Year: 2008

Wirth will be wearing a newly designed uniform to complement her trusted old number. In the 1954 film White Christmas, the singing/dancing Haynes sisters (played by Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen) perform a number titled “Sisters.” The lyrics, in part, contain these lines: “Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters… Read More

Clash of Ideal and Real Stresses Med Students Moral distress—negative feelings that arise when one knows the morally correct thing to do but cannot take action because of system constraints or hierarchies—had been highly studied in the nursing profession but never among medical students, until Vanderbilt University School of Medicine… Read More

Owen Professor Leads Environmental Think-Tank Research Mark Cohen, the Justin Potter Distinguished Professor of American Competitive Business and professor of law at Vanderbilt, is taking on a new role as vice president of research for Research for Resources for the Future (RFF). RFF is an independent, nonpartisan research organization dedicated… Read More

Trauma Network Helps Families Cope: www.mytsn.org   For more than a month last year, Shawn Coltharp kept vigil while her 26-year-old daughter lay critically injured in Vanderbilt’s Trauma Center after a car accident. Coltharp wasn’t sure what to do or where to turn. Now patients and family members in… Read More

If anyone has the right stuff to handle the new wave of federal export control regulations that is crashing down on Vanderbilt and the nation’s other research universities, it’s Marcia E. Williams. An attorney, former airline pilot, business owner and classroom instructor, Williams, who has served as an assistant director of… Read More

In addition to being named to U.S. News & World Report magazine’s “honor roll” of the nation’s best hospitals, Vanderbilt Medical Center and its ongoing efforts to improve quality of care and patient safety were the subject of a 12-page story in the magazine’s annual “America’s Best Hospitals” issue published… Read More

Project scientists Joshua Pepper, Keivan Stassun and David James with the KELT telescope Vanderbilt astronomers have constructed a special-purpose telescope that will allow them to participate in one of the hottest areas in astronomy: the hunt for earthlike planets circling other stars. The instrument, called the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope… Read More

  Dr. Andy Norman meets with a former patient in Nigeria. Vanderbilt University School of Medicine’s Institute for Global Health has received a one-year, $3 million federal grant to provide AIDS treatment and prevention services in Nigeria. It is the second major treatment grant the institute has received under PEPFAR, the… Read More

  “The two most important dates in everyone’s life [are] the day you were born and the day you realized why you were born. When I landed in New Orleans after Katrina, I knew why I was born.” ~Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré in a Sept. 18 address launching the Vanderbilt University School… Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center recently performed its third organ transplant in which organs were harvested from donors who were pronounced dead because of cardiac death. The new organ-procurement protocol differs from the longstanding practice of using an organ donor whose heart is still beating until the time the organs are harvested. Read More

Vanderbilt is No. 18 in this year’s “America’s Best Colleges” edition of annual rankings by U.S. News & World Report magazine. The university climbed one position from last year, tying with Emory University and the University of Notre Dame. Vanderbilt also ranked No. 14 among national universities in… Read More

It’s hard to find good smoke patrols. They’re expected to go up to people and explain that they’re violating our rules. ~Ken Browning, director of VUMC Plant Services Don’t even think about lighting up on the Vanderbilt Medical Center campus. On Sept. 1, VUMC enacted a ban reflecting a strong… Read More

Vanderbilt’s football team rocketed to No. 13 in national rankings—no, that’s not a misprint—after beating Auburn University 14-13 on Oct. 4. The game marked the Commodores’ fifth straight win this year and its first win against the Tigers since 1955, giving Vanderbilt a 5-0 season for the first time… Read More

Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of the international best-seller Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, will speak at Vanderbilt University Tuesday, Nov. 18. Read More

Editor GayNelle Doll Art Director and Designer Donna DeVore Pritchett Editorial Associate Editor and Advertising Manager Phillip B. Tucker Arts and Culture Editor Bonnie Arant Ertelt, BS’81 Class Notes and Sports Editor Nelson Bryan, BA’73 Production and Design Assistant Director, Photography Services… Read More

October 2008: A 62-year-old man, otherwise healthy, notices his heart is beating rapidly and irregularly. When he goes to see his doctor, a common heart-rhythm abnormality called atrial fibrillation is diagnosed. Many therapeutic options are discussed, and the patient elects to try drugs to keep his heart rhythm normal. Read More

Family Ties First, I want to say a word about how much I am enjoying the magazine. The Spring 2008 issue with the Holocaust memories [“In the Face of Destruction”] was very personal because of the real Vanderbilt people involved. The story of Montgomery Bell [Southern Journal, “… Read More

The first magazine I remember enjoying as a child was Reader’s Digest, a family-friendly staple in American middle-class households of the 1960s. The articles were short and accessible. Whole sections of each issue were devoted to jokes: “Life in These United States,” “Humor in Uniform,” “All in a Day’s Work.”… Read More

Eric Etheridge Eric Etheridge, BA’79, grew up in Mississippi and has worked as an editor at several magazines, including Rolling Stone, The New York Observer and Harper’s. For his recent book, Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders, Etheridge paired original mug shots with contemporary portraits, personal… Read More

Watch video of a talk by Maureen Tobin Stanley, associate professor of Spanish language, literature, and culture at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, speaking Oct. 23 as part of the Holocaust Lecture Series. Read More