Michael Lester, MD, has joined Vanderbilt University Medical Center after completing seven years of internship, residency and fellowship here. He began seeing patients July 1.
“I am delighted that Mike has joined our faculty,” said Timothy Blackwell, MD, Rudy W. Jacobson Professor of Pulmonary Medicine and director of the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine. “He has been a star at every level, excelling as a resident, chief resident, and fellow in pulomary and critical care medicine. His background and interests make him the perfect fit for developing a new program in advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) management. I expect that he will grow to become a leader in this field.”
Lester’s clinical interests include a mix of both pulmonary and critical care medicine, including serving as an attending in the Medical Intensive Care Unit, the pulmonary consult service, the pulmonary ward at Vanderbilt University Hospital, and the outpatient pulmonary clinic.
He specializes in taking care of patients with advanced COPD. He, along with Blake LeMaster, MD, and Adrienne Conger, MD, see COPD patients in the clinic to help them access both destination and interventional therapies such as bronchoscopic lung volume reduction surgery or transplant for appropriate patients.
Lester is also part of a multicenter group evaluating bronchial rheoplasty for patients with late-stage COPD, a procedure that uses nonthermal pulsed electrical fields to ablate the normal mucus-producing cells of the airway epithelium, thereby allowing normal, healthy epithelial regeneration to occur.
“I’m super excited to join the faculty here,” he said. “I’ve been here for seven years and really love the people and the environment. My wife, Shannon, (a palliative care physician at the Nashville VA Hospital) and I are thrilled to have the opportunity to stick around and continue our work here.”
Lester received his undergraduate degree in physics with a biophysics concentration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2010. He graduated from Harvard Medical School in 2014, then did his internal medicine residency, was chief resident at VUMC, then completed a fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine also at VUMC.
He served on the House Staff Advisory Council at VUMC from 2015-2017 and was medical student lecture coordinator for internal medicine during his residency. He implemented a new system which allowed residents to obtain feedback on their lectures and teaching abilities from core faculty.
Patients can be referred to Lester by calling 615-322-2386.
