Fall 2013

From Bomb Disposal to Painless Colonoscopies, These Precocious Partners Boldly Go Where Man Prefers Not To By David F. Salisbury In the foreseeable future, robots will stick steerable needles in your brain to remove blood clots, and capsule robots will crawl up your colon to reduce the pain of… Read More

America’s Drug War Has Led to a ‘New and Improved’ Racial Caste System, Argues Michelle Alexander By Arnie Cooper Portrait of Michelle Alexander © Robert Shetterly / Americans Who Tell the Truth Michelle Alexander didn’t set out to do her undergraduate work at Vanderbilt. As a high… Read More

Vanderbilt University Athletics partnered in July with Soles4Souls to send student athletes on a 10-day journey to deliver shoes to those in need in Tanzania, Africa. Read More

If You Really Want to Improve Health Care, Start by Asking Those Who’ve Spent Sleepless Nights in Family Waiting Rooms By Nancy Humphrey Richard Mia During a recent clinic visit at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Lynn Ferguson and two other patients were simultaneously called back… Read More

In 2004, Kristin Fleschner began a year as a Vanderbilt Michael B. Keegan Traveling Fellow, journeying to Africa to study sexual violence against women and children. Now a student at Harvard Law School, Fleschner received a pancreas transplant in 2007 and started experiencing vision loss in 2008. Read More

Student Ownership, Responsibility Are Keys to Success Why are some high schools better than others at boosting achievement among traditionally underserved students? A new report from the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools (NCSU), based at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development, finds that student… Read More

Physician Exodus Is Diminishing Health Care Where It’s Needed Most The past decade has seen a dramatic rise in the number of physicians trained in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) emigrating to the United States, resulting in a “brain drain” on nations in the greatest need for affordable and accessible health care. Read More

Long before there was a Student Recreation Center or any of the adjacent outdoor facilities, Sam Hirt was doing what he could to promote sports activities on campus. Read More

Researchers Stalk Deadly Flu Viruses Using New Weapons The high mortality rate of a new strain of bird flu that emerged in China last spring has caused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue provider alerts to watch for flu-like illness in recent travelers and prompted… Read More

Transplant Procedure Overcomes Blood-Type Incompatibility More young children could receive life-saving heart transplants in the future, if a procedure performed for the first time at Vanderbilt becomes accepted practice. Pediatric cardiac surgeons at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt recently performed the state’s first ABO-incompatible heart… Read More

Alumni sports highlights from Marina Alex, Pedro Alvarez, Nick Christiani, Josie Earnest, Brittni Hamilton, Sonny Gray, Mike Minor, and Brandt Snedeker Read More

Jordan Matthews, a senior wide receiver from Madison, Ala., set two school records against the Missouri Tigers Oct. 5 with a seven-catch, 123-yard performance. Read More

Just outside Rand Hall, chalkboards beckoned returning students to add their own endings to the sentence “Before I die I want to … .” Read More

Back in 1938, homecoming was a citywide affair. At the Saturday morning homecoming parade in downtown Nashville, floats passed by the judges’ stand on Sixth Avenue. Read More

When it comes to government funding of basic science training programs for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, Vanderbilt University Medical Center is batting a thousand this year. Read More

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for American teens. Dr. Corey Slovis, professor and chair of emergency medicine, offers important driving rules for their safety. Read More

Nontombi Naomi Tutu, a second-year master of divinity student and daughter of retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has been honored with the Otis Social Justice Award. Read More

Vanderbilt photographer Daniel Dubois took to the sky in a helicopter Aug. 29 to capture the season-opening football game against Ole Miss. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center is taking steps to reduce operating expenses by 8 percent—$250 million—to be achieved by the end of fiscal 2015. Read More

Robert Vantrease, an artist in VUMC's Interactive, Web and Design office, witnessed a great deal of campus history during his 64-year tenure at the university. Read More