Two TCOM graduates honored with TOMA Distinguished Service Award
A pair of graduates from UNT Health Fort Worth’s Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine
were honored by the Texas Osteopathic Medical Association with the Distinguished Service
Award at their annual convention. Albert Yurvati, DO, PhD, DSc(hc), DFACOS, FICS,
FAHA, CPPS, and Monte Mitchell, DO, JD, MS, MTS received the award for their continued
dedication to the association and the osteopathic community.
Dr. Yurvati, a 1986 graduate, is the chair of TCOM’s Department of Medical Education
and Health System Sciences. A distinguished professor and renowned cardiothoracic
surgeon, he pioneered the Yurvati Procedure — a surgical breakthrough — in 2012 after
identifying the xiphoid process as a hidden cause of unexplained chest pain. The recipient
of the 2025 TCOM Founders’ Award, the 2021 Mary E. Luibel Service Award and the 2011
President’s Award for Clinical Excellence, Yurvati is the first faculty member to
hold the Dallas Southwest Osteopathic Physicians Endowed Professorship in Surgery.
He is the only surgeon to receive all three of the American College of Osteopathic
Surgeons’ highest honors: the Orel F. Martin Medal, the Guy D. Beaumont Jr. FACOS
Award of Academic Excellence and the Charles L. Ballinger Distinguished Osteopathic
Surgeon Award — an extraordinary testament to his impact on the field. In 2024, he
was bestowed an honorary degree of Doctor of Science by the University of Strathclyde
in Scotland.
Dr. Monte Mitchell, a 1983 graduate, is an emergency medicine specialist and attorney
based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with more than 40 years of medical experience.
He serves as a leader in osteopathic medicine, including holding the past role of
president for the Texas Osteopathic Medical Association from 2024-25.
Mitchell is a physician attorney mediator that has attended seminary and has training
and interest in healthcare mediation, complex commercial mediation, politics, medical
policy, healthcare, healthcare law and business. He is a triple board-certified physician
and surgeon in the State of Texas: certified in family, emergency, and medicolegal
medicine.
In addition, he has received double fellowships in family and emergency medicine.
He also completed a Health Policy Fellowship from New York Institute of Technology
and Ohio Heritage in 2014. Since 1994, Monte has run the small solo firm of Monte
Mitchell, Attorney at Law, after graduating from Texas Wesleyan University School
of Law in 1994.
He has been an active member and leader for TOMA for many years, serving on the governmental relations and bylaws committees and as chairman of the ethics committee from 2003 until 2009.