Photos by: Susan Urmy
Physicians of Tomorrow, Meet the Leaders of Today
How can you connect your medical training to your personal calling? What are the newest and next frontiers in medicine? And what does it mean to be a truly exceptional physician?
To answer these pressing questions, the Deans' Lecture Series brings you into conversation with physicians who are pushing the boundaries of their medical calling.
Have you ever wondered about…
- Uncovering a public health crisis? We brought in Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who helped unearth the Flint water crisis and lead recovery efforts.
- Doing medicine aboard a space shuttle? Dr. Drew Gaffney came to campus to speak about his experience as a former Senior Flight Surgeon-Astronaut.
- Dedicating your career to underserved populations? Dr. Kimberly Manning, aka “The Grady Doctor,” shared the lessons she’s learned from everyday teaching experiences at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
- Applying stand-up comedy to your specialty? Dr. William Flanary, aka “Dr. Glaucomflecken,” blended his characteristic humor and education to deliver a talk on his career as a joke-telling ophthalmologist.
From renowned epidemiologists to MD TikTok sensations, the medical superstars that come to campus through DLS will do more than share life-lessons. They’ll challenge you to think critically about your own medical calling and future.
Many Lectures, Hundreds of Campus-Wide Ripples
With a new speakers during the academic year, DLS inspires powerful waves of conversation across VUSM’s campus.
- Gather with the medical student community each month for a lunch and lecture with the speaker.
- Join a small group for informal dinner conversation with the speaker at a classic Nashville eatery.
- Explore the talk’s pressing questions further with the students and faculty in your learning communities and colleges.
- Submit your own proposal for a student lecture.
Each year, medical students apply to deliver a half-hour talk during the spring semester, and the entire community comes out to support the two chosen speakers.
A Student-Energized Tradition
With roots stretching back to an unscheduled Deans’ Hour in the early 2000s, this open block in the curriculum morphed into a formal lecture opportunity under the direction of Bonnie Miller, MD, who was in her role as Associate Dean for Medical Student Affairs at the time.
Now, a student team cultivates the vision for the series each year, brainstorming speakers, soliciting feedback from the student body, and hosting the lectures in collaboration with the Office of Medical Student Affairs. Interested in joining the team? Applications to serve a three-year term on the committee go out each spring semester.
2026-2027 Lecture Series
Monday, Sept. 21
Felts Lecture: Susan Burton
Light Hall 202
12:00 noon
“The Stories We Tell About Pain”
Susan Burton is the host of the Peabody Award–winning podcast "The Retrievals" from Serial Productions and The New York Times. She is also the author of the memoir "Empty, " which tells the story of the eating disorders she kept secret for decades. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and others. For years she was a producer at "This American Life," and she began her career as an editor at Harper's.
Tuesday, Nov 10
Joint Lecture, Vanderbilt IMPACT Symposium with Flexner Series: John Green
Langford Auditorium
TICKETED EVENT, details TBA
6:00 p.m
John Green is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, The Fault in Our Stars, Turtles All the Way Down, The Anthropocene Reviewed and Everything is Tuberculosis. His first novel in nine years, Hollywood, Ending, will be published on September 22nd, 2026.
John’s books have won many prizes, including an Audie Award, an Edgar Award, the Michael L. Printz Medal, and a Los Angeles Book Prize. Green’s books have been published in more than 55 languages and over 60 million copies are in print worldwide.
In 2007, John and his brother Hank ceased textual communication and began to talk primarily through videoblogs posted to YouTube. Although they have long since resumed textual communication, John and Hank continue to upload two videos a week to their YouTube channel, vlogbrothers. Their videos have been viewed more than one billion times.
Monday, Nov. 30
Simpson Lecture: Walter Merrill and Dr. Bill Frist
Light Hall 208
12:00 noon
Details TBA
Monday, Dec. 7
Flexner Lecture: Dean Jeffrey Balser, MD, PhD
Langford Auditorium
12:00 noon
Details TBA
Spring 2026 Lecture Series
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February 17, 2026 (rescheduled)
Satcher Lecture: Kecia Carroll, MD, MPH
Division Chief of General Pediatrics
Professor of Pediatrics and Environmental Medicine
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai"Environmental Influences and Athsma"
View LectureDr. Carroll is a Vanderbilt graduate, having received her medical degree (MD) in 1996 and her Master of Public Health (MPH) in 2004.
Kecia N. Carroll, MD, MPH, is the Division Chief of General Pediatrics in the Jack and Lucy Clark Department of Pediatrics and Professor of Pediatrics and Environmental Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
She is a general pediatrician, clinical investigator, and epidemiologist. Her NIH-funded research program investigates how environmental exposures, including stress, nutritional exposures, and environmental toxicants, during critical periods of development, influence childhood asthma risk.
Dr. Carroll completed her medical degree at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and her Pediatric Residency at the University of California San Francisco, and a General Academic Pediatrics Research Fellowship at Vanderbilt, during which she obtained her MPH degree.
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April 20, 2026
Monday, April 20
Light Hall 208
12-1 p.m.
Chapman Lecture, in conjunction with the Academy of Excellence in Education:"Why it Matters and What We Can Do"
Wendy Dean, MD is the CEO and co-founder of The Moral Injury of Healthcare, a nonprofit focused on alleviating workforce distress through research, education, advocacy, and consultation. She is the author of dozens of academic articles on moral injury, and the book, If I Betray These Words: Moral Injury In Medicine and Why It’s So Hard For Clinicians to Put Patients First. She cohosts the award-winning 43cc podcast, and the Moral Matters and Workplace Change Collaborative podcasts. Before co-founding the nonprofit, Dr. Dean practiced as a psychiatrist, worked for the Department of Defense in research innovation, and as an executive for large international non-profit supporting military medical research. Dr. Dean graduated from Smith College and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She did her residency training at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH.
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February 3, 2026
12-1 p.m.
Robinson Lecture: Dr. Linda Cendales, Hand Surgeon and Hand Transplant Surgeon
"Firsts"Dr. Cendales, the only person in the United States to have completed formal fellowship training in both Hand and Microsurgery and Transplant Surgery, is a Professor of Surgery and the Director of the Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Cendales helped organize the first VCA team in the U.S. and participated in the country’s first two hand transplants. She was subsequently the first surgeon accepted into the Transplant Surgery and Immunobiology Fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). During her time at the NIH, Dr. Cendales established and published a model of VCA in nonhuman primates and has one of the largest experiences in VCA in non-human primates reported in the scientific literature. She organized the first international symposium on VCA histopathology at the International Banff Conferences on Allograft Pathology leading to the published classification system now used as a standard for clinical reporting of rejection worldwide. Prior to joining Duke, Dr. Cendales established the VCA program at Emory University and led the multi-disciplinary team that performed Georgia's first hand transplant in March 2011. While at Duke, she established the VCA program and led the multi-disciplinary team that performed North Carolina’s first unilateral and the first bilateral hand transplants in May 2016 and in November 2018 respectively. Dr. Cendales is the Principal Investigator of clinical and translational studies.
Dr. Cendales leads the VCA organ section of the Banff Conference of Allograft Pathology. Dr. Cendales is the Past-President of the International Society of Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation Society (ISVCA), the past Chair of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) Vascularized Composite Allograft(VCA) Committee, an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Transplantation and of Clinical Transplantation, the Past-Chair of the American Transplant Congress, the Past-Chair of the American Society of Transplantation VCA Advisory Board, she is a past Councilor at Large of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, and a past Secretary of the OPTN.
Dr. Cendales was appointed to a U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) committee to guide the development of protocols and standards operating procedures for face and hand transplants. Dr. Cendales is a Member of the National Academy of Medicine of Colombia. She has co-authored numerous scientific manuscripts, abstracts, and invited publications. Similarly, Dr. Cendales has made countless presentations at national and international meetings.
Fall 2025 Lecture Series
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Nov. 20, 2025
Simpson Lecture: Ms. Corey Reese and Meg Rush, MD, MMMHC, President, Monroe Carrell Jr. Children's Hospital
“Dr. Mildred Stahlman: A Global Visionary in Neonatology from Vanderbilt”
Corey Nason Reese is a writer and editor with experience in healthcare and education. She graduated from the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas. With over 30 years of freelance work, Corey has held writing and editing roles for professional organizations, journals and newspapers. She was also the Communications Director for an education association for 20 years.Corey serves as the biographer for Dr. Mildred Stahlman, recognized worldwide for her pioneering contributions to neonatology.
Dr. Margaret “Meg” Rush arrived at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 1984 as a motivated resident passionate about helping children but with a special interest in critically ill infants. Subsequently, in 1987, she began fellowship training in the Division of Neonatology, and later joined the faculty at Vanderbilt in 1990.
Since joining Vanderbilt, she has been a research investigator as well as a leader in education and clinical care. She led Vanderbilt’s Neonatal Fellowship Program from 2001 - 2011. She emerged as a senior administrative leader in 2007 when she was named chief of staff for the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. She also served as acting chair of the Department of Pediatrics in June, 2011, an appointment she held through August 2012. In February 2020, she was appointed the President of Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.
Dr. Rush’s basic science research interests were focused on the role of Vitamin A in lung development as well as lung injury and repair. She also has interest in health policy as it relates to children which serves her well as a leader in both the Children’s Hospital Association and Children’s Hospital Alliance of Tennessee. She played a key role with the Institutional Review Board, helping restructure the institution's policies and direction in human subjects research, with an emphasis on children.
Dr. Rush earned her Doctor of Medicine from the University of Cincinnati – College of Medicine in 1984. She received her Bachelor of Arts in 1980 from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana.
She earned her Masters of Management in Healthcare degree from the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt, September 2014.
She has earned notable honors, including the title of "Woman to Watch in Medicine" by Nashville Medical News in 2008. She was selected by Nashville Lifestyles Magazine in 2015 as the keynote speaker for the Women in Business Luncheon and in 2019, she received the Distinguished Alumni Award from her alma mater, the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Most recently the Nashville Business Journal awarded her the 2022 Women of Influence Award as an Executive Leader and the Junior League of Nashville awarded her the Paragon Award for 2023 Outstanding Community Service of the Year.
Spring 2025 Lecture Series
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March 10, 2025
“Getting to Know Your Neighbors: A Local Approach to Global Health”
Amad Amedy is a fourth-year medical student at Vanderbilt University with a passion for immigrant and refugee health, mentorship, and global health equity. Born in Guam after his family fled Kurdistan, he was raised in Nashville’s Kurdish refugee community and graduated from Overton High School before earning a Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience at Wesleyan University. Prior to medical school, he completed a Fulbright Research Scholarship in Barcelona, Spain where he studied schizophrenia. At Vanderbilt, he has served as mentorship director of our Social Mission Committee, co-lead for Chapman College, and co-president of the HEART organization. During medical school, Amad has worked closely with his Kurdish community both locally and abroad, recently completing a global health rotation in Kurdistan. Since coming back, he has partnered with Vanderbilt’s Global Health Institute to help support international students visiting Vanderbilt. With a Certificate in Health Equity and Global Health, Amad hopes to advocate for a more inclusive approach to global health, grounded in the belief that meaningful change can begin with our local communities.
“Robots, Jellies, Kids”
Anish Sarma is a third-year VUSM medical student from Plainsboro, NJ. Prior to medical school, he worked in control engineering and control theory with applications in the life sciences. These applications included the development of intracortical brain-computer interfaces and the basic science of regeneration in moon jellies (jellyfish). Clinically, he hopes to work in pediatrics, with a particular interest in disorders of the immune system. He completed a Ph.D. at Caltech in 2022. -
Feb 3, 2025
Shifting System, Changing Culture: Community Engagement & Partnership for Health Equity”
Wylie Liu is the Assistant Vice Chancellor for the Center for Community Engagement and Anchor Institution Mission at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). In this role, she convenes, facilitates, and influences community-academic-healthcare partnerships, with a focus on advancing health equity. Her work encompasses community-engaged research, healthcare, education, and economic inclusion, all aimed at advancing health equity and community impact.
With a career spanning multiple sectors—including health systems, local public health departments, community-based organizations, and international non-governmental organizations – Wylie has consistently worked at the intersection of healthcare, community health and community development. Her efforts have been dedicated to elevating the voice of communities and promoting inclusive approaches that cultivate equitable health outcomes.Originally from Southeast Asia, Wylie earned her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley. She holds a Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Master of Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Fall 2024 Lecture Series
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November 14, 2024
November 14, 2024
12 noon, Light Hall 208
Dr. Eiman Jahangir“Space Medicine: From Mercury to Mars”
Watch the presentation.
Dr. Eiman Jahangir was born in Tehran, Iran and moved to Nashville, TN at age four. His childhood fascination with space led him to pursue a career in medicine and space exploration. He attended Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School, known for its focus on math and engineering, before earning a Bachelor of Arts at George Washington University and a Medical Doctorate from the University of Tennessee. He completed his medical training at Boston University Medical Center and Vanderbilt University, specializing in Cardiovascular Medicine.Eiman has pursued his interest in human space flight for over 15 years, including two finalist interviews for NASA’s Astronaut Candidate program, and dreamed about going to space. He has received training in various aspects of space exploration and served as the medical officer for the Inclusion 1 mission at Biosphere2’s Space Analog for the Moon and Mars (SAM). Eiman fulfilled his lifelong dream of going to space in August 2024 as a member of Blue Origin’s New Shepard-26 launch.
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October 28, 2024
October 28, 2024
12 noon, Light Hall 214
Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, MPH, MPA, MBA, FAAP, FACP, FAHA, FTOS“Obesity Management: An Approach to Patients”
Watch the presentation.
Dr. Stanford is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics who practices and teaches at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)/ Harvard Medical School (HMS) as one of the first fellowship-trained obesity medicine physicians worldwide. She is among the most highly cited obesity medicine physician-scientists, with over 200 peer-reviewed publications. Stanford has conducted 1200 media interviews, including with the New York Times, USA Today, Time, U.S. News & World Report, Glamour, and NPR. In 2023, Stanford appeared on 60 Minutes with Lesley Stahl, stating obesity is a chronic disease and that there is physician bias against those with excess weight. In an interview with Deborah Roberts on addressing weight stigma, Dr. Stanford advocates eliminating bias towards those with higher weights. Oprah Winfrey interviewed Dr. Stanford as an obesity expert for her “The Life You Want Class: The State of the Weight” on Oprah Daily. In this interview, she teaches about the science of obesity as a chronic disease. In an interview with Sanjay Gupta for his CNN Chasing Life podcast, she coined the term “street corner medicine” to refer to the assumption that people judge people based on their size– they assume that heavier people are unhealthy and leaner people are healthy without investigating whether this is factual by evaluating metabolic health parameters such as blood pressure, cholesterol, liver function tests, blood sugar, etc. -
September 26, 2024
September 26, 2024
12 noon, Light Hall 208
Dr. Nicole M. Joseph
“I Do (Not) Belong: Experiences of Black Women and Girls in Mathematics”
Watch the presentation
Spring 2024 Lecture Series
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April 29, 2024
“Standing Firm: Making the Evidence-Based Argument for Diversity in Medicine Amidst the “Anti-DEI” Backlash”
Watch the presentation -
March 25, 2024
Alison Swartz, MS4 and Gunther Wong, VMS III
March 25, 2024
Alison Swartz, MS4 and Gunther Wong, VMS III“Pharmacy Benefits Managers: a Glimpse Behind the Curtain”
Alison Swartz is a current Vanderbilt Medical Scholars Fellow and rising 4th year medical student going into Emergency Medicine. Her passions include providing equitable, affordable care to all and the medical humanities. In her free time, she loves spending time with her husband Brandon (an engineering PhD candidate), running, paddle-boarding, baking, and playing board and tabletop games with friends.
“Duty, Honor, and the Moral Complexity of Wartime Service”
Gunther Wong is a third-year medical student from Rio Rancho, NM. He received his undergraduate and master’s degrees in chemical engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and subsequently commissioned as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army. In the Army, he served as a Platoon Leader and Executive Officer in the 10th Mountain Division and the 75th Ranger Regiment, and as the operations officer of 5th Ranger Training Battalion. He deployed three times to Afghanistan, including twice as part of the special operations joint task force. He hopes his medical career will reflect a life of duty and faithful citizenship.
Watch the presentation -
March 4, 2024
March 4, 2024
Sunita Puri“Language as medicine: Finding the right words for the right conversations about suffering, mortality, and dying well”
Watch the presentation -
February 28, 2024
February 28, 2024
Loyce Pace“Where Equity Has a Seat at the Table | Global Health Diplomacy”
Watch the presentation -
January 22, 2024
January 22, 2024
Heval Kelli, MD“Finding Refuge, Inspiring Change”
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2023 Fall Lecture Series
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November 13, 2023
November 13, 2023
Peter Ubel, M.D. -
Oct. 3, 2023
Oct. 3, 2023
Jonathan M. Metzl, M.D., Ph.D.“Protest Psychosis: What the Race-Based Overdiagnosis of Schizophrenia in the 1960s Reveals about Today’s CRT Wars”
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Sept. 11, 2023
Sept. 11, 2023
Tonya Fancher, M.D., M.P.H.“Creating a Diverse and Well-Distributed Physician Workforce: Lessons from California”
Watch the presentation -
Aug. 11, 2023
Aug. 11, 2023
John Kello, PhD“High Reliability Healthcare”
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2022-2023 Spring Lecture Series
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Jun. 12, 2023
Jun. 12, 2023
W. Christopher Golden, MD, FAAP“Mitigating Microaggressions to Maximize Medicine: The Time is Now”
Watch the presentation -
Apr. 24, 2023
Apr. 24, 2023
Kevin B. Churchwell, MD“The Importance of EDI for Medical Education in the Hospital Setting”
Watch the presentation -
Mar. 27, 2023
Mar. 27, 2023
Alex Lupi, VMS IV & Ekiomoado Olumese, VMS IV“Flashcards vs Frameworks: Developing a System for Lifelong Learning“
Alex Lupi is a recent graduate from Stafford, Virginia. He studied neuroscience at the University of Virginia, where he served as an EMT. He took a gap year to teach adaptive skiing in Aspen, Colorado. At Vanderbilt, he was involved in leading a virtual wilderness medicine lecture series, mentoring pre-med students as Social Mission Committee (SMC) mentorship chair, teaching POCUS, founding the Vanderbilt Clinical Problem Solvers Group. He will pursue a career in emergency medicine and is passionate about improving how we learn in medicine.
“Decolonizing Global Health As A Trainee: A Reflection on Historical Contexts, Lessons from Sierra Leone, and Contributing in a Meaningful Way“Eki Olumese, MPhil, is a recent graduate originally from Maryland. She attended Southern Methodist University for her undergraduate degree, where she developed her interest in the medical humanities. After college, she studied Health, Medicine and Society at the University of Cambridge, completing her dissertation in History of Medicine. Specifically, she studied health policies in 20th century Sierra Leone and the way they shaped Sierra Leone’s contemporary health care system. As a medical student, Olumese served as co-president of SMC, Student National Medical Association (SNMA) academic advisor and underrepresented in medicine recruitment coordinator, and was selected to be an SNMA global health fellow. She also completed her research immersion project in Pediatric Emergency Triage in Kenema, Sierra Leone. Olumese will work at the intersections of global health and health policy as an emergency physician and advocate of marginalized communities. She believes in critically appraising our efforts to work in partnership with international health professionals and globally minoritized communities to find ways to collectively advance health and wellbeing.
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Mar. 6, 2023
Mar. 6, 2023
John L. Tarpley, MD, FWACS, FACS & Margaret Tarpley, MLS“Experiences and Reflections on Medical Education in Sub-Saharan Africa”
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Feb. 21, 2023
Feb. 21, 2023
Ana V. Diez Roux, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H.“Improving Health in Cities: A Challenge and Opportunity for Public Health Research and Action”
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Jan. 27, 2023
Jan. 27, 2023
Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D.Jamison discusses her research in mood disorders, personal experiences shared in “An Unquiet Mind,” and more from her powerful book, “Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide,” an important wellness topic within the MD community
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Jan. 5, 2023
Jan. 5, 2023
Alex Jahangir, MD, MMHCA Fireside conversation with Dean Donald Brady and Dr. Alex Jahangir about his book “Hotspot: A Doctor’s Diary from the Pandemic” – “Leadership Lessons Learned While Leading Through the Pandemic”
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2022-2023 Fall Lecture Series
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Dec. 12, 2022
Dec. 12, 2022
Jay Wellons, III MD, MSPH“’You Tell my Baby’s Story for All the World to Hear’ – The Communal and Redemptive Act of Storytelling in Medicine”
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Nov. 21, 2022
Nov. 21, 2022
Qaali Hussein, MD, FACS“Leading in a Hostile Work Environment”
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Oct. 25, 2022
Oct. 25, 2022
Dr. Wes Ely“Every Deep-Drawn Breath: Vanderbilt’s Role in Revolutionizing ICU Care Globally”
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