Mimi Eckhard

Vanderbilt research scientist Melinda Aldrich, Ph.D., MPH, has been awarded a National Institutes of Health Academic Career Award to investigate some of the genetic secrets behind a greater risk of lung cancer among African-Americans compared with other racial and ethnic groups. Read More

David Penson, M.D., MPH, professor of Urologic Surgery, has received a $2 million research award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to study localized prostate cancer, the second leading cause of death among American men. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center recently performed Tennessee’s first fenestrated aortic stent graft surgery to repair an abdominal aortic aneurysm that was previously considered too close to the kidney for minimally invasive surgery. Read More

When 55-year-old Neader Williams first learned that she might need spine surgery to treat her excruciating back and leg pain, she was more than a little scared and wasn’t even sure surgery was the answer. Read More

Each year, more than 350,000 people in the United States undergo surgery to treat painful ventral abdominal hernias, a condition that affects up to 30 percent of patients who have had any kind of abdominal surgery. Read More

Michael Petracek, M.D., has been named interim chair of Vanderbilt’s Department of Cardiac Surgery. Read More

Vanderbilt is expanding its role in the future treatment of pediatric hydrocephalus by recruiting Chevis Shannon, MBA, MPH, Dr.PH., to serve as director of the Vanderbilt Pediatric Neurosurgery Clinical Research Initiative. Read More

Using a SmartPhone platform and a $100,000 grant from Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Vanderbilt Pediatric Surgeon John Pietsch, M.D., and fourth-year medical student Katherine Allen may revolutionize the way infants and children all over the world are assessed and treated for proper nutrition. Read More

For the third straight time, Vanderbilt’s heart and lung life-support program has received the ELSO Award for Excellence in Life Support by the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO). Read More

The American Board of Thoracic Surgery has elected two Vanderbilt surgeons to its 17-member board of directors. Read More

Second-year General Surgery resident Anji Wall, M.D., Ph.D., hasn’t yet decided her surgical specialty, but she’s already written the book on ethics and international medicine, literally. Read More

The Department of Neurological Surgery has recruited John “Jay” Wellons III, M.D., MSPH, to serve as chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery. Read More

While Benjamin Foley, D.D.S., was on a two-week surgical rotation in Bogota, Colombia, the impact of limited access to health care was as clear as the fused jaw of a 6-year-old child. Read More

Less than a third of surgeons who advance to senior ranks in the U.S. are women, and it's not because they're less qualified or less productive than their male counterparts, new research finds. Read More