Fall 2019
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: 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...
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...
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...
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...
Stories, moments and impact – the ripple of medicine
Sep. 9, 2019—In our profession, people matter. It sounds trite, yet with busy clinics and bustling personal lives it’s an axiom that may fade into the din of emails, calls, obligations and deadlines. We work in an age of sea change in medicine, and sometimes, with expanding technology and growing demands for efficiency, it’s crucial to remind...
Q + A: Consuelo H. Wilkins, MD, MSCI
Sep. 9, 2019—Q. What are your first steps in establishing the new Office of Health Equity? A. These first few months we’re trying to better understand the landscape of who within the Medical Center is conducting health equity research. Some people are doing work they may not necessarily label as health equity, but that’s really what they’re...
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)...
New technology helps pediatric patients who require frequent X-rays
Sep. 9, 2019—Chloie Jacobs, 9, prepares for a follow-up scan of her congenital scoliosis and climbs into a new X-ray imaging device at the pediatric orthopaedic clinic at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. But this isn’t just any X-ray machine. For Chloie, the cutting-edge technology, known as EOS, feels more like a teletransporter, because of its...
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....
Keeping Pace
Sep. 9, 2019—Nashville, once a mid-size city with a Southern small-town feel, is experiencing explosive growth. It’s bursting at the seams with unparalleled new construction, exciting new employment opportunities and a bustling food and entertainment scene. But along with Nashville’s rapid growth comes uncertainty and struggle — a need for affordable housing, better schools, mass transportation options...
Baby Boom
Sep. 9, 2019—More women. More babies. With more people choosing Nashville and its surrounding communities as home, Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology has seen a rapid growth in the number of visits for women’s care and babies born at VUMC. “In 2010, we saw about 50,000 outpatient visits,” said Ronald Alvarez, MD, Betty...
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...
Risky Ride
Sep. 9, 2019—There’s a fierce debate raging in the new Nashville – whether the influx of a growing number of electric scooters is a fun addition for tourists and residents or a dangerous trend that affects public safety. In July, after some Metro Nashville Council members called for a complete ban of electric scooters on Nashville streets,...
Master of Genetic Counseling program debuts inaugural class
Sep. 9, 2019—In August, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine welcomed its first class of students seeking a Master of Genetic Counseling (MGC) degree, one of the fastest growing health professions in the country. Vanderbilt’s program, developed and taught by genetic counselors in collaboration with the interprofessional faculty at Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center, is built...
Treatment approved for acute graft-versus-host disease
Sep. 9, 2019—The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved ruxolitinib, the first drug for patients with acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) who have an inadequate response to steroid treatment. Madan Jagasia, MBBS, MS, MMHC, chief medical officer and co-leader of the Translational Research and Interventional Oncology Program at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC), was a lead investigator...
Profiles in discovery
Sep. 9, 2019—Infectious diseases. Addiction. Mitochondrial diseases. Glioblastoma. In this issue of Vanderbilt Medicine, we share glimpses of five basic scientists in the early stages of their careers who are tackling these tough clinical problems by probing structures of individual proteins, cell identity, signaling pathways and animal decision-making behaviors. They are part of Vanderbilt University School of...
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...
A Class Act
Sep. 9, 2019—The glamour of being a neurosurgery resident is a yarn. It’s a world of busy calls, sharpening skills, the occasional moments of doubt, and seemingly more obligations than unlimited coffee could fuel — even if time stretched to 30 hours in a day. Somehow, though, it all gets done for the three third-year neurosurgery residents,...
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...
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...
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...