While the Texas Medical Association’s Vaccines Defend What Matters (VDWM) program supports opportunities to educate patients about immunization, it also can provide opportunities for medical students to learn.
That has been evident in the latest six-month VDWM-supported collaboration between The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB Health) and St. Vincent’s Hope Clinic, part of a multi-year campaign improving access to influenza and Tdap vaccines in Galveston County.
The VDWM program is accepting applications for its next round of Local Impact Grants through May 22, funded by the TMA Foundation, with decision notifications for that round coming June 26.
The UTMB Health and St. Vincent’s partnership, which ran up to February in its most recent grant-supported cycle, bolsters vaccine access for medically underserved, uninsured, and immigrant populations served by the clinic.
As in past years, the annual St. Vincent’s Health Fair served as the primary vaccine distribution event. The 2026 edition, held Feb. 21, provided 43 flu vaccines and 18 Tdap vaccines. Vaccinations were also made available to patients visiting St. Vincent’s year-round clinics, staffed by UTMB John Sealy School of Medicine medical students.
“It’s a big part of our education,” said Renny Varghese, MD, of the school’s partnership with St. Vincent’s. “It’s the only way [our students] get hands-on experience in terms of really communicating, building relationships with our patients … ownership that you really don't get until you’re an attending [physician].”
Dr. Varghese, a physician with UTMB Health’s Victory Lakes Town Center Clinic in League City who oversees medical students coordinating the vaccine campaign, worked with Samir Cayenne, a fourth-year medical student and TMA Medical Student Section representative for the committee, on earlier iterations of the St. Vincent’s partnership.
“St. Vincent’s Health Fair is really all about preventative care,” Mr. Cayenne said. The fair prioritizes educating people about vaccines, along with blood pressure, blood sugar, and eyesight checks, he adds.
The school additionally, through its Family Medicine Interest Group, orchestrated the VDWM-supported Helping Hands Vaccine Drive for a second straight year, similarly designed to provide free flu shots to financially disadvantaged, homeless, uninsured, underinsured, and undocumented residents through Galveston community clinics.
VDWM is an integrated, multimedia public health education and advocacy effort, designed to overcome vaccine hesitancy and increase vaccination rates in Texas. The program makes three grant cycles available each year. After the May 22 deadline, the next opportunity will open June 24 and close Aug. 21, with awards announced Sept. 25.
The TMA Foundation has provided more than $500,000 in vaccine campaign grants since 2012, with the program adopting the Vaccines Defend What Matters name in 2023. In 2025, the foundation supported 23 different vaccine efforts statewide, awarding more than $73,000.
County medical societies, TMA Alliance chapters, medical student chapters, and TMA member-physician practices and clinics are eligible to apply for the local impact grants.
To learn more, visit TMA’s VDWM webpage.
TMA’s Vaccines Defend What Matters is funded in 2026 by TMA Foundation thanks to major support from H-E-B, TMF Health Quality Institute, and gifts from other institutions, physicians and their families.
Phil West
Associate Editor
(512) 370-1394
phil.west[at]texmed[dot]org
Phil West is a writer and editor whose publications include the Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, Austin American-Statesman, and San Antonio Express-News. He earned a BA in journalism from the University of Washington and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin’s James A. Michener Center for Writers. He lives in Austin with his wife, children, and a trio of free-spirited dogs.