Fall 2020
The Race to Rein in Renegade RNA
Oct. 5, 2020—How is it that an encapsulated, single strand of genetic material called SARS-CoV-2 can cause so much havoc? By the middle of September, nine months after an outbreak of viral pneumonia was first reported by health authorities in Wuhan, China, the RNA virus that causes COVID-19 had infected more than 29 million people worldwide and killed...
Faces and Places
Oct. 5, 2020—
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...
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...
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...
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...
Alumni Profile: Alice Coogan, MD’88
Oct. 5, 2020—Charting her own course As a student at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in the 1980s, Alice Clark Coogan, MD, thought she’d end up in obstetrics and gynecology. Her soon-to-be husband and classmate, Phil Coogan, had chosen orthopaedic surgery. “At the time, surgery residency was every-other-night call and OB was every third, so we’d see...
Communicating our way through this era of disease and change
Oct. 5, 2020—Amid the challenges and tragedies of the global pandemic, there are inspiring moments. I’ve had a front row seat to both extraordinary courage and creativity, as the people of VUMC prepared for and managed through two COVID-19 surges in Middle Tennessee. So many accomplishments, from dramatic swings in clinical, research and educational operations to sweeping...
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...
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,...
Program helps children with hand, upper extremity issues
Oct. 5, 2020—Brinkley Sandvall, MD, who runs the Hand and Upper Extremity program at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, bonds quickly with her young patients — children who have acquired or congenital hand and upper extremity differences. “I feel like this is the greatest job — it’s the intersection of what I can do, what...
Listen Up: VUMC offers original podcast series
Oct. 5, 2020—Vanderbilt University Medical Center has launched Vanderbilt Health DNA: Discoveries in Action, an original podcast series exploring the issues and scientific advancements shaping health, medicine and society. The series takes the listener deep into the world of health care through conversations with more than 30 pioneers who are pushing boundaries and setting the stage for the...
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...
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...
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...
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...
“Living up to our true mission”
Oct. 5, 2020—In the 40 years since André Churchwell, MD, graduated from medical school, his contributions to diversity and inclusion work have changed the face of U.S. medical education. Since July 2019, Churchwell has served as the interim Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and the Chief Diversity Officer for Vanderbilt University. On May 27, the...
New Chaplain Covenant opens the door to better understanding at VUMC
Oct. 5, 2020—For the Rev. Cordell Simpson, MDiv, DDiv, a chaplain at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the emotional dam broke a week after George Floyd was killed on May 25 while in police custody in Minneapolis. Long-suppressed memories welled up until Simpson, a Nashville native and Vietnam veteran, couldn’t contain them anymore. In the presence of his...
A Family Affair: I was VUMC’s first employee with COVID and one of the physicians tasked with developing a vaccine
Oct. 5, 2020—It was a Tuesday morning in early March when the frantic, worldwide race for a COVID-19 vaccine suddenly became not only a professional matter for me, but also a personal one. Stores and restaurants were just beginning to shutter their doors, and statewide, Tennessee had only a handful of cases. Universal masking was not a...
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...
Vanderbilt Transplant Center sets monthly record
Oct. 5, 2020—The Vanderbilt Transplant Center performed 73 transplants in May, setting a Medical Center record for the most transplants in a month. Sixteen of those were heart transplants — also a monthly record — cementing VUMC’s status as the busiest heart transplant center in the country. “In any month this would be an extraordinary achievement, but...
The Potential of Plasma and Passive Immunity
Oct. 5, 2020—In August VUMC was awarded a one-year, $34 million grant by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), part of the National Institutes of Health, to conduct a nationwide study of “convalescent plasma” as a treatment for COVID-19. The study, called the Passive Immunity Trial for Our Nation (PassItOn), will test whether infusions of...
New data offer insights on COVID treatments for people with cancer
Oct. 5, 2020—Data on treatment outcomes of people with cancer diagnosed with COVID-19 reveal a racial disparity in access to remdesivir, an antiviral drug that has been shown to shorten hospital stays, and increased mortality associated with dexamethasone, a steroid that has had the opposite effect in the general patient population. The data on 2,186 adults in...
Hydroxychloroquine: Ineffective as a therapy, can it help protect health care workers?
Oct. 5, 2020—In addition to remdesivir, several other drugs are being tested for the treatment of COVID-19. One of them is hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a drug originally developed to treat malaria but which currently is prescribed as an anti-inflammatory medication to reduce the pain and swelling of rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus). In laboratory studies HCQ...
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...