Michelle Trbovich, MD

Professor

Personal Statement:

Dr. Michelle Trbovich is a Professor in the Dept of Rehabilitation Medicine at UT Health San Antonio and an SCI clinician scientist at the South Texas Veterans Health Care system.  She is dual board certified in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Spinal Cord Injury Medicine (since 2010).

In her clinical work with persons with spinal cord injury, she has expertise in intrathecal baclofen for spasticity, exoskeleton gait training, diaphragm pacing and fertility after SCI.  In addition to her clinical work, she is an accomplished researcher, having received funding from government (VA, DoD, NIH) and private agencies (PVA, Foundation for PMR) and published numerous manuscripts. Her main research expertise lies in autonomic dysfunction after SCI, namely how the peripheral vasculature changes after SCI contribute to pressure ulcers, autonomic dysreflexia and thermal dysregulation.

She serves on the International Autonomic Standards Committee for persons with SCI, reviews for SCI/PMR journals, national research grant funding agencies (VA, Department of Defense and NIH), and serves Resident Research Advisor to UTHSCSA PMR resident physicians and post doc students in designing and executing their research ideas.

Her career goal is to add to the literature to ultimately improve clinical care in the area of autonomic dysfunction for persons with SCI and to equip and encourage PMR and SCI clinicians in training to engage in research as well.