2025 UTHealth Houston Center for Eating Disorders Conference

Dear Fellow HEDS Members,

I wanted to cordially invite you all to the 2025 UTHealth Houston Center for Eating Disorders Update Conference: “Bridging the Gap”.

This one-day conference will showcase presentations by some of the foremost experts and leaders in the field of eating disorders from around the country. Our center is thrilled to welcome our esteemed colleagues and their expertise. My medical director and I are also grateful for the opportunity to share our own passion topics with the community!

With an emphasis on research-supported treatment and clinical application, this conference will have combined sessions, as well as two distinct tracks: Medical and Therapy.

This conference is a call to action for all of our colleagues across disciplines of medicine, nursing, psychology, counseling, social work, nutrition, and beyond. Whether you have worked in the eating disorder field for your entire career, have never seen an eating disorder patient before, or anywhere in between, we welcome you to join us as we aim to “bridge the gap” in knowledge and access to evidence-based assessment and treatment for this clinical population.

We hope that many of you will join us May 3, 2025, 8:00am-4:30pm, at the TMC3 Collaborative Building | Helix Park, 1885 Old Spanish Trail, Houston, TX 77030.

We equally welcome you to invite your local, medical colleagues- your PCPs, your psychiatrists, your gastroenterologists, your OBGYNs, even your dentists (who often times, can be the first provider to recognize purging)! Houston is home to the Texas Medical Center, the largest medical center in the world. In my opinion, we should therefore be leading the field in eating disorder treatment and training, yet our tight-knit community can only name a handful of (wonderful!), medical providers with competency in providing medical oversight for our patients throughout their recovery journey. We need more eating disorder-informed medical providers to help improve early detection, to safely engage patients in evidence-based treatments, and help well-intentioned providers to not inadvertently cause harm when advising patients about their body/weight in ways that go against what research supports is healthy.

Thanks in advance for helping us “bridge the gap” for our shared patients in-need. We look forward to hopefully seeing many of you there!

To register, visit https://go.uth.edu/Update25

Sincerely,

Zach Appenzeller, PsyD

Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Founding Director, UTHealth Houston Center for Eating Disorders

McGovern Medical School | UTHealth Houston

&

Asha Davidson, MD, MPH

Assistant Professor of Adolescent Medicine

Medical Director, UTHealth Houston Center for Eating Disorders

McGovern Medical School | UTHealth Houston

John S. Dunn Behavioral Sciences Center at UTHealth Houston

5615 H. Mark Crosswell Jr St. | Houston, Texas 77021

Eating Disorders OP/IOP/PHP Intake Line: 713-500-4500

Online Referral Form: https://redcap.link/UTHealthHoustonCED

Website: https://med.uth.edu/psychiatry/uthealth-houston-center-for-eating-disorders/

The UTHealth Houston Center for Eating Disorders has officially opened its doors to our Outpatient Eating Disorders Clinic, offering evidence-based treatment, nutrition services, and medical care (through insurance) for adolescents and young adults with eating disorders. Our Adolescent Eating Disorders Intensive Outpatient and Partial Hospitalization Programs (IOP/PHP) will be starting early 2025. For adolescents that require immediate medical attention, inpatient care is offered at our affiliated hospital, Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital.