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Q + A: Muktar Aliyu, MD, DrPH, MPH
Mar. 27, 2024—Muktar Aliyu, MD, DrPH, MPH, is director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH) and professor of Health Policy and Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He holds the Endowed Directorship in Global Health. VIGH facilitates the expansion and coordination of global health research, technical assistance and training initiatives at VUMC. Q. What do...
Physicians’ words, patients’ stories
Jul. 18, 2023—Elizabeth Ebbens, MD, recently stood before fellows, residents and faculty to share words she’d written about a feverish 5-year-old’s emergency room visit. The child’s mother voiced fear about the “C” word. Ebbens, a pediatric emergency medicine fellow, thought the patient’s mother feared COVID, so she ordered a COVID-19 test as well as labs to check...
Breathing Easier
Jan. 3, 2023—Vanderbilt University Medical Center pathologist Joyce Johnson, MD, was pulling into her driveway when she heard the news that the U.S. Senate had passed a bill to expand health care benefits for veterans who became ill after exposure to open burn pits and other toxins during their military service. She sat alone in her car...
Operation Greater Good
Jan. 3, 2023—Rondi Kauffmann, MD, MPH, HS’13, associate professor of Surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology and Endocrine Surgery, can pinpoint when her spark to address disparities in global health caught fire. She was a wide-eyed 12-year-old staring up at a 10-story mountain of garbage in Manila, Philippines. “It was the summer of 1990, and my...
Sound On
May. 16, 2022—How did it feel to be a medical student during the pandemic, when for safety’s sake and to preserve PPE, providing direct patient care was no longer a possibility? What went through a Community Service Officer’s mind as she informed every person entering the hospital that temperature screening and wearing a mask were mandatory? And...
Alumni Profile: Lt. Col. G. Travis Clifton, MD’06
Oct. 18, 2021— Clifton serves key role during early pandemic in NYC During the first surge of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020, Lt. Col. G. Travis Clifton, MD’06, reported for an assignment in New York City unlike any other deployment he’s completed during his 14-year Army career. Clifton joined more than 1,000 military and civilian medical...
A Cut Above
Oct. 18, 2021—Present a surgeon with a challenging dilemma, and wheels begin turning. By their nature, surgeons are intuitive, adaptive problem-solvers. Think of those children who repaired their own broken toys, who constantly questioned conventional wisdom, and who thought so far outside the box, the box’s walls ceased to exist. Driving these successes is innovation. Among Vanderbilt...
Price’s old laboratory recipe book proves to be invaluable
Oct. 5, 2020— Howard Price has a decades-old green notebook he keeps in his office at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and when a shortage of a critical laboratory supply nearly brought testing for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to a halt at the Medical Center in March, the notebook’s contents quickly became invaluable. “We ran out...
No such thing as a low-risk surgery for frail patients
Mar. 12, 2020—Even a minor surgery such as a laparoscopic gallbladder removal can prove to be a high-risk and even fatal procedure for frail patients, according to new research published in JAMA Surgery. A team of researchers from leading U.S. academic medical centers and VA medical centers examined the records of 432,828 patients who underwent a non-cardiac...
Progress Report
Mar. 12, 2020—Bill Cutrer, MD, MED, remembers his first day of medical school in the late 1990s well. He and his fellow scrub-clad classmates, many of whom had never seen a dead body before, somewhat apprehensively assembled at the gross anatomy lab. The room was thick with the smell of formaldehyde and lined with sheet-shrouded steel tables,...
“If we don’t do it, who’s going to?”
Mar. 12, 2020—In spring 2018, a new Social Mission Committee was organized, and third-year Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) students Mollie Limb and Will Furuyama were selected as co-presidents. Determined to balance the academic rigor of medical school with benevolent ventures, they’re now part of an organized effort to ensure opportunities to address health inequities are...
Alumni Profile: Selina Shah, MD, FACP
Sep. 9, 2019—Getting a kick out of her unconventional career Selina Shah, MD’00, HS’03, FACP, has studied and performed many styles of dance since the age of 3, including ballet, Indian classical dance, Bollywood, jazz, hip-hop, modern and salsa. Mastering her own body’s movement fortuitously led her to a somewhat unconventional career in sports medicine. In addition...
Smart Investment
Sep. 9, 2019—Diagnosed with colon cancer, Melba Martin, 88, needed surgery to save her life, but her colorectal surgeon, Timothy Geiger, MD, knew that her frailty and anemia, coupled with concerns about her heart, put Martin at high risk for developing complications both during and after surgery. Martin told Geiger she absolutely had to recover quickly so...
A Delicate Dialogue
Mar. 1, 2019—When Nashville, Tennessee, resident Judy Williams recently had a replacement battery for her car installed, she left the service man a bit speechless after he explained the new part’s warranty. “I came home and immediately sent an email to my kids and to a few friends, and I said, ‘I told him my new car...
Expanding education to help future providers better address tough situations
Feb. 28, 2019—To better prepare future health care providers about issues related to end-of-life care, several courses are offered for both undergraduates and students at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and the School of Nursing. The Clinical Ethics Consultation Service of the Center for Biomedical Ethics & Society also conducts a wide range of educational programs in...
Digital Detective
Mar. 1, 2018—Not so long ago, when patients’ laboratory reports came back to Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) indicating the possible presence of serious infections, Infection Prevention team members would print out the reports and divvy them up so they could visit the Medical Center’s clinical floors to investigate each case. “We were printing off hundreds of...
HAIs at a Glance
Mar. 1, 2018—Although significant progress has been made in preventing some infection types, there is much more work to be done. On any given day, about one in 25 hospital patients in the United States has at least one healthcare-associated infection (HAI). The CDC’s annual National and State Healthcare-Associated Infections Progress Report (HAI Progress Report) describes national...
Invisible Threat
Mar. 1, 2018— Every day, a team of epidemiologists, infection preventionists and data analysts report to work at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) with a mission: to track invisible trails of microscopic clues, dissect data, analyze lab results, pore over patient medical records and ferret out possible hiding places of disease-causing microbes that could lead to dangerous...
Dolly’s Children’s Hospital visit highlights strong ties
Feb. 28, 2018—To celebrate the release of her first children’s album, “I Believe in You,” legendary country music singer-songwriter Dolly Parton visited Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in October 2017 and performed songs from the album for patients, their families and hospital staff. Parton specifically wrote the song “Chemo Hero” to honor one of her...
Study uses child’s own immune system against type 1 diabetes
Sep. 21, 2017—Eighteen-year-old Grace Long had just been accepted at the renowned United States Naval Academy, with plans to become a nuclear engineering officer. Then, she learned she had type 1 diabetes, an immediate disqualifier for military service. Rather than allow the news to derail her, Long immediately began to investigate how she could spin her disappointment...
Q+A: Arna Banerjee, MBBS
Sep. 21, 2017—Physician-educator Arna Banerjee, MBBS, associate professor of Anesthesiology, Surgery, and Medical Education and Administration, is a national leader in medical simulation training. She is director of Vanderbilt’s Center for Experiential Learning and Assessment (CELA) and assistant dean for Simulation in Medical Education for Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She also provides perioperative care for adult...
Alumni Profile: Tiara Aldridge, M.D.
Mar. 6, 2017—Scholarship paves the way for success As a high school student in Stone Mountain, Georgia, Tiara Aldridge wanted to be a physician, but she also realized her family couldn’t finance this dream. Then, a Vanderbilt University recruiter visited her school and talked about the Opportunity Vanderbilt initiative that provides scholarships and grants for students with...
Alumni Profile: Mary Nettleman, M.D.
Mar. 6, 2017—Med School Dean Credits VUSM Influence, Support Since joining the University of South Dakota in 2012, Mary Nettleman, M.D., can’t begin to count the times she’s been asked if she’s the first female dean of the university’s Sanford School of Medicine. She is. “People ask me how it feels to be a woman dean,...
Complex plastic surgery restores facial expression
Mar. 1, 2017—When Kelly Davis woke up one morning in April 2016, she told her husband Anthony that she dreamed her face was moving; then she looked in the mirror and saw that it really was. “I just cried,” said the 46-year-old Morristown, Tennessee, resident. “When I bit down on my teeth, I could see movement on...
Alumni Profile: Ron Bronitsky, M.D.
Aug. 17, 2016—Renaissance Man Pulmonologist, thespian, award-winning baker, competitive swimmer, art collector and performer in an all-bassoon band; this sounds like the description of a roomful of people, but in reality it is a rundown of the many hats worn by Ronald Bronitsky, M.D., ‘77. “When I’m ready to die, I want to be able to look...
Alumni Profile: Thomas Davis, M.D.
Aug. 17, 2016—Making a World of Difference As a child living in Chihuahua, Mexico, Thomas Davis, M.D., ‘14, learned early that socioeconomic factors play a significant role in a person’s success, and he’s determined to use his skills to level the playing field for those less fortunate. “It was hard to hide the realities of the world...