Robert Slater, MD, MPH

Associate Professor

Rob Slater is a board-certified family and integrative medicine physician who earned his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas in Austin, his Doctorate of Medicine from the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, and his Master’s in Public Health from the University of Texas School of Public Health. Dr. Slater completed his residency training in family medicine at Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program in Houston, Texas. Following this, he completed a fellowship in Integrative and Behavioral Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, then became an assistant professor at UTMB.

As an undergraduate, Dr. Slater was involved in homeless ministry in Austin and developed a passion for working with the underserved. In medical school, Dr. Slater provided medical care in bateyes along the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. He spent his clinical rotations working in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV). While there, he designed a study into nutrition barriers for a population with a high prevalence of diabetes and food insecurity. During his final year of medical school, Dr. Slater worked with the President's Malaria Initiative – a branch of the CDC’s Center for Global Health – to assess malaria interventions in Ghana.

During his medical residency training, Dr. Slater spent a month working with the Indian Health Service at the Northern Navajo Medical Center, and another month with the Houston Health Department in epidemiology, behavioral surveillance, and emergency preparedness. A few months later, he co-authored a study on the benefits of eating almonds for blood sugar control.

In 2019, Dr. Slater joined the newly-founded osteopathic medical school at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio to help develop their medical curriculum. Dr. Slater served as Unit Director for GI, Nutrition, and Appetite (Unit 5) and Circulation, Respiration, and Regulation (Unit 6), and in 2020, he became co-lead of the Developing Osteopathic Clinical Skills (DOCS) program. In addition to enthusiastically incorporating integrative and behavioral health and medicine into the formal curriculum at UIW-SOM, Dr. Slater is also the director of the Integrative Gastroenterology course of the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine (AIHM) Fellowship. 

In his spare time, Rob enjoys hiking through beautiful landscapes, attending concerts, and graphic and web design.