honoring the life of dr. christa

Dr. ChristA Bauer, PT, DPT

Board-Certified Clinical Specialist in Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Physical Therapy

Christa, we first met during my Zoom interview for Hermann. I was finishing my last semester of Physical Therapy school in Birmingham, and my sister had convinced me to move to Houston. You, Emily, and Danielle asked me some basic scheduling questions, and I guess y'all gave Luis the green light because he offered me the job pretty quickly. Red flag lol.

I started on a temporary PT license because I didn’t have enough money to wait until after boards to start working. Luis didn’t tell me I’d be in Heart and Vascular until after orientation was over—second red flag. I remember thinking, "WTF! Did we even have a cardiac class in my program?" 😂 When Mandy toured me through the 5 HVI ICU, I really wanted to run. All those devices I had never even seen before!

You, Kischa, Emily, and Mandy were all so brilliant. I used to go home and devour research just to be able to keep up. Although I always say 5 HVI is not for new grads, I was very lucky to start with you all as mentors, especially when I was hungry and eager to learn. I just remember thinking, "Lord, please let me pass my test. Not only has this crazy team given me a whole caseload, but for some reason, they trust me and like me."

One day, Mandy was off, so you let me follow you. That afternoon, I got a few compliments from different people, and you looked at me and said, "You get this all the time, don't you?" Trying to be modest, I replied, "No 😅." You weren’t having it. You looked me dead in the eye and said, "You liar!" We both burst out laughing. Girl, I can still hear your voice saying that.

When most jobs say "We're a family," it's usually a scam, but our team was truly close. We did so much together. We went through so much together. We leaned on each other. We had to laugh (and drink) a lot. I’d say it was to keep from crying, but shit, we cried too. I still don’t know what possessed us to come up with those crazy nicknames, but you embodied Christa Mae Jenkins—Jenks for short. Shykelly, Smitty, Skems... lmao.

Jenks, you introduced all the girls on the team to Dr. P, the sweetest (and finest) OB/GYN, who ultimately delivered my baby. You snuck ginger candies into my locker when I was toughing it out at work with morning sickness. You visited me after delivery—so caring. You always wanted to be a mom. At your Halloween party when I dressed as the pregnant unicorn you asked so many questions about my bump, I ended up just showing you and the whole living room!

We used to catch the Metro train down to Bodegas, and to this day, whenever I eat there, I can't help but think about all of you. If someone was walking near you, you’d probably link arms with them, or if you were Shykieva, you'd jump on their back.

Remember how scared we all were when they decided to start the lung program? We used to have journal club and practice chest percussion on each other. We were nuts! And girl, that time Dr. Akkanti literally forced you and me to walk that lady on ECMO on a SATURDAY. We wanted to jump on her, looollll!

When I left after COVID, everyone was progressing in their own beautiful journeys—fellowships, leadership, research, entrepreneurship... Man, Christa, I know we’re supposed to cherish every day and treat life as precious, but you deserved more time. Calling you beautiful, smart, a great mom, a leader in CV Pulm, and a fiery soul doesn’t do you justice.

I’m sorry, friend. I love you always.

💕 Shykieva, Kischa, Lucci, Jason, Teri, Eddie, Mandy, Priscilla, Emily, Alex, Jihad, Destini, Deborah, Diedra, Kristen, Kushbu, Kim, Luis