Author
Losses
Oct. 5, 2020—John F. Cooper, FE’88, died March 4. He was 61. Dr. Cooper is survived by his wife, Carol Challas; children Rebecca Tharp, Daniel Gimm, Rachel Heyne, Tom Gimm, Daniel Cooper, Jack Gimm, and Benjamin Cooper. A. Willard Emch, MD, HO ‘63, HS ‘67, died June 26. He was 83 year. Dr. Emch is survived by...
Faces and Places
Oct. 5, 2020—
Giving in Action: Unexpected connections
Oct. 5, 2020—When Rachana Haliyur, PhD’18, MD’20, graduated from Vanderbilt in May, it represented the culmination of a nearly lifelong path toward becoming a physician-scientist. As a child, Haliyur’s parents — who were engineers — put a strong emphasis on asking questions and thinking critically. They also provided early exposure to science and technology. By the time...
Class Notes
Oct. 5, 2020—1970s Ralph E. Wesley, MD’72, HS’73, was honored by the American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery with the annual Ralph E. Wesley, MD Leadership Lecture. In 1979, Wesley was the founding director of the Ophthalmic Plastic Surgery division at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Iverson Bell Jr., MD ‘77, was recently appointed chair of...
Giving in Action: Alum credits achievements and success to Vanderbilt
Oct. 5, 2020—John B. Neeld, BA’62, MD’66, has a loyalty to Vanderbilt that runs deep. “Everything I’ve achieved — my successful career in medicine and medical politics —I owe to Vanderbilt. It all came from this place.” Neeld was able to attend Vanderbilt as an undergraduate because of a National Merit Scholarship. His father was a clerk...
Letter from Ann Price, MD
Oct. 5, 2020—Dear Vanderbilt Medical Alumni, This spring has been a very interesting and difficult time for many people, and I hope that each of you and your families have stayed safe throughout this pandemic. As some of you may have heard, Vanderbilt has decided to postpone Reunion 2020’s date, due to the pandemic. Reunion will now...
Opioid prescriptions after childbirth linked to increased risk of overdose, persistent use
Oct. 5, 2020— Women who are prescribed opioids after childbirth have an increased risk of persistent opioid use or other serious opioid-related events, including overdose, in their first year postpartum, according to a study by Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers. This is true regardless of whether the woman had a vaginal delivery or a cesarean section. The...
Research Round-up
Oct. 5, 2020—Probing DNA damage repair Cells missing the protein HMCES are hypersensitive to DNA-damaging agents that cause a common type of DNA lesion — an “abasic” site. But the agents also generate other types of lesions associated with mutations and cell lethality, making it unclear whether HMCES responds to abasic sites in cells. David Cortez, PhD,...
The Other Side of the Bed
Oct. 5, 2020—A month before his 49th birthday, Geoffrey Fleming, MD, had a biopsy of his liver to diagnose an unidentified metastatic disease that he already knew was “something bad.” The next day, he jetted off to Scotland for a family golf trip, deferring the results of his procedure until his return. On Aug. 26, 2019, he...
One Psychiatrist’s Journey
Oct. 5, 2020—Reid Finlayson, MD, MMHC, was nine months into his first year of psychiatric residency training when he awoke on the seventh floor of a psychiatric hospital in downtown Toronto, Ontario. It was Easter morning in 1974, and hazy memories of being “wrestled to the floor by a sea of faces dressed in white” injecting him...
MIDP students get creative to decontaminate respirator masks
Oct. 5, 2020—Students from the Medical Innovators Development Program (MIDP) within the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) devised a protocol that repurposed hospital blanket warmers to decontaminate N95 respirator masks — a process that could extend the current supply of the disposable masks by allowing them to be reused up to five times. The proposed protocol...
Q + A: Kianna Jackson, MD’20
Oct. 5, 2020—Kianna Jackson, MD’20, recipient of the 1965 School of Medicine Class Scholarship and the Darline & Robert Raskind Scholarships, was the Founders Medalist for the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine class of 2020, bestowed to the student graduating with first honors. Jackson is also the first Black student to receive the medal at VUSM. She...
Rachel Apple, MD’12
Oct. 5, 2020—Served as a chair and president of the Wellness Committee in medical school, started “PGY-Mom” at VUMC to support the unique needs of resident physician moms and founded Vanderbilt Physician Parent Group “Wellness has been important to me throughout my medical training. Although I have always aspired to find the right balance, I confess that...
Face and Places
Mar. 12, 2020—
Losses
Mar. 12, 2020—George Allen, MD, PhD, who served for more than 25 years as chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery at Vanderbilt, died Dec. 7, 2019. He was 77. Dr. Allen studied medicine at Washington University and did an internship at Duke University before completing a residency in neurosurgery at the University of Minnesota where he...
Class Notes
Mar. 12, 2020—1960s David Johnson, MD, MS, HS’69, FE’83, was honored as one of 15 Giants of Cancer Care at the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago in May 2019. The award was given by OncLive, the website for the Oncology Specialty Group. Thomas Chesney, MD’69, HS’70, FCAP, FACP, and Carolyn Chesney, MD’68, BA’65, HS’70,...
Giving in Action: Michael, MD’76, and Melissa Lojek, PhD’78
Mar. 12, 2020—For Michael Lojek, MD’76, and his wife, Melissa, PhD’78, “generosity” is one of the words that comes to mind when they think about Vanderbilt. “Vanderbilt was very generous to me, to my wife, and to other students in graduate and medical school,” Michael said. “I very much appreciated that generosity of Vanderbilt all those years...
Giving in Action: Brian Drolet, MD’09
Mar. 12, 2020—Brian Drolet, MD’09, remembers the fortuitous phone call that dramatically changed the trajectory of his life. It was April 15, 2005 — the deadline to decide which medical school he would attend the following fall. A few hours earlier, he had essentially decided to attend Dartmouth, near his family in New Hampshire. His father, hoping...
Alumni Profile: Constance Mobley, MD, PhD
Mar. 12, 2020—Transplant Trailblazer As a molecular physiology and biophysics doctoral student at Vanderbilt, Constance Mobley never had designs on practicing medicine. Her passions were in the lab. The young scholar was infinitely more interested in clinical research. “I wanted to discover how to cure everything in the world,” she says. “I was always interested in...
Letter from Ann Price, MD
Mar. 12, 2020—Dear Vanderbilt Medical Alumni: It’s clear that 2019 was a busy year for the Vanderbilt Medical Alumni Association (VMAA). We made a concerted effort to increase our presence and support for our VMAA specialty societies at numerous national conferences including ACOG, ACC, ACS, AANS, RSNA, ASPS, ENDO, and ID-week among others. In addition, we held...
Q + A: Donald Brady, MD’90
Mar. 12, 2020—In July 2019 Donald Brady, MD’90, assumed the role of Senior Associate Dean for Health Sciences Education at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and Executive Vice-President for Educational Affairs at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He proudly refers to himself a “Quad ‘Dore” having ties to Vanderbilt as an undergraduate student, medical student, resident physician and...
Shade Tree Clinic Founder Remembered
Mar. 12, 2020—In 2004 Vanderbilt medical students and classmates Katie Cox and Kristina Collins approached then-VUSM Dean, Steven Gabbe, MD, and Bonnie Miller, MD, then Associate Dean for Medical Students, with a proposal to establish a free medical student-run clinic to serve Nashville’s uninsured population. What started as a summer project resulted in their co-founding the Shade...
E-Cigarettes and Vaping
Mar. 12, 2020—
Research Round-up
Mar. 12, 2020—Less inflammation = better healing Myocardial infarction remains a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide, raising an urgent need for novel therapies. Acute MI provokes an inflammatory response in the heart that removes damaged tissue to promote repair and regeneration. Overactive and/or prolonged inflammation impedes healing, however, suggesting that reducing inflammation may lead to...
Multisite study focuses on opioid use during pregnancy
Mar. 12, 2020—The Vanderbilt Maternal Addiction Recovery Program is participating in a 12-site clinical trial that will compare two forms of the medication buprenorphine in treating opioid use disorder during pregnancy, and the results could have a potentially significant impact on clinical practice. The study, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, will randomize participants to...
Lasting Impressions
Mar. 12, 2020— A Decade of Devotion By Scott Borinstein, MD, PhD, Director, Pediatric Sarcoma Program and Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology Program I can halt any conversation at a party by answering a single question, “What do you do?” and if I reply honestly that I am a pediatric oncologist, the awkward pause follows. “Oh, that must...
Genetics and Heritability
Mar. 12, 2020—Since 2007, Douglas Ruderfer, PhD, MS, assistant professor in VUMC’s Division of Genetic Medicine, has centered most of his research on understanding the genetic architecture of psychiatric disorders and behavioral health traits to better quantify the role genetics play in risk and to understand the biology that leads to disease. By converting large-scale clinical data...
In Search of a Solution to Suicide
Mar. 12, 2020—The first time Samantha Nadler was hospitalized for suicidal thoughts was in 2001. She was 12. “I told my school psychologist I didn’t want to be here anymore,” said Nadler. “He called my dad, and I was admitted to the hospital for five days. That kickstarted a series of many hospitalizations to come.” At 14,...
Eskind Biomedical Library – Home to VUSM
Mar. 12, 2020— Originally built in the early 1990s Renovated in 2017-2018 with a $6 million gift from the Annette and Irwin Eskind family Meets Americans with Disabilities standards and LEED Silver certification standards From 1977-2018 Light Hall served as the medical education building for Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. That changed in July 2018 when the...
Supporting physician wellness
Mar. 12, 2020—Studies suggest one of about every 400 physicians dies by suicide in the United States each year, translating to more than 1 million patients losing their doctor to suicide annually. Compared with the general population, physicians are nearly twice as likely to succumb to suicide. Studies have often pointed to burnout due to heavy workloads...
Faces and Places
Sep. 9, 2019—
Letter from Ann Price, MD
Sep. 9, 2019—Dear Vanderbilt Medical Alumni: Our Vanderbilt Medical Alumni Association board (VMAA) includes a number of highly dedicated Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) alumni as well as former Vanderbilt University Medical Center house staff trainees. Our board was very fortunate to have been led this past year by W. Bedford Waters, MD’74, (Knoxville, Tennessee) who...
Giving in Action: Armstrong Family Funds
Sep. 9, 2019— The story of Richard Armstrong, PhD, is a shining example of how one person’s life and legacy can have a powerful ripple effect on the people and places dear to them. Armstrong served as a member of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Basic Sciences faculty from 1995 until his death in 2015. He...
Losses
Sep. 9, 2019—Geoffrey Berry, MD, HS’59, died May 7. He was 92. Dr. Berry was preceded in death by his son, Andrew, and is survived by his wife, Dora; children Christopher, Jane and Helen; nine grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Jill F. Chambers, MD, HS’78, died Jan. 17. She was 70. Dr. Chambers is survived by her children...
Class Notes
Sep. 9, 2019—1950s Angus W. Graham, MD’55, retired from his radiology practice in Manatee County, Florida, in 2016 at age 86. He and his wife, Wylene Barmore Graham, VUSN’56, have five children and 17 grandchildren, one of whom attends Vanderbilt University. The Grahams are enjoying retirement in Bradenton, Florida. Gerald Stone, MD’57, BA’54, HS’58, celebrated 63 years...
Giving in Action: Class of 1978 Scholarship
Sep. 9, 2019—When the idea came to create an endowed scholarship in honor of their 30th Reunion, members of the School of Medicine Class of 1978 answered the call with resounding enthusiasm. “People immediately stepped up to make a gift, and we were able to get it endowed and bestow it upon a scholar the very next...
Study seeks to expand treatment options for rare airway disease
Sep. 9, 2019—Armed with $1.2 million in funding from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center are searching to understand the cause of a rare airway disease in hopes of developing better treatments. Idiopathic subglottic stenosis (iSGS) is an unexplained narrowing of the windpipe just below the vocal cords. The...
Alumni Profile: Andrew Camarata, MD
Sep. 9, 2019—Called to Serve LCDR Andy Camarata, MD’06, is the oldest of seven children and the son of two academic speech pathologists. After sharing his experience with Vanderbilt University School of Medicine students during Navy Week in June, the senior medical officer for Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 took questions about how to change culture...
Hard Hats and Health Care
Sep. 9, 2019—Children’s Hospital Expansion With a population explosion impacting Nashville and surrounding communities, serving the health care needs of the region’s families and children means that Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt has been on the rise — literally. Following completion of construction on the first of four new floors, patients were moved into the...
Andrew Gregory, MD, FAAP, FACSM
Sep. 9, 2019—Andrew Gregory, MD, FAAP, FACSM Associate Professor of Orthopaedics, Neurosurgery & Pediatrics Co-Director, Vanderbilt Sports Concussion Center Associate Director, Sports Medicine Fellowship Team Physician for Nashville Christian School, Vanderbilt University, Nashville SC, USA Volleyball National Teams “My love of the outdoors and being physically active is a great foundation for my work in sports medicine....
VISE team seeks to develop new robot to ease prostatectomies
Sep. 9, 2019— The Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering (VISE) team of Robert Webster III, PhD, Richard A. Schroeder Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Duke Herrell, MD, received a $2.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a new surgical robot for endoscopic transurethral prostatectomy. The mechanical engineer (Webster) and urologic surgeon (Herrell)...
Minds on Trial
Sep. 9, 2019—If a man breaks into a house, dresses himself in the homeowner’s clothes, eats food from the pantry and refuses to leave when he’s discovered because he believes he rightfully owns the house, should he be held as criminally accountable as someone who breaks and enters with intentions of stealing? Should his mental state play...
Broken
Sep. 9, 2019—David Covington didn’t want to leave behind his hometown of Iowa City to move to Nashville, but when his wife, Natalie, wanted to follow her PhD adviser to Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and continue her education in Tennessee, Covington supported her. Little did he know then the move might dramatically alter the fate of...
Leading the Way
Sep. 9, 2019—The 20 residents in the Department of Neurosurgery are in good hands, under the guidance of residency program director, Lola Chambless, MD’05, HS’12, associate professor of Neurosurgery. In 2012, Chambless became the first female faculty member in the department and the first female neurosurgery attending physician in Nashville. “I knew that Vanderbilt was a place...
Research Round-up
Sep. 9, 2019—Blueprint for rebuilding the heart Cell fate reprogramming — converting one cell type into another — is a potential strategy for generating cardiac cells to treat heart diseases. Although previous studies have shown that the expression of cardiogenic transcription factors directly reprograms fibroblasts (connective tissue cells) into induced cardiomyocyte-like cells (iCMs), there remains the obstacle...
Faces and Places
Mar. 1, 2019—
Vaccinating the Vulnerable
Feb. 28, 2019—On Halloween morning, a patient nervously listened to Greg Fricker, fourth-year medical student from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, as he explained the importance of receiving an influenza vaccine. Fricker told the patient that roughly 80,000 people died last year due to complications from the flu and confidently reassured him that getting the vaccine could...
Letter from Ann Price, MD
Feb. 28, 2019—Dear Vanderbilt University Medical Alumni, Vanderbilt Medical Alumni Reunion 2018 Many thanks to all of you who attended our Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) Reunion 2018 in October. With over 1,000 attendees, this was one of our largest VUSM Reunion events ever. I hope you enjoyed your time back on Vanderbilt’s campus. A...
Losses
Feb. 28, 2019— Blair Batson, MD’44, HS’45,’50, FAC’52, BA’41, died Nov. 26, 2018. He was 98. Paul Bennett Jr., MD, FE’88, FAC’00, died May 14, 2018. He was 64. Dr. Bennett is survived by his sons Patrick and Christopher and two grandchildren. George Booze, MD, HS’73, FE’75, died Sept. 1, 2018. He was 78. Dr. Booze is...