Philip T. Valente, MD (2000)
Background
Dr. Philip Thomas Valente was born in 1949 in Astoria, Queens in New York City to Dr. Frank Valente, a general practitioner, and Pauline Manzella. Both of Dr. Valente’s parents were born in the city’s Italian immigrant communities. Dr. Valente had an older brother, Ralph, who developed Wilson’s disease and died at the age of fifteen in 1957.
Dr. Valente went to Loyola, a Jesuit high school in Manhattan. After graduating in 1967, Dr. Valente spent a summer in Munich, Germany to study the language. He then attended Columbia University in upper Manhattan where he received a BA degree in German language and literature. Upon graduation in 1971, Dr. Valente went back to Germany to teach English at a primary and secondary school. It was during this time that he decided to go into medicine.
Dr. Valente has three children from his first marriage, Ruth Emily, Rachel, and Thomas. He is married Anne-Marie Hewitt-Murphee.
Medical Education & Practice
When Dr. Valente returned to the United States, he was re-admitted to Columbia University and took all of the required pre-medical classes to qualify for the medical program. He received his MD degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1977. He began an internship and residency in anatomic pathology at Cornell University Medical College New York Hospital where he met Dr. John T. Ellis, a Texas native and Dr. George Caldwell’s son-in-law. After two years, he transferred to North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, Long Island to study clinical pathology. He served as chief resident and became a staff surgical pathologist.
Dr. Valente’s interests concentrated on cytology, surgical pathology, and gynecologic pathology. In 1983, he moved to Philadelphia to do a cytopathology fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania under the direction of Dr. Barbara F. Atkinson and joined the faculty in the Department of Pathology in Temple University Medical School. Although his original plan was to stay in Philadelphia, Dr. Valente was tapped by Dr. David Papermaster in 1987 to join the faculty of The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio for the position of medical director of cytotechnology and liaison to the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Valente accepted the position and he and his family moved to San Antonio, Texas in 1988. Within a year of joining the staff, Dr. Valente had re-established the Cytopathology Fellowship Program founded by his predecessor, Dr. Ibrahim Ramzy. During this time he also worked with the Audie Murphy Veterans Hospital.
Dr. Valente served in many capacities in education and organized medicine. He was very active with the American Society of Cytopathology and the American Society of Clinical Pathology, establishing several teleconferences with them. He was on the executive board of the ASC from 1998 until 2002 and has worked on several committees for the ASC and the ASCP for quality assurance and continuing education and certification. He served on an expert panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and reviewed grant proposals for the National Cancer Institute. At the state level, Dr. Valente served as president of the Texas Society of Cytology in 1993.
The School of Cytotechnology at UTHSC in San Antonio closed in 2005 having trained more than one hundred cytotechnologists during Dr. Valente’s tenure as medical director. Dr. Valente has recently served as a member Cytotechology Program Review Committee for the ASC and has traveled to several newly established cytotechnology programs to approve them for accreditation.
Texas Society of Pathologists
Dr. Valente has been active with the TSP since he attended his first meeting in 1989. He has served on the Nominating Committee and the Board of Directors and as Chair of the Membership Committee.
Dr. Valente served as the president of TSP in 2000. During his presidency, attempts by representatives of Medicare to deny payments for thin layer Pap preparations was reversed in part because of the efforts by TSP members in collaboration with the Texas Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Valente received the George T. Caldwell, MD Award in 2009 for his contributions to pathology.
Notable Publication(s)
As of 2001 Dr. Valente had over 50 publications, mainly on gynecologic cytology.
Fine, B. A., Valente, P. T., Feinstein, G. I., & Dey, T. (2000). VEGF, flt-1, and KDR/flk-1 as prognostic indicators in endometrial carcinoma. Gynecologic oncology, 76(1), 33-39.
Hammes, L. S., Tekmal, R. R., Naud, P., Edelweiss, M. I., Kirma, N., Valente, P. T., ... & Cunha-Filho, J. S. (2007). Macrophages, inflammation and risk of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) progression—clinicopathological correlation. Gynecologic oncology, 105(1), 157-165.
Judd, H. L., Mebane-Sims, I., Legault, C., Wasilauskas, C., Johnson, S., Merino, M., ... & Scully, R. (1996). Effects of hormone replacement therapy on endometrial histology in postmenopausal women: the Postmenopausal Estrogen/Progestin Interventions (PEPI) Trial. JAMA, 275(5), 370-375.