Fall 2022
Endangered Species
Jan. 4, 2023—Two thousand fifty years ago, the Roman poet Horace spun a phrase that never seems to lose its power: Carpe diem. Seize the day. The line continues: Put very little trust in tomorrow. By that Horace meant, don’t leave the future to chance. Act now. Make tomorrow better. Carpe diem is a worthy mantra for...
Letter from Sarah Creekmore Woodall
Jan. 3, 2023— Dear Vanderbilt Medical Alumni: This year’s Reunion weekend — held in October — became a “double” Reunion when we combined the twice-postponed Reunion 2020 with our regularly scheduled Reunion 2022. This combined 2020/2022 VUSM Reunion weekend welcomed back 40 individual special anniversary Doctor of Medicine graduating classes to Nashville, offering us the opportunity to...
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...
Outreach a focus of house staff alliance
Jan. 3, 2023—A diverse group of Vanderbilt residents, fellows and medical students shared why and how they chose to become physicians with more than 200 high school students at four Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) in the spring. The outreach event, sponsored by the House Staff Diversity and Inclusion Alliance (HSDIA) and the Vanderbilt University School of...
“I do believe I can change someone’s world.”
Jan. 3, 2023—Kathleen Gallagher, MD’19, is trained to do what most people can’t imagine – triage, evaluate and care for the casualties of combat. Gallagher, a third-year general surgery resident at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and graduate of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, served as a medic in the U.S. Army National Guard when she was an...
Machine learning in the cloud
Jan. 3, 2023—A new age of human data research has arrived, says computer scientist Paul Harris, PhD, professor of Biomedical Informatics and director of the Office of Research Informatics. “Just about every health center will by now have collected 10 to 20 years of EHR data, and we have figured out policies and procedures allowing sharing for...
Levels of supervision
Jan. 3, 2023—In supervised learning, an ML algorithm infers a function based on labeled examples. For example, given records labeled as normal birth and those labeled as preterm birth, the algorithm learns to predict premature births from routine longitudinal EHR data. A common version of semi-supervised learning involves an ML algorithm that has learned to assign labels...
The Expert from Nowhere
Jan. 3, 2023—To understand a protein’s structure is to understand its function, says structural and chemical biologist Jens Meiler, PhD, distinguished research professor of Chemistry. It can take a PhD student up to five sleep-deprived years to determine the structure of a single protein, and of the 20,000 human proteins, only about 17% are considered to have...
Clinical Innovators
Jan. 3, 2023—Several years ago, Adam Hetzler was working at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when he decided to do something completely different with his life. “I loved the people I worked with, and I thoroughly enjoyed the work,” he said, “but I wanted to make a more tangible difference in people’s day-to-day lives.”...
Investment in Undergraduates
Jan. 3, 2023— “I got to be there and see it in person,” says Melanie Perez, a senior at Florida International University, describing her experience in the 2022 Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) Summer Research Program at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. The nine-week program for college undergraduates interested in the MD/PhD career track is an extension...
Saved Twice
Jan. 3, 2023— The first time Janet Darnell saw her clinicians at Vanderbilt, she was sitting in a wheelchair, on oxygen 24 hours a day, and her lungs were near failure. She couldn’t walk from her chair to her front door. In a series of events she considers miraculous, Darnell’s life would be saved twice in one...
Research Roundup
Jan. 3, 2023—Ginseng intake and mortality The herbal supplement ginseng has been used in Asian countries to promote longevity and health for more than 2,000 years, but the impact of ginseng consumption on mortality is still unclear. Wei Zheng, MD, PhD, MPH, and colleagues analyzed ginseng consumption and death in 56,138 female participants with nearly 15 years...
A look inside new imaging science program
Jan. 3, 2023—A new Master of Imaging Science (MIS) program will immerse students in the full spectrum of biomedical imaging and provide hands-on clinical and research experience. Biomedical imaging technologies, including ultrasound, X-ray, CT, MRI and PET, allow physicians and researchers to observe internal organs, detect cancers and monitor image-guided surgeries. The one-year MIS program, being offered...
Diversity Partners
Jan. 3, 2023—Vanderbilt University Medical Center is partnering with Yale School of Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine and the Research Centers in Minority Institutions Coordinating Center (RCMI CC) at the Morehouse School of Medicine in an initiative aimed at increasing diversity in clinical trials and addressing systemic barriers to participation by communities of color. The Equitable Breakthroughs...
A Helping Hand
Jan. 3, 2023—Approximately 60 Vanderbilt orthopaedics volunteers provided surgical treatment to 15 patients at the sixth annual Vanderbilt Orthopaedics Outreach Day in August. This year’s outreach day was held at the Vanderbilt Surgery Center in Franklin, Tennessee. Founded in 2017, Vanderbilt Orthopaedics Outreach Day provides orthopaedic surgical treatment for uninsured and underinsured patients in the Middle Tennessee...
Q + A: Ritu Banerjee, MD, PhD
Jan. 3, 2023—Ritu Banerjee, MD, PhD, is professor of Pediatrics, director of Clinical Services for the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, and medical director of the Pediatric Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. What do you like about being an infectious disease specialist? It’s never boring. It’s always interesting. There’s so much...
Purpose propels VUMC’s people
Jan. 3, 2023—On Oct. 26, more than 60 of our colleagues and community partners came together in Langford Auditorium to share personal stories about their remarkable work in a vast array of Vanderbilt programs. It was Strategy Share, an annual event hosted by VUMC that showcases the abundant ways we come together as teams with diverse skill...
National recognition for STEM pipeline program
Jan. 3, 2023—The Aspirnaut STEM pipeline for diversity and wellness at Vanderbilt University Medical Center celebrated its 15th anniversary with a daylong scientific symposium, followed by a feature on the program broadcast Aug. 2 on “NBC Nightly News.” The pipeline is designed primarily for under-resourced and under-represented rural high school and undergraduate students. Dressed in white lab...
Antibiotic Resistance: The Global Threat
Jan. 3, 2023—Antibiotic resistance — when bacteria change and cause antibiotics to fail — is happening across the world. There is no system in place to track antibiotic resistance globally. According to the CDC, without urgent action, many modern medicines could become obsolete, turning even common infections into deadly threats.
Bruce Silverstein, MD’75
Jan. 3, 2023—Bruce Silverstein, MD’75 Postgraduate training in medicine and gastroenterology at the University of Utah and University of Washington. Full-time faculty professor at the University of Washington where he helps run the medical school curriculum. Started photography in college and medical school, often shooting for national magazines and NBC; assignments paid his medical school tuition. Ran...
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...
Alumni Profile: A shoulder to lean on
Jan. 3, 2023—The romance of Samer Hasan, MD’94, PhD’94, and Mariana Belvedere, PhD, BA’91 began when she agreed to be a test subject for his dissertation research project. Talk about chemistry! “It was kind of a workplace romance that blossomed,” Hasan said. “I didn’t dare ask her out until after I had collected all the data and...
Alumni Profile: Focused on financial support for students
Jan. 3, 2023—When Traci Granston, MD, was contemplating where to attend medical school in 1991, she knew it made financial sense to attend her state university in Washington, but her heart belonged to Vanderbilt. So, she took out student loans and headed south to Nashville and became a member of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Class...
Giving in Action: A Shared Purpose…Then and Now
Jan. 3, 2023—When Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Class of 1997 alumni Matt and Carol Kikkawa Hook connected with Vanderbilt to discuss charitable support, they had no intention of serving as class chairs for their 25th Reunion. They simply focused on exploring how their giving could make a difference. As discussions continued, they learned that the 1997...
Giving in Action: Katie Cox Johnson Memorial Scholarship
Jan. 3, 2023—Compassionate, humble, hardworking, inspiring. Ask the members of the Class of 2007 how they remember Katie Cox Johnson, MD’07, and these are some of the many warm words you will hear. After Johnson died in 2019 at age 38 following a battle with multiple sclerosis and cervical cancer, her close friend, Jessica Sparks Lilley, MD’07,...
Class Notes
Jan. 3, 2023—1950s Gerald E. Stone, BA’54, MD’57, HS’58, celebrated 66 years of marriage on June 10 with wife, Lois. They have 15 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. One grandchild is a physician who earned his undergraduate degree at Vanderbilt in 2009, and another is a third-year medical student elsewhere. 1960s John Burr Bassel, BA’66, MD’69, HS’72,...
Losses
Jan. 3, 2023—Robert H. Alford, BA’58, MD’61, HS’67, died May 30. He was 86. Dr. Alford is survived by his wife, Marceleen; children Stephen, Andrew and Daniel; three grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Edward E. Anderson, BA’58, MD’61, HS’63, died March 18. He was 85. Dr. Anderson is survived by his wife, Kay; children Laura, Sheryl, Christopher and...
Faces and Places
Jan. 3, 2023—