Top Texas health official who led response to coronavirus pandemic is retiring

Join The Transient, our day by day publication that retains readers on top of things on essentially the most important Texas information.

Dr. John Hellerstedt, the Texas Division of State Well being Providers commissioner who helmed the state’s public well being response through the COVID-19 pandemic, is retiring on the finish of the month, state officers introduced Thursday. Hellerstedt has labored for the state for 14 years, serving because the chief of the well being division since 2016.

“He’s credited for spearheading the state’s public well being response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Cecile Erwin Younger, the Texas Well being and Human Providers government commissioner, wrote in a information launch.

Hellerstedt didn’t instantly return a request for remark Thursday afternoon, however he advised company workers of his plans in an e mail in early August and mentioned he seems ahead to “spending extra time with my spouse and eight (quickly to be eleven!) grandchildren and maybe do some touring.”

He wrote that he’s retiring “with a heavy coronary heart and genuinely blended feelings.”

“I knew from the outset that the DSHS staff was an incredible group of people that perform a fancy and important mission,” Hellerstedt wrote to the workers. “The expertise of our success within the face of the worldwide pandemic solely redoubled my admiration.”

Hellerstedt’s interim substitute might be Dr. Jennifer Shuford, the chief state epidemiologist on the well being company. Shuford was additionally credited with supporting the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic to make public well being selections. Shuford joined DSHS in 2017 after training as an infectious illness doctor in Austin.

Shuford will take over management of DSHS on Oct. 1 after Hellerstedt’s retirement from state service.

“Dr. Shuford’s ardour for service, in depth expertise and information in public well being will serve us nicely as she steps into this position,” Younger mentioned within the assertion. “I’m assured she’s going to efficiently lead DSHS by means of this transitional time.”

Shuford can be a member of the Travis County Medical Society and the Infectious Illnesses Society of America.

The complete program is now LIVE for the 2022 Texas Tribune Competition, occurring Sept. 22-24 in Austin. Discover the schedule of 100+ mind-expanding conversations coming to TribFest, together with the within monitor on the 2022 elections and the 2023 legislative session, the state of public and better ed at this stage within the pandemic, why Texas suburbs are booming, why broadband entry issues, the legacy of slavery, what actually occurred in Uvalde and a lot extra. See this system.