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Top: Dr. Dynio Honrubia examines a newborn — Bottom: Dr. Vincent Honrubia performs balloon |
Brothers Vincent F. Honrubia, MD ’90, and Dynio Honrubia, MD ’96 (RES ’99), are in South Texas pursuing medical careers in otolaryngology and neonatology. Extremely passionate healthcare providers, the brothers felt the Rio Grande Valley was an area in need of quality healthcare services. The medical education and training they received at UCLA — where their father, Vicente Honrubia, MD, DMSc, was professor of ear, nose and throat surgery and recipient of the UCLA Medical Alumni Association 2007 Award of Extraordinary Merit — provided them with skills to increase the caliber of patient care in the place they now call home. Dr. Vincent Honrubia practices otolaryngology and was instrumental in founding Doctors Hospital at Renaissance (DHR), while Dr. Dynio Honrubia practices neonatology and was involved in the establishment of Women’s Hospital at Renaissance (WHR).
Dr. Vincent Honrubia is leading otolaryngologist at the South Texas Sinus Institute in Edinburg, Texas. He moved to Texas in 1995, after completing his residency training in Chicago. His brother, Dr. Dynio Honrubia, is medical director of the neonatal intensive care unit at WHR in Edinburg. He joined his brother in the Rio Grande Valley in 2007, after having taught at UCLA from 2002 to 2005.
For decades, the Rio Grande Valley, with more than 1.2-million residents, was among the most underserved areas in the nation. In addition to lacking some of the most basic healthcare services, there was limited availability to medical specialties such as otolaryngology. “I knew I wanted to address those needs with the latest technology available in a high-quality facility,” Dr. Vincent Honrubia says. “The motivation behind establishing DHR was that the other hospitals in this area were providing inadequate healthcare services for the community. We had hospital corporations from out-of-state dictating what type of care we should provide and on which equipment. They were not in touch with the community and its needs.” For the residents of the community, “It is important that DHR is a physician-owned hospital and locally owned,” he says.
For Dr. Dynio Honrubia, “The main reason I moved to the Rio Grande Valley was to fundamentally change the way newborn medicine was practiced and regarded in this region and the state of Texas.” For example, the percentage of mothers who breastfed their infants was the lowest in the U.S. due to lack of education. In addition, there was little attention paid to mortality and morbidity rates among the area’s newborns, Dr. Dynio Honrubia says. “Our team did not take this lightly, and we began to make it our goal to not only track the numbers, but also raise the quality of healthcare for these newborns. I knew that the lack of accountability in this area of medicine had to change, and I am very proud to say that it has over the past seven years,” he says.
Through the efforts of the Honrubia brothers, the residents of the Rio Grande Valley now have access to such specialized services as endoscopic and telescopic sinus surgery — neither of which was previously available. “We look forward to the continued growth of Doctors Hospital and Women’s Hospital at Renaissance and to always offering increased healthcare access while providing quality medical services to our patients.” Dr. Vincent Honrubia says. “It is all about innovation, improving quality of care, being sensitive to what the community needs and providing that care”
