From the Dean
Care that Changes Our World
Mar. 27, 2024—Over the past few months, we’ve publicly announced that nine global companies are joining with us in the Alliance for Genomic Discovery (AGD) to whole genome sequence our DNA bank, BioVU, in its entirety. This landmark work will take over a year and is being done in Iceland by our partners. It’s a momentous achievement...
The importance of empathy and grace
Jul. 19, 2023—Our patients, and often our own employees, want to know we care about them and what they are experiencing. We can each recall instances when someone’s lagging spirit impacted their work, their relationships or even their health. According to the World Health Organization, more people in the United States are living with mental and emotional...
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...
Finding strength, passion and leadership in the Vanderbilt mosaic
May. 16, 2022— Ever lose sight of why you wanted to be in health care? Life sometimes gets in the way. Or the storminess of the day to day obscures what fueled your journey and blurs the path forward. After two years of COVID-19, there is plenty of burnout and cynicism to go around. Though we are...
Hard Conversations
Oct. 18, 2021— Difficult conversations are a hallmark of medicine. Patients and their families rely on us to share the facts about their illnesses that are sometimes hard to hear. While many clinicians begin to do this while training, our effectiveness in these conversations develops throughout a career. Telling a young mother she has an aggressive cancer...
Keeping our eyes on the future
Mar. 19, 2021—The COVID-19 pandemic is teaching us many lessons in health care. Among them, we are learning the importance of adapting to change as well as leading change in how we discover, train and heal as we plan for the future. The hesitancy about the two mRNA COVID-19 vaccines is but one example — a technology...
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...
To thrive in a world of change, welcome the new
Mar. 12, 2020—Today’s medicine sits at the intersection of expectation and limitation. We work amid breathless acceleration of technology, science and demand for what clinicians are expected to know and manage. So much progress has been made in the last 20 years that it can seem an insurmountable task to stay on top of it all. In...
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...
Directing our own health care paths
Feb. 28, 2019—Clinicians and patients typically agree there are advantages to having medical wishes clearly documented in advance of a health crisis. Despite this understanding, and an abundance of cautionary anecdotes to serve as examples, why do conversations about end-of-life decisions remain so difficult? According to research published in July 2017 in Health Affairs, nearly two-thirds of...
Tradition and progress mark the start of a new academic year
Sep. 13, 2018—Summer marked the beginning of another exciting academic year when we welcomed a host of students and advanced postdoctoral trainees to the Medical Center. It is a time of renewal, optimism and excitement for the future. In July we introduced 96 medical students during the annual Convocation and White Coat Ceremony. Our residency and fellowship...
The Importance of Physician Wellness
Feb. 28, 2018—Today, medicine is putting more focus than ever on patients’ social, behavioral and psychological dynamics, as it is clear these factors are not only major drivers of health, but in many cases are even more consequential for longevity and quality of life than their medical care. As we center on these issues, considering our own...
Sense and Sensitivity
Sep. 21, 2017—The cover story for this issue of Vanderbilt Medicine, The Science of Our Senses, offers glimpses into the kaleidoscope of advances related to the five senses, taking place across our campus. For example, Mark Wallace, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School at Vanderbilt University and Louise B. McGavock Professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences, is...
Discover, Learn and Share
Mar. 1, 2017—I write to thank you for your incredible support of our missions, for so many wonderful accomplishments in 2016, and to share some aspirations for 2017 and beyond. By any measure, 2016 was a year that brought a multitude of challenges and opportunities. We completed a historic, two-year process that made Vanderbilt University Medical Center...
A Month of Many Milestones
Aug. 18, 2016—It was a remarkable July. Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center began the fiscal year with the Medical Center operating as a financially and legally independent nonprofit entity for the first time in history. Through an extensive, two-year effort, we were committed to positioning VUMC for success in a rapidly changing health care economy,...
Growing to New Heights
Feb. 22, 2016—The cover of this issue of Vanderbilt Medicine features Eli James, a courageous 5-year-old being cared for by the Program for Children with Medically Complex Needs through Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. Eli was diagnosed in utero with rachischisis, the most severe form of spina bifida, and was given little chance of survival...
Our Strength in Personalized Medicine is Leading the Way
Aug. 21, 2015—Earlier this summer, Vanderbilt University Medical Center was honored to host the first National Institutes of Health (NIH) workshop for the federal Precision Medicine Initiative announced in January by President Obama. The two-day gathering, led by NIH director Dr. Francis Collins, was held so the nation’s leaders in the field could begin to develop and...
VUMC as a Separate Nonprofit Entity Allows for Growth
Jun. 26, 2015—The changes we are experiencing in health care are the most transformational in America’s history. No other sector has as large an impact on the U.S. economy as health care, which now consumes almost 20 percent of our Gross Domestic Product. Among many factors driving epic change is the rising cost of care. As much...