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Student wellness a priority for VUSM
Mar. 1, 2018—Brian Drolet, MD’09, has come full circle with the Student Wellness Program at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM). He helped start the program in 2006 during his time as a student, and he is now a participating faculty member. “The wellness program grew out of the concept that in order to be a good...
Support for physicians
Mar. 1, 2018—At Vanderbilt, physicians can turn to the Faculty and Physician Wellness Program, which was established nearly 20 years ago, for confidential psychological support. About 6 percent of the faculty and physicians seek help annually for problems that are impacting their personal and professional lives, says Mary Yarbrough, MD, executive director of Faculty and Staff Health...
Call to Action
Mar. 1, 2018—The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) announced in January that more than 130 organizations across the U.S. — including associations, hospital and medical systems, universities, and professional societies — have joined NAM in declaring their commitment to reducing burnout and promoting well-being among clinicians. To provide an opportunity for organizations around the country to discuss...
Progress Report
Sep. 22, 2017—Formed in 2008, the Minority Housestaff for Academic and Medical Advancement (MHAMA) is an organization comprised of Vanderbilt house staff and advisers who are committed to creating opportunities for the advancement of underrepresented house staff by providing opportunities for mentorship, networking and professional development. MHAMA is also committed to increasing the presence of underrepresented faculty...
Next-Generation Vaccines
Sep. 22, 2017—The Human Immunome Program is one of two initiatives currently being pursued by the Human Vaccines Project (the Project). The other initiative, called the Rules of Immunogenicity Program, aims to elucidate the key principles of human immunology to understand how to generate life-long protective immunity. The ultimate mission is to accelerate development of “next-generation” vaccines...
Immunity, Infection, Inflammation focus of New Research Institute
Sep. 22, 2017—Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is launching a new institute to coordinate initiatives among the rapidly evolving disciplines of infection biology, immunology and inflammatory diseases. The Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology and Inflammation — VI4 for short — will be headquartered in facilities at the Medical Center and will serve the entire Vanderbilt community. The...
Magnets: The future of endoscopy
Sep. 22, 2017—You’ve turned 50. Happy birthday; it’s time to start screening for colorectal cancer. For some people, the colonoscopy—a procedure in which an endoscopist uses a long, flexible tube with a camera at the tip to examine the inside of the colon—brings feelings of dread. “Patients may fear colonoscopy, or not be able to take a...
The Impact on Babies
Mar. 7, 2017—There’s been a disproportionately greater increase in opioid use among pregnant women in rural versus urban counties, according to a December 2016 study in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. The study, authored by Stephen Patrick, M.D., a neonatologist at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, and colleagues from across the country, focused on data...
Charles represents VUMC at White House Rural Telehealth gathering
Mar. 6, 2017—David Charles, M.D., chief medical officer of the Vanderbilt Neuroscience Institute, vice-chair of the Department of Neurology and medical director of Telemedicine, represented Vanderbilt University Medical Center at a White House Convening on Rural Telehealth in March 2016. Charles was invited to lead off a panel entitled Spotlight on Innovation by presenting an overview of...
Buprenorphine used to shape behavior for those in recovery
Mar. 6, 2017—Charles* is one of the lucky ones. Three decades after he first sneaked his little brother’s hydrocodone cough medicine, 20 years after he started dissolving morphine pills in a heated spoon and injecting the milky solution into his veins, Charles has found his way back to what he calls a “normal” life. He didn’t die...
A History of Giving
Mar. 2, 2017—Diabetes care at Vanderbilt entered a new era with the opening of the Vanderbilt Eskind Diabetes Clinic in 2005. The clinic offers comprehensive outpatient care for both adults and children with diabetes, including subspecialty visits, nutrition, social work, and allied health services all under one roof. The clinic is named for the late Irwin B....
Quick Take: Dan Roden, M.D.
Aug. 22, 2016—Dan Roden, M.D., studies the mechanisms underlying variability in response to drug therapy and is principal investigator for BioVU, Vanderbilt’s biorepository. Roden is also William Stokes Professor of Experimental Therapeutics, professor of Medicine and Pharmacology, and director of the Oates Institute for Experimental Therapeutics. What led to VUMC’s investment in personalized medicine? There’s our...
VUMC to receive $71.6 million from NIH for Precision Medicine Initiative Cohort Program
Aug. 22, 2016—In July the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced it will provide $71.6 million over five years to VUMC to establish and operate the Data and Research Support Center for the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) Cohort Program, making this the largest research grant the Medical Center has ever received from any source. “We are honored...
Eureka Moment
Aug. 22, 2016—A decade before the FDA’s 1997 initial approval of deep brain stimulation (DBS) therapy, the technique was developed in Grenoble, France. Alim-Louis Benabid, M.D., Ph.D., and Pierre Pollak, M.D., utilized the effect of high-frequency stimulation on a patient’s tremor during an ablative brain surgery while using an electrode to identify the target area. The patient...
Allergic Reaction to Over-the-Counter Drug Nearly Costs Patient her Life
Feb. 22, 2016—Stevens-Johnson Syndrome/toxic epidermal necrolysis (SJS/TEN) is a rare, potentially fatal allergic reaction usually triggered by certain medications or infections, in which layers of skin slough off of the affected patients as a result of cell death and sores on the mucous membranes. The disease can cause eye damage, which can lead to blindness. In Donna Emley’s case, the...
Putting the Puzzle Pieces Together
Feb. 22, 2016—Although not part of the Undiagnosed Diseases Network, Jill Simmons, M.D., encounters medical mysteries that have the makings of a science fiction film or novel. As a pediatric endocrinologist with a special interest in metabolic bone disorders, she sees patients with rare, severe medical conditions. Included among those are a child who, as an infant, had...
CMA pledges $3 million to boost Children’s expansion
Feb. 22, 2016—The Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt is receiving significant phil-anthropic support through a $3 million gift from the Country Music Association (CMA). Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) leaders, event host Kix Brooks and special guest Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum announced in October 2015. “Country music is a format known for telling stories. Now...
A Day to Remember
Feb. 22, 2016—On Sept. 2, 2015, Vanderbilt leaders joined with the community and patients and families for an expansion celebration.
Growing to New Heights Expansion
Feb. 22, 2016—In the 1990s, when pediatric health care services were scattered in buildings across Nashville and strained by the demands of a growing population, health care leaders knew a dedicated children’s hospital was needed. But the vision required a champion, someone willing to lead the effort in the community as well as the large-scale philanthropic endeavor that...
Preserving the brains—and dignity—of ICU Patients: A Decade of Published Work
Aug. 21, 2015—In 2004 the ICU Delirium and Cognitive Impairment Student Group published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that provided the first documented cohort study to include daily measurements of delirium in the ICU. The study found the development of delirium presents the patients with a 300 percent increased likelihood of...
Giving in Action: Vickie and Tom Flood
Aug. 21, 2015—Donors such as Vickie and Thomas Flood are supporting the Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center’s world-class teaching, research and clinical care. The Center specializes in communication disorders such as hearing, speech, language, and voice problems. For many years, the Floods have supported faculty needs, research, graduate students and other expenses related to childhood hearing loss. Their...
VUSM student earns HIV/AIDS fellowship
Aug. 21, 2015—Fourth-year Vanderbilt University School of Medicine student Ishan Asokan has been selected as an inaugural member of the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF) Fellowship for students addressing HIV/AIDS and health disparities. Asokan has been working at the Vanderbilt Comprehensive Care Clinic (VCCC) since his first year of medical school and will be using the clinic...
The IOM committee’s findings regarding CFS:
Aug. 21, 2015—• There is indeed a disease; • Three features are present in virtually every patient with CFS: 1. Profound fatigue (devastating and ongoing) not alleviated by rest. “We’re not talking ‘it’s 3 a.m. and I’m feeling tired kind of fatigue.’ This is devastating knocked out fatigue,” said Ellen Wright Clayton, M.D., J.D. 2. Post-exertional malaise...
Study Fine-Tunes Hearing
Aug. 21, 2015—When Vanderbilt audiologist Allyson Sisler-Dinwiddie, Au.D., received her own cochlear implant, she experienced what many such patients do – her hearing was restored, but understanding speech could be difficult, especially in noisy situations. “There’s a wide range on how people do,” said David Haynes, M.D., professor of Otolaryngology, Neurosurgery and Hearing and Speech Sciences and...
GAUDEAMUS IGITUR, NO. II (“Therefore, Let Us Rejoice”)
Feb. 10, 2015—Written by Andre Churchwell, M.D., Homage to John H. Stone, MD—Poet, Friend, Humanist, and Cardiologist— and John’s Poem “Gaudeamus Igitur: A Valedictory Address.” (1982) Let us rejoice in this celebration. Let us rejoice in this end of a Beginning and the beginning to a new end. Let us rejoice that the days of Healing can...
Camp offers safe haven for pediatric burn patients
Feb. 10, 2015—Children make up a large portion of the Burn Center’s patient population. The most severely injured children who require a ventilator go to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, while the less critical children occupy a special room in the Burn Center specially decorated and outfitted for these...
Principles of Healing Illness
Feb. 10, 2015—By Farhad Ismail-Beigi, M.D. I would like to share with my colleagues my accumulated knowledge on principles of healing the sick. This knowledge is based on my education, the teaching of my mentors, and my own experiences of practicing as a gastroenterologist at UPMC, Presbyterian and Shadyside Hospitals in Pittsburgh for the past 43 years,...
Study: Balanced high-fat diet improves body composition, inflammation
Feb. 10, 2015—A diet designed for weight loss not only helps people shed unwanted pounds and keep them off, it also may reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes and other degenerative conditions, in part by “turning down the heat” of chronic inflammation generated by excess adipose tissue (fat). Surprisingly, it may not be necessary to avoid...
Called to Serve
Feb. 10, 2015—Within days of arriving in Liberia in September 2014, Boris Pavlin, M.D., ‘03, cared for three patients with Ebola—a mother, father and young son. It was his first face-to-face contact with the rare and deadly infectious disease that was raging through West Africa. Pavlin, an epidemiologist with the World Health Organization, was stationed in Sinoe...
A nation takes notice
Feb. 10, 2015—Ebola virus disease, previously known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, is caused by infection with four of the five Ebola virus strains, and can cause disease in humans and nonhuman primates (monkeys, gorillas, and chimpanzees). Ebola was first discovered in 1976 near the Ebola River in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since...
Warning Signs of Stress
Sep. 4, 2014—Your body’s stress warning signs tell you that something isn’t right. Much like the glowing orange “check engine” light on your car’s dashboard, if you neglect the alerts sent out by your body, you could have a major engine malfunction. Stress that is left unchecked or poorly managed is known to contribute to high blood...
Bernard Osher gift to transform integrative medicine at Vanderbilt
Sep. 4, 2014—Through a $5.5 million donation from San Francisco businessman Bernard Osher, Vanderbilt’s Center for Integrative Health has joined the elite group of Osher Centers for Integrative Medicine and is now known as the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Vanderbilt University. The Bernard Osher Foundation, founded in 1977 to improve quality of life through support...
Bridging the Gap Between Hospital and Home
Sep. 4, 2014—One year ago, Kris Stevenson was dying on the trauma unit at Vanderbilt University Hospital. He had been hit by a car while crossing the street in Nashville, resulting in severe brain, pelvic and abdominal injuries. Today he is walking and talking thanks to a team of people who helped with his incredible recovery. Case...
Ticks and red meat allergy
Sep. 4, 2014—Lone star tick bites are likely the cause of thousands of cases of severe red meat allergies that are plaguing patients in Southeastern states including Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia and spreading up the Eastern Seaboard along with the deer population. Vanderbilt’s Asthma, Sinus and Allergy Program (A.S.A.P.) clinic is seeing one or more new...
What is a food allergy?
Sep. 4, 2014—An allergic reaction to a food is a two-step process. The first time you’re exposed to a food allergen, your immune system makes specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies to that allergen. The IgE antibodies circulate through your blood and attach to immune cells called mast cells and basophils. Mast cells are found in all body...