Meet the New Faculty College Advisor for Stahlman-Thomas: Dr. Alex Sundermann, M.D., Ph.D. (’20)
by Kaitlin McKernan (G3)
Dr. Alex Sundermann, M.D., Ph.D. is a 2020 graduate of the Vanderbilt University MSTP, and she recently returned to Vanderbilt University as an Assistant Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology. She is from Rochester, MI, and she attended Baylor University, where she was a University Scholar prior to joining the Vanderbilt MSTP in 2013. She completed her OBGYN residency at Duke University in 2024 prior to beginning her faculty position at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Sundermann is a Stahlman-Thomas Advising College Faculty Leader, and, as a trained epidemiologist, her current research focuses on developing methods for studying time-varying exposures in pregnancy and understanding drivers of preeclampsia recurrence. I had the opportunity to catch up with Dr. Sundermann and learn about her research career as an OBGYN and epidemiologist, her perspective on the need for reproductive health research, and her advice for current physician-scientist trainees.
Time in the Vanderbilt MSTP
Early on as an undergraduate student, Dr. Sundermann was debating between pursuing a career as a math professor or a career as a physician. She sought the advice of one of her professors, who suggested she combined her passion for math and human health to pursue a career in epidemiology and public health. She then became interested in women’s and reproductive health research and realized that epidemiologic and observational studies were some of the best tools to study pregnancy health, given that interventional studies are frequently ethically limited in pregnant patients. While an undergrad at Baylor University, she reached out to Dr. Katherine Hartmann, M.D., Ph.D., an OBGYN-epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University, because she was one of the few people with the degree pairing and clinical training to which she aspired. When Dr. Sundermann was applying to MSTP programs in 2012, programs that supported a doctorate degree in epidemiology were rare, and she chose to come to Vanderbilt to work with Dr. Hartmann, who helped pave the way for her to become the first MSTP student at Vanderbilt to pursue a doctorate in epidemiology. Dr. Sundermann doctorate research focused on the relationship between alcohol use in the first trimester and miscarriage risk. She describes this project as both interesting and methodologically challenging, given that alcohol consumption patterns frequently change in early pregnancy, usually at the time of the first positive pregnancy test and that potential impact of exposure on fetal development changes with each week of gestation.
Outside of her research training, Dr. Sundermann loved her time in the Vanderbilt MSTP, and the people she met in the cohort continue to be some of her best friends. Despite the program lacking examples of the career path she aspired to (she was the first student in epidemiology and the only one during her time in the program to go into OBGYN), she felt that the MSTP leadership team was extremely supportive of her and her career aspirations. Dr. Sundermann is thrilled to be back as a MSTP advisor and is consistently impressed by the program’s environment and the quality of presentations and research put forth by the current MSTP students.
Residency Training and a Career as an OBGYN-Scientist
Because she was already interested in women’s health and pregnancy prior to starting in the MSTP, Dr. Sundermann was thrilled when OBGYN also turned out to be a good fit clinically for her while completely her core clerkship rotations. On the science side, Dr. Sundermann says that research in OBGYN always feels meaningful given the amount there is still to learn in the field of reproductive health. Dr. Sundermann ultimately decided to pursue general OBGYN and not specialize for several reasons. First, she wanted to care for patients throughout their lifespan and enjoyed both gynecology and obstetrics, and so she didn’t want to give up either aspect of clinical care. She also felt that she could do meaningful research and clinical work as a generalist and thought it best to reserve limited subspecialty training opportunities for those who would need it for the career they desire.
The proportion of physician-scientists are disproportionately low in OBGYN compared to other fields, and Dr. Sundermann is passionate about increasing the representation of physician-scientists in OGBYN by mentoring trainees and building resources for people who want to make contributions to reproductive research. There are several reasons for the lack of physician-scientist representation in OBGYN and, therefore, opportunities to address this gap. Reproductive research has and continues to face scare funding opportunities, and, because OBGYN is a procedural specialty, securing protected research time for clinicians can be challenging. Finally, physician-scientist career pathways in OBGYN are not well established. One of Dr. Sundermann’s goals in her career is to bring up others interested in pursuing research in women’s health and increase support for reproductive research.
When I asked Dr. Sundermann what advice she has for MSTP students preparing to apply for residency, her main biggest piece of guidance was to know your audience. For those applying to research-track residencies, talking about your specific research goals and potential mentors is important. However, for those applying to programs without protected research time, it’s critical to acknowledge that every season of training has its purpose. While one should be able to cast a vision for how they hope their research and clinical training will ultimately come together, it is important to state an understanding that the primary purpose of residency is to hone clinical and surgical skills. This is especially true for procedural specialties like OBGYN.
Transition to Faculty and Current Research
Dr. Sundermann’s transition to a faculty position at Vanderbilt has been welcomed because she is finally able to connect and utilize all parts of her training into a career that she loves. Her transition has been a smooth one, and she credits the relationships she had at Vanderbilt because of her time in the MSTP and her department’s support of her career vision. She currently has an approximate 80-20 physician-scientist career with four days spent doing research and one day in clinic plus various procedures and labor and delivery shifts spread throughout the month. She finds going back and forth between clinical work and science energizing. Dr. Sundermann states that the biggest challenge of this transition is determining how to make the most meaningful impact with the position she has been given. Currently, she is building a cohort of patients that have had multiple pregnancies at VUMC to study the risk of recurrence of pregnancy related conditions, starting with preeclampsia, with the goal of determining how clinical features of first preeclampsia presentation relate to future risk to identify patients who would most benefit from interventions for mitigating risk. While some European registries have studied recurrence of conditions in pregnancy, studies in a population representative of the U.S. are more scarce. Further, many studies treat preeclampsia as a single entity without acknowledging the implications of severity of disease or timing of disease onset. Given the poor maternal outcomes in the US compared to Europe and the differences in patient diversity in the United States, Dr. Sundermann strives to build a cohort in the U.S. that can be utilized to study recurrence of conditions specifically in patients in the U.S.
Advice for Current Trainees and Work-Life Balance
When she isn’t at clinic, MSTP seminar, or her office in 2525, Dr. Sundermann prioritizes spending time with her husband and her two young children. She loves to go rock climbing at Climb Nashville with her husband and oldest daughter, enjoys going to live music (especially in parks), and prioritizes attending church and bible study with her family. Because she has two young kids in tow, some of her current favorite restaurants in Nashville are ones that are loud so that other patrons don’t mind the noise. Restaurants that she particularly enjoys include Red Headed Stranger and Jashan.
When she was starting in the MSTP, one of the best pieces of advice that Dr. Sundermann received from a mentor was to “build your life so that you automatically live out your values instead of constantly making decisions about for what you have energy or time.” In other words, she created hard boundaries on the evenings and weekends to protect time for her family. She kept those boundaries sacred no matter what was going on that week at work (i.e., exam, committee meeting, etc.). She credits this for not only helping with time management but also with living out healthy priorities outside of work and school.
In terms of other advice for current trainees, she says it is important to remember that the definition of success looks different for everyone, and it looks different at different stages of training. At the beginning of graduate phase in the MSTP, she said she was initially determined to fulfill everyone’s different definitions of success, but this quickly made her feel defeated and like she would never be good enough. She recommends figuring out what success in each season looks like for oneself, incorporating all aspects of life and personal values. Creating your own definition of success using mentors that you admire as models is one way to start. Ultimately having a clear idea of what your definition of success serves as a guide for how to use your time and have clear priorities about which opportunities to pursue.
Dr. Sundermann is currently a Stahlman-Thomas College Advisor and is around during MSTP seminar. She is excited to get to know the students in the MSTP, so if you haven’t met her yet, please take the chance to stop by and say hello!