{"id":2446,"date":"2020-03-12T17:18:05","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T17:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mc.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltmedicine\/?p=2350"},"modified":"2021-08-11T19:35:52","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T19:35:52","slug":"alumni-profile-constance-mobley-md-phd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/alumni-profile-constance-mobley-md-phd\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni Profile: Constance Mobley, MD, PhD"},"content":{"rendered":"

Transplant Trailblazer<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Photo by Felix Sanchez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a molecular physiology and biophysics doctoral student at Vanderbilt, Constance Mobley never had designs on practicing medicine. Her passions were in the lab. The young scholar was infinitely more interested in clinical research.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to discover how to cure everything in the world,\u201d she says. \u201cI was always interested in science, and I wanted to win a Nobel Prize.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Mobley\u2019s endless curiosity and yen for research ultimately were limiting: \u201cAt some point you want to know, how does this help people? That\u2019s the part that was missing, and that\u2019s why I became interested in medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Mobley, an acute-care surgeon and organ transplant specialist, is one of just 14 female abdominal transplant surgeons (liver, kidneys, pancreas and small bowels) of color in the United States. She specializes in liver transplants, having performed 500 procedures since joining Houston Methodist Hospital in 2014. The hospital\u2019s transplant program is ranked No. 6 in the country and first in its region. In January, Mobley was promoted to director of the hospital\u2019s surgical and liver intensive care unit.<\/p>\n

Her work, especially with the liver, has turned out to be particularly gratifying.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cWhen it comes down to it, what I do is really about helping people,\u201d Mobley says. \u201cThat\u2019s part of the reason I was drawn to transplant in particular. You can have people who, in liver failure, can be very sick in the ICU and nearing death, and with one operation it can turn their lives around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, she is conducting trials that are attempting to lengthen the time that a patient\u2019s liver can be used before requiring a transplant. \u201cPossibly improving the condition of the organ makes a successful transplant more likely,\u201d Mobley says.<\/p>\n

Mobley makes annual gifts to Vanderbilt, and she is a member of the chancellor\u2019s \u2018Dores of Distinction Alumni Advisory Board, whose members engage with the university\u2019s leadership to consider the future of Vanderbilt. She recently was a member of the search committee for Vanderbilt\u2019s vice chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.<\/p>\n

\u201cVanderbilt is the foundation for everything that I\u2019ve done,\u201d Mobley says. \u201cWithout the education and the opportunities that I got there, there\u2019s just no way I would be where I am today. Vanderbilt keeps getting better and better every year. It\u2019s truly amazing to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Transplant Trailblazer   As a molecular physiology and biophysics doctoral student at Vanderbilt, Constance Mobley never had designs on practicing medicine. Her passions were in the lab. The young scholar was infinitely more interested in clinical research. \u201cI wanted to discover how to cure everything in the world,\u201d she says. \u201cI was always interested in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[34,21,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vm-alumni-news","category-vm-spring-2020","category-vm-vanderbilt-community"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcDnub-Ds","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2919,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446\/revisions\/2919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}