Rebecca B. Lunstroth, JD, MA

Rebecca B. Lunstroth is an Instructor in Family Medicine and the Assistant Director of the  John P. McGovern, M.D. Center for Health, Humanities and the Human Spirit at UT Medical School.  She joined the center in October, 2004, shortly after it was created.  Rebecca spends one-half of her time running the day-to-day activities of the McGovern Center.  The other part of her time is spent developing curriculum, lecturing, and conducting research into the effectiveness of a medical humanities curriculum.  She also co-directs the second year Ethics and Medicine class and the Medical Humanities Certificate Program.

Rebecca received a Masters in Medical Humanities from UTMB in December, 2006.  Her master's thesis was about the demise of employer-based health insurance.   In 1988, she was awarded a J.D. from South Texas College of Law and she completed her undergraduate studies at Indiana University where she majored in economics. 

 Prior to joining UTHSC-H, Rebecca spent 14 years at Shell Oil in a variety of positions including human resources management, operations management and health and safety.  She was a lead labor negotiator during contract negotiations and successfully led the transformation of a once 700 person refinery into a first class 75-person distribution facility.  She also has extensive experience in salary administration having developed the total compensation structure for a new 600-person trading organization.  Before joining Shell, Rebecca spent three year at the U.S. Department of Labor and Standards as a compliance officer and three years with the Texas Department of Labor as an investigator.