December 20, 2012

Year in Review 2012: Appointments bolster Medical Center programs

Laura Beth Brown, R.N., president of Vanderbilt Home Care, was named vice president for Vanderbilt Health Services. While continuing to serve as president for Vanderbilt Home Care, Brown will provide operational oversight for Vanderbilt Health Services (VHS) and its subsidiary entities.

Michelle Collins, Ph.D., CNM, was named program director for the School of Nursing Nurse-Midwifery program.

Susan Hernandez, MBA, R.N., was named chief nursing officer at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. Hernandez has served as associate hospital director since December 2010, with oversight of nursing and several ancillary areas.

Rob Hood, M.D., assistant professor of Medicine and assistant chief medical officer for the clinics at Vanderbilt Health One Hundred Oaks, was named associate chief medical officer for Vanderbilt Medical Group.

Shubhada Jagasia, M.D., was appointed medical director of the Vanderbilt Eskind Diabetes Clinic. She succeeded the clinic’s founding medical director, Thomas Elasy, M.D., MPH, who was named chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine and Public Health.

Ian Macara, Ph.D., was named the new chair of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. Macara, formerly director of the Advanced Microscopy Facility with the University of Virginia’s Center for Cell Signaling, succeeded Susan Wente, Ph.D., associate vice chancellor for Health Affairs and senior associate dean for Biomedical Sciences.

Pierre Massion, M.D., associate professor of Medicine and Cancer Biology, was named director of the Thoracic Program at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.

Walter Merrill, M.D., a member of the Vanderbilt faculty from 1983 until 2002, returned to Vanderbilt to become chief of staff of Vanderbilt University Hospital. In 1985, Merrill and William H. Frist, M.D., started Vanderbilt’s cardiac transplantation program. Merrill left Vanderbilt in 2002 to become chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Cincinnati. Seven years later, he moved from Cincinnati to Jackson, Miss., to become chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

Richard Miller, M.D., was named chief of the Division of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care. Miller, who was the division’s first fellow from 1990 to 1992, had been serving as acting chief and succeeded John Morris Jr., M.D., who founded the Trauma Center at Vanderbilt in 1984 and served as division chief from 1986 to 2011.

Reed Omary, M.D., M.S., professor of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering and vice chair of Research for the Department of Radiology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, was named chair of the Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences. Omary succeeded Jeremy Kaye, M.D., who is retiring as chair at the end of the academic year.

Edward Sherwood, M.D., Ph.D., joined Vanderbilt’s Department of Anesthesiology as vice chair for Research. Sherwood previously served as vice chair for research and James F. Arens Endowed Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

The Department of Neurological Surgery named John “Jay” Wellons III, M.D., MSPH, chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery. Wellons came to Vanderbilt from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Consuelo H. Wilkins, M.D., associate professor of Medicine, Psychiatry and Surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, was named the new executive director of the Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance. Wilkins, who succeeded the retiring Clifton Meador, M.D., was director of the Institute for Public Health’s Center for Community Health and Partnerships at Washington University.

John York, Ph.D., Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Cancer Biology Professor of Pharmacology and Biochemistry at Duke University Medical Center, was named chair of the Department of Biochemistry. York succeeds F. Peter (Fred) Guengerich, Ph.D., who had served as the department’s interim chair since July 2010. Guengerich assumed this role when longtime chair Michael Waterman, Ph.D., stepped down after serving as the department’s chair for 18 years.