Derek Williams

Two Department of Pediatrics faculty members have been named to new and expanded roles. Kris Rehm, MD, has been named vice chair of Outreach Activities. Succeeding Rehm in her role as Division Chief for Hospital Medicine is Derek Williams, MD, MPH. Read More

A combination of two antibiotics is often prescribed to treat community-acquired pneumonia in children, but a JAMA Pediatrics study is now showing that using just one of the two has the same benefit to patients in most cases. Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) are leading a multicenter clinical trial to evaluate whether a shorter course of antibiotics — five days instead of 10 — is effective at treating community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in children who show improvement after the first few days of taking antibiotics. Read More

More than half of hospitalizations due to influenza pneumonia could be prevented by influenza vaccination, according to a study led by investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Read More

New Vanderbilt-led research shows hospitals are doing a better job of using antibiotics less commonly associated with antibiotic resistance to treat children hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). Read More

Respiratory viruses, not bacterial infections, are the most commonly detected causes of community-acquired pneumonia in children, according to new research released Feb. 26 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Read More

Children hospitalized for pneumonia have similar outcomes, including length of stay and costs, regardless of whether they are treated with “big gun” antibiotics such as ceftriaxone or cefotaxime or more narrowly focused antibiotics such as ampicillin or penicillin. Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt find less commonly prescribed drug is more effective in treating MRSA skin infections in children. Read More