Author
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...
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)...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Class Notes
Feb. 28, 2019—1950s Clifton Meador, MD’55, HS’60, FE’61, FAC’00, BA’52, has published a revised edition of his book “A Little Book of Doctors’ Rules III, for Oslerian Clinicians.” His rules are drawn from extensive reading and more than 60 years of teaching and practicing internal medicine. 1960s Alan Graber, MD, HS’63, FE’64, FAC’06, has authored the...
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...
Alumni Profile: Nancy J. Gritter, MD
Feb. 28, 2019—In a league of her own Nancy J. Gritter, MD, grew up in Indiana, and while she roots for the Indianapolis Colts somewhere deep inside, she is fully devoted to the Carolina Panthers. The NFL franchise is more than a Sunday afternoon hobby; it is one of her full-time jobs. The players are not simply...
Giving in Action: The Cycle of Giving
Feb. 28, 2019—Perseverance runs through Ellen Hrabovsky’s blood. Throughout her life, she’s experienced many obstacles, but through it all, she’s remained strong and loyal — serving her patients, animals and the environment to her fullest. Now, Hrabovsky, MD’69, BS’65, is giving back to the school that helped prepare her for a groundbreaking career in pediatric surgery through...
Success Built on Trust
Feb. 28, 2019—As of Dec. 5, 2018, the VUMC Street Psychiatry team had encountered 151 unique individuals experiencing homelessness during 19 weeks at 15 different sites. Within that population, 89 patients reported being unvaccinated against hepatitis A, while 63 patients reported having already received the vaccine. Of the unvaccinated cohort, 75 patients (84 percent) agreed to the...
Giving in Action: Investing in the Future
Feb. 28, 2019—David Gershenson always knew he’d become a doctor. He spent his childhood tagging along while his father, a general practitioner, made house calls throughout southern Illinois. Gershenson noticed the impact his father had on his patients and their community and resolved to have the same influence one day. Today, Gershenson, MD’71, professor of Gynecologic Oncology...
Alumni Profile: Lt. Col. Wes Abadie, MD
Feb. 28, 2019—Surgeon’s career takes flight Wesley Abadie, MD’03, has accumulated a lot of frequent flyer miles during his career, which probably isn’t unusual for a busy otolaryngologist. What is unusual is racking up a big chunk of those miles in the back seat of a fighter jet streaking across the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq...
Q + A: John “Nicky” Grimes
Feb. 28, 2019—John “Nicky” Grimes, PhD, is a second-year student in Vanderbilt University School of Medicine’s Medical Innovators Development Program (MIDP), a four-year PhD-to-MD training program tailored to engineers and applied scientists. The first in his family to obtain a traditional bachelor’s degree, Grimes, who holds the Glenn and Virginia Hammonds Scholarship, explains what led him to...
Research roundup
Feb. 28, 2019—Study suggests way to prevent rare lung disease Research by Vanderbilt scientists suggests that it may be possible to prevent or even reverse pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a rare, progressive disease characterized by narrowing of and high blood pressure in the small arteries of the lungs. A key player in PAH is the proangiogenic cell...
Brady to succeed Miller as Senior Associate Dean and EVP for Educational Affairs
Feb. 28, 2019— After more than three decades of service to Vanderbilt, Bonnie Miller, MD, MMHC, 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, has decided to retire from her leadership positions July 1. Miller will be succeeded in these roles...
Antipsychotics ineffective for treating ICU delirium: study
Feb. 28, 2019—Critically ill patients are not benefiting from antipsychotic medications that have been used to treat delirium in intensive care units (ICUs) for more than four decades, according to a study released in October 2018 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Each year, more than 7 million hospitalized patients in the United States experience delirium,...
Kris Rehm, MD
Feb. 28, 2019—Kris Rehm, MD Vice chair of Outreach Medicine and medical director of Hospital Operations for Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt Marathon runner; mother to two sets of twins; cancer survivor Attended Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and did her residency at Boston Children’s Hospital “I have the best job in the world!...
Our Amazing Skin
Sep. 13, 2018—Skin is the human body’s largest organ accounting for 8 pounds and 2 square meters on an adult. It is our fiercest protector, an impervious shield that plays a major role in keeping us alive. Since a substantial portion of our immune cells live in our skin, it teaches our body to fight off infections....
New Treatments at a Glance
Sep. 13, 2018—New treatments for metastatic melanoma fall into two categories: immunotherapies that spur patients’ immune systems to attack the cancer and targeted therapies that block the molecules that allow the cancer to grow and spread. Immunotherapies — Up to 60 percent of patients will respond to immune therapy. FDA-approved immunotherapies include pembrolizumab, nivolumab, talimogene laherparepvec, ipilimumab...
Cell signals that trigger wound healing are surprisingly complex
Sep. 13, 2018—In a sharp and pointy world, wound healing is a critical and marvelous process. Despite a tremendous amount of scientific study, many outstanding mysteries still surround the way in which cells in living tissue respond to and repair physical damage. One prominent mystery is exactly how wound-healing is triggered. A better understanding of this process...
Research Round-up
Sep. 13, 2018—Restoring silenced voices A swarm of cicadas that left thousands of insect carcasses across the Vanderbilt University campus in 2011 is leading to transinstitutional research at the Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering (VISE) and Vanderbilt University Medical Center to develop a surgical planning tool to help restore speech for people with vocal fold paralysis....
Saline Use On The Decline At Vanderbilt Following Landmark Studies
Sep. 13, 2018—Saline, used in medicine for more than a century, contains high concentrations of sodium chloride, which is similar to table salt; Vanderbilt researchers found that patients do better if, instead of saline, they are given balanced fluids that closely resemble the liquid part of blood. “Our results suggest that using primarily balanced fluids should prevent...
Renovated Eskind Biomedical Library re-opened
Sep. 13, 2018—The Annette and Irwin Eskind Family Biomedical Library and Learning Center opened July 18 after a yearlong, $12.9 million renovation with infrastructure improvements and updates to support the continuing evolution of medical education. The construction project was designed to incorporate the University’s research, learning and teaching goals and includes features that complement the School of...
Q+A: Jed Kuhn, MD
Sep. 13, 2018—Jed Kuhn, MD, Kenneth D. Schermerhorn Professor of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, and Paul Rummo, MD, also a Vanderbilt orthopaedics expert, are the head team physicians for the NHL’s Nashville Predators. With help from neuropsychologist Gary Solomon, PhD, and specialists in emergency medicine, plastic surgery, ophthalmology and dentistry, they keep Nashville’s beloved hockey stars healthy and...
Jake Ramsey
Sep. 13, 2018—Second-year medical student from Santa Claus, Indiana Graduated from Purdue University in 2016 with a Bachelor of Science in pharmaceutical sciences The recipient of the Helen W. and Louis Rosenfeld Endowed Scholarship Fund and the Ethel and Louis Shivitz Scholarship “I was a little anxious moving to the South for medical school because I worried...
Alumni News
Sep. 13, 2018—1960s Phillip Gorden, MD’61, BA’57, received the John Phillips Memorial Award as well as Mastership from the American College of Physicians, a national organization of internists. The award was presented at ACP’s Convocation Ceremony in April. Gorden is a leading investigator in diabetes and lipid metabolism and former director of the National Institute of Diabetes...
Faces and Places
Sep. 13, 2018—
Easier Access Key to Early Detection
Sep. 11, 2018—The American Cancer Society estimates about 91,270 new melanomas will be diagnosed in 2018. About 9,320 people are expected to die of melanoma, the rates of which have been rising for the last 30 years. Vanderbilt’s Department of Dermatology has a few important initiatives in play to diagnose it and other types of skin cancer...
Science of the Skin
Sep. 11, 2018—How the skin protects Epidermis, the outermost layer of the skin, provides the critical protective barrier needed for terrestrial life. The process of epidermal barrier formation includes conversion of the essential fatty acid linoleate into skin-relevant oxidized lipids. Two lipoxygenase enzymes, 12R– LOX and eLOX3, initiate this conversion pathway. An inactivating mutation in either enzyme...
My Tenuous Relationship With an Octopus
Sep. 10, 2018—Written by Jonathan Dallas Ever since third grade, the octopus has been my least favorite animal. Not that any octopus ever did anything to me; on the contrary, I’ve only seen one in an aquarium, and I’m sure it took no special notice of me, nor I of it. In fact, given their keen...
BioVU
Mar. 2, 2018—
Alumni News
Feb. 28, 2018—1950s Wike Scamman, MD’57, and his wife, Diana, were honored at a reception celebrating his retirement. The 85-year-old pathologist served for many years as laboratory and medical director of several northeast Kansas community hospitals and at one time served as the Shawnee County coroner. 1960s Gordon Gill, MD’63, HS’64, BA’60, chairs the San Diego...
Losses
Feb. 28, 2018—Charles Albright, MD’61, BA’57, died Aug. 6, 2017. He was 81. Dr. Albright is survived by his children, Elizabeth and Cynthia; and two grandchildren. Allen Anderson, MD, HS’83, died Nov. 12, 2017. He was 67. Dr. Anderson is survived by his wife, Candy; children, Brian, David and Chris; and five grandchildren. Burton Bancroft...
Letter From Ann Price, M.D.
Feb. 28, 2018—Dear Vanderbilt University Medical Alumni, Vanderbilt Medical Alumni Reunion 2018 Our next biennial Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) Reunion 2018 will be held Oct. 11-13 with Vanderbilt University’s Reunion and Homecoming celebration. All VUSM medical alumni are cordially invited to attend. VUSM special anniversary classes (see chart below) will celebrate with class parties on...
Alumni Profile: Mary Austin, MD
Feb. 28, 2018—Surgeon’s career shaped by childhood diagnosis As a pediatric surgeon, Mary Austin, MD’00, MPH’05, performs 300-500 wide-ranging cases per year. She is also part of a large team that does about 10-15 in utero repairs of myelomeningocele, the most common form of spina bifida, which is, coincidentally, the same problem she was born with. “My...
Alumni Profile: Prentice Steffen, MD
Feb. 28, 2018—Coasting to the finish line Prentice Steffen, MD’86, grew up in Enid, Oklahoma, the son of a general surgeon and a homemaker. As a college student at the University of Oklahoma he took up cycling, a sport that would allow him to travel the world, cross paths with Lance Armstrong and put him at the...
Nicole McCoin, MD’03, HS’06
Feb. 28, 2018—Vice chair of education and residency program director in the Department of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Macy Scholar, former VUSM course director and member of the Faculty Senate A native Nashvillian, she graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1999 with a degree in Biology and Math. “I believe that there is no such thing as a perfect...
Research Round-up
Feb. 28, 2018—Radiation and pulmonary fibrosis Radiation-induced pulmonary fibrosis — tissue scarring that can permanently impair lung function — limits the delivery of therapeutic radiation doses to non-small cell lung cancer. Michael Freeman, PhD, and colleagues are exploring the cell types and factors that contribute to the radiation-induced fibrotic response. The investigators previously showed that loss of...
Alumni Profile: Preston Russell, M.D.
Sep. 22, 2017—Southern Scenes Cobblestone streets, live oaks draped with Spanish moss and the slow pace of a historic Southern city serve as inspiration for Savannah, Georgia, painter, historian and writer Preston Russell, M.D. He lives in a house that was built in 1860 and uses its adjacent carriage house as an art studio to create...
Alumni Profile: John Dormois, M.D.
Sep. 22, 2017—Branching Out John Dormois, M.D., knows that life is about the journey. Seven years ago, at age 65, when many career-long physicians are ready to trade their stethoscopes for golf clubs, Dormois chose a different path; he went back to school. “I had always threatened to go back to school; I had been a...
Letter From Ann Price, M.D.
Sep. 22, 2017—Dear Vanderbilt University Medical Alumni, Congratulations VUSM Class of 2017 The Vanderbilt Medical Alumni Association (VMAA) proudly welcomed the newest members of our medical alumni family, the VUSM Class of 2017, at a faculty appreciation/”almost alumni” luncheon on May 10. I know each of you join me in celebrating their present achievements as we...
Losses
Sep. 22, 2017— Charles Bentz, M.D., ‘70, died Dec. 8, 2016. He was 71. Dr. Bentz is survived by his wife, Lynn; children Kim, Ann, Eduardo, David, Daniel, Charles, Julie, Wayne and Eugene; and many grandchildren, nieces and nephews. Wyatt Blake III, M.D., ‘54, died Dec. 14, 2016. He was 88. Dr. Blake is survived by his...
Alumni News
Sep. 22, 2017—1950s Anderson Spickard Jr., M.D., ‘57, HS ‘59 ‘63, BA ‘53, emeritus faculty, is the author of “The Craving Brain,” which was selected as a finalist for the Foreword INDIEFAB for adult nonfiction. 1960s Antonio Gotto, M.D., ‘65, BA ‘57, is serving as corporate secretary and treasurer of the board of directors for the...
Hidden figure
Sep. 22, 2017— Harold Jordan, M.D., has had a distinguished medical career that includes many highlights, including being chair of Psychiatry at Meharry Medical College, his medical alma mater, and serving as acting dean of the School of Medicine at Meharry as well. Besides his academic career, Jordan was devoted to improving mental health care for the...