Year: 2016

As a nurse working with critically ill patients with orders to not resuscitate, Rebecca Hixson, R.N., has often lingered in a patient’s room to complete her routine charting if she felt they were nearing death and no family or friends were around. But Hixson now hopes a new volunteer program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) will mean these patients will always have someone by their side at the end of life. Read More

The Nashville Health Care Council has announced the appointment of new and renewing members to its 2016-2017 board of directors. C. Wright Pinson, MBA, M.D., Deputy CEO and Chief Health System Officer for Vanderbilt University Medical Center, will serve as chair of the board for a two-year term. Read More

Sean Donahue, M.D., Ph.D., Sam and Darthea Coleman Professor of Pediatric Ophthalmology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), was recently named a Choosing Wisely Champion by the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (AAPOS). Read More

Katherine Brown, Ed.D., M.S.Ed., an occupational therapist with Vanderbilt Home Care Services, is one of the eight inspiring Nashville women who will be inducted into the YWCA’s 2016 Academy for Women of Achievement on Oct. 6. Read More

A Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) student recently received international recognition when his poster presentation at a major infectious diseases conference was voted the best from among 600 presenters and 1,500 attendees. Read More

Dario Englot, M.D., Ph.D., has received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to support his research into better understanding brain connectivity disturbances in patients with focal epilepsy. Read More

Teen Cancer America and Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt this week announced the launch of a collaborative effort to raise $1 million to expand the Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer program in Nashville, Tennessee. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s heart transplant program is ranked No. 2 nationwide in volume for its combined adult and pediatric procedures, according to the most recent data released by Organ Procurement and Transplant Network (OPTN) in July. Read More

Family members, friends and faculty gathered in Light Hall on July 29 to support the new Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) class during the school’s annual Convocation and White Coat Ceremony. Read More

Tuberculosis (TB) remains an important public health problem, particularly among people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Read More

The Robert J. Kleberg Jr. and Helen C. Kleberg Foundation has awarded a $3 million grant to Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) investigators in support of VICC’s drug discovery program. The gift awarded over the next three years from the private, San Antonio, Texas-based foundation will enable VICC researchers to pursue the development of new compounds to block the activity of cancer-causing genes and proteins that had previously been considered “undruggable.” Read More

Antidepressant use during pregnancy is common. Fetal exposure to the class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) is associated with the life-threatening condition PPHN (persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn), but a causal link has not been established. Read More

There is new evidence that the "mother’s curse" – the possibility that moms may transmit genes to their children that harm their sons but not their daughters – holds true in animals. Read More

Arthur L. Brooks, M.D., an innovator of surgical techniques and a mentor to younger orthopaedic surgeons, died Thursday, July 28, at age 91. Read More

During development, neural circuits are remodeled – some synapses are eliminated and others are strengthened – to produce a mature, functional nervous system. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) has once again been named among the nation’s finest providers of specialty care by U.S. News and World Report, and has also been named the No. 1 hospital in Tennessee and the Metro Nashville area. Read More

More ugliness is in the forecast for the presidential campaign, says a Vanderbilt professor. Read More

The 2C-subtype of the serotonin receptor (5HT2C), which binds the neurotransmitter serotonin, plays an important role in regulating food intake and metabolism. Read More

Temple Baker, BA’15, is not your typical Hollywood success story. He wasn’t a child star, shuffled from audition to audition by pushy parents, nor did he have much interest in becoming an actor during college. In fact, his only real stage experience was a fourth-grade production of Romeo and Juliet, in… Read More

New fossil evidence strengthens the proposition that the world’s first mass extinction was caused by ‘ecosystem engineers’ – newly evolved organisms that radically altered the environment. Read More