The Moody Clinic

Publication:Brownsville Herald; Date:Jan 28, 2008; Section:Front Page; Page Number:A1

IMPROVING LIVES

Sears leads fight against disabilities at Moody Clinic
BY JOSÉ BORJÓN THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD

G. DANIEL LOPEZ/THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD
Deborah Sears has worked at the Moody Clinic for the past 30 year
and has served as its director since 1985. The Moody Clinic is dedicated
to serving people with any type of disability from birth until age 21.

    For the past 30 years Deborah Sears has awakened each morning looking forward to another day at the    Moody Clinic on East 22nd Street.

    Sears, who holds a master’s degree in speech pathology from Western Michigan University, was named executive director of the clinic in 1985, a position she has held since.

    “We are an outpatient nonprofit facility for children,” she said. “Any children in the community with handicapping, any kind of a handicapping or disabling condition from birth to 21,” are treated — with her leading the crusade.

    “The gist of what we do is we provide therapy — physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech language therapy,” Sears said Friday.

    “We were established in 1952 by a group of concerned citizens and parents of children.”

    Before the Moody Clinic, there really wasn’t a place where children with disabilities could bet treated, she explained.

    “And actually, literally, we have maintained our mission since 1952, which is, the gist of what we want to do is, we want to help any child that has a need that we can provide services to,” Sears said.

    Besides looking after her four fulltime employees and two part timers, she also sees patients daily.

    “And I can tell you this, my first love is therapy,” Sears said. “My first love is patient work. And when I was a staff speech pathologist, when my mentor decided to retire and the board selected me to become the executive director” she assumed administrative responsibilities and continued to care for patients.

    She credits her long tenure at the Moody Clinic to her love for the job and the difference she can make in someone’s life.

“I like the fact that I can give the parents hope —and sometimes they come in and they’re floundering,” she said. “They’ve just been given a diagnosis of their child. ... They don’t know what to expect.”

    She’s good at helping parents cope with the diagnosis and go through with the treatment.

    “Well we can’t make predictions like that, but I can usually tell within a short amount of time that the child can make some progress,” Sears assures. “It doesn’t mean that they are going to be normal necessarily, but it means that they’ve got some potential.”

    The clinic has a patient list of 275 children. It receives United Way and Community Development Block Grant funds, hosts multiple fundraisers and applies for numerous grants to keep operations afloat.

    Patients are not charged a single penny for services.

    “The nice thing about working here, we get to do what’s right for the patient,” Sears said. “Insurance doesn’t tell us, insurance doesn’t dictate to us. They can’t say, well, you can’t treat this patient.”