2018 HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES
Dr. Kelly Larkin is a board-certified emergency physician. She earned a Mechanical engineering degree from Union College, a Master’s from Bryn Mawr College, MD from Albany Medical School and emergency medicine
residency from UT. She has always had a passion for healthcare, business and charitable work.
Dr. Larkin is the Chief of Emergency Medicine at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center and is President and CEO of The Larkin Group.
Her companies include physician staffing, medical billing and practice management, healthcare real estate and consulting.
Dr. Larkin is currently vice president of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and past chairman of Houston General Go Texan and Rodeo Houston Sports medicine. At the rodeo, you are likely to see her on the big screen being interviewed during the rodeo events.
She is a member of Amigas
Para Ninos, St. Luke’s Friends of Nursing, and has chaired events including Diamonds & Scrubs, Clay Walker – Give MS the Boot, Bellaire Nature Discovery Center Gala, Ben Johnson Gala, Friends of Nursing, Heart Exchange Golf Tournament, Amigas Para Ninos Gala and First Tee.
She founded a rodeo buyers group and has raised over $500,000 for rodeo youth auctions.
She is also a past Trailblazer honoree and a 2019 ABC 13 Houston Women of Distinction. Her greatest passion is her family. She is the mother of three teenagers.
Her husband, Fernando Parra, is a banker, avid supporter of her business and philanthropic efforts.
She has been blessed to be able to balance and pursue success with family, business and charity.
Dr. Valerae Lewis, professor of orthopaedic oncology, attended Yale University and graduated with a degree in psychobiology. She then matriculated at Harvard Medical School, graduating with honors.
Dr. Lewis completed her orthopaedic training at the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Residency Program in Boston, and her fellowship in musculoskeletal oncology at the University of Chicago.
In 2000, Dr. Lewis joined The University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center. She rose through the ranks and in 2010, she was named the Dr. John Murray Professor in Orthopaedic Oncology at the MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Currently, and for the past 10 years, Dr. Lewis serves as director of the Musculoskeletal Oncology Fellowship Program at UTMDACC, developing this program into one of the most sought-after ACGME accredited musculoskeletal oncology fellowships.
In 2011 she started the Multidisciplinary Pelvic Sarcoma Program at MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Orthopaedic oncology became a department in 2014 and after a national search Dr. Lewis was named the inaugural chair of the department of Orthopaedic Oncology.
As such, she became the first woman to chair an orthopaedic department at a freestanding cancer center, to chair an orthopaedic department in The University of Texas System, and the first African-American woman to chair an orthopaedic surgery department.
She is active in the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), American Orthopaedic Association (AOA), the Musculoskeletal Tumor Society (MSTS), and the International Society for Limb Salvage (ISOLS) and the Western Orthopaedic Association (WOA).
Dr. Lewis’s expertise is with treating both children and adults with bone and soft tissue sarcomas of the pelvis and extremities.