training
Texas Physicians Fund, please contact
Lori Luppino at 254-899-3771. n