News

A four-year, $3.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health will support the research of Carolyn Heinrich, University Distinguished Professor of Leadership, Policy and Organizations, and Melinda Buntin, University Distinguished Professor of Health Policy, into how school-based health interventions affect children’s mental health and education outcomes. Schools are serving children with ever-increasing… Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has received a six-year, $31.6 million federal grant to lead a national effort to better understand acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), pneumonia and sepsis, which together kill hundreds of thousands of people in the United States each year. Grant HL168478 is jointly funded by the National… Read More

GLP1 receptor agonists — a class of diabetes medications — are associated with fewer major adverse cardiovascular events than another type of diabetes drug (DPP4 inhibitors) in older veterans with no prior heart disease. The findings, reported May 9 in Annals of Internal Medicine, will aid clinicians in choosing a diabetes… Read More

The United States is in the midst of a mental health crisis with rising rates of hospitalization for suicide and self-harm events among children and adolescents. A recent study, “Characteristics Associated with Serious Self-Harm Events in Children and Adolescents,” set to be published in the June issue of Pediatrics, looked at how… Read More

Bill Heerman, MD, MPH, associate professor of Pediatrics, has been named chief of the Division of General Pediatrics, effective May 1. Heerman, who has spent his entire career at Vanderbilt, was selected following a national search led by Kathryn Edwards, MD, who retired at the end of 2022, and S. Read More

The microbes that live in our upper respiratory tract (URT microbiota) play a role in respiratory health. Disturbances of the URT microbiota during respiratory infections can impact disease severity, immune response, and even development of chronic lung diseases such as asthma.  Justin Turner, MD, PhD, Suman Das, PhD, and colleagues used… Read More

Cecelia Theobald, MD, MPH, associate professor of Medicine and executive vice chair for Clinical Affairs in the Department of Medicine, has been appointed as Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Chief of Staff for Corporate Clinical Affairs and Senior Vice President for Clinical Affairs. Theobald’s appointment is effective July 1. Theobald will… Read More

The first study to examine evaluation scores for professionalism and interpersonal communication skills among physicians-in-training and what happens afterward as these doctors begin their practice was reported April 11 in JAMA Network Open. The study tracked 9,340 early-career physicians from across the country. The study finds a strong association between lower ratings for… Read More

Severe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection has long been associated with the onset of childhood wheezing diseases, but the relationship between RSV infection during infancy and the development of childhood asthma has remained unclear. A new observational study by Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers has found that RSV infection in… Read More

Indeterminate pulmonary nodules (IPNs) are a common finding on CT imaging of the lungs and often require costly and invasive testing to diagnose. IPN diagnosis is especially difficult in regions like Middle Tennessee where fungal diseases such as histoplasmosis are endemic.  Hannah Marmor, MD, MPH, and colleagues combined imaging and… Read More