by Matt Batcheldor
Beatrice Concepcion, MD, associate professor of Medicine, has been appointed medical director of the Vanderbilt Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program.
In the position, Concepcion reports to T. Alp Ikizler, MD, Catherine McLaughlin Hakim Professor of Vascular Biology, professor of Medicine and director of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension.
Concepcion succeeds J. Harold Helderman, MD, professor of Medicine and Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, who served as medical director from 1995 to 2018 and under whose tutelage Concepcion received her training at VUMC.
More than 6,500 kidney transplants have been performed at Vanderbilt since 1962, including 298 transplants in fiscal year 2021, a record year for the program.
Working as a clinician at Vanderbilt since 2013, Concepcion has cared for numerous kidney transplant recipients and candidates. For the past six years, she has led the kidney program’s outreach efforts to increase access to transplantation for patients living in rural areas.
“Dr. Concepcion has demonstrated outstanding leadership, particularly using telemedicine to reach patients who need a kidney transplant but have difficulty accessing a center due to distance or lack of resources,” said Seth Karp, MD, H. William Scott Jr. Professor, chair of the Section of Surgical Sciences and director of the Vanderbilt Transplant Center.
“We are so excited to have her take on this new role and look forward to furthering our academic and community missions.”
In addition to her clinical and administrative responsibilities, Concepcion is involved in the education of nephrology fellows, medical residents and medical students, with a focus on kidney transplantation, immunosuppression and transplant immunology.
Her research interests include increasing access to kidney and pancreas transplantation and improving clinical and patient-centered outcomes of kidney transplant recipients.
“Dr. Concepcion is the role model clinician-educator that every academic center strives to have,” Ikizler said.
“She excels in everything she does with an extraordinary level of enthusiasm and competency. In essence, she reflects the unprecedented quality and skill set that we have in our transplant center at VUMC. We are delighted that she will be leading our efforts to further expand our kidney and pancreas program.”
Concepcion received her undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of the Philippines in Manila. She also obtained a Master of Science in Health Services and Outcomes Research from Northwestern University in Chicago.
There, she also completed an internship and residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in nephrology at Rush University Medical Center before completing a fellowship in transplant nephrology at Vanderbilt.
Concepcion serves on the United Network for Organ Sharing/Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Kidney Committee as the Region 11 representative. She is also a member of the National Kidney Foundation’s Health Equity Advisory Board. At Vanderbilt, she was a member of the team that advocated for the removal of the race modifier in calculating and reporting eGFR (estimated glomerular filtration rate), an estimate of kidney function. This was implemented in 2020. Concepcion is an active member of the American Society of Transplantation and American Society of Nephrology.
She is married to Jody Allan Junia, MD, director of Hospital Medicine at TriStar Centennial Medical Center. They have two sons, Juan Carlos (2) and Javier Rafael (3 months).
