Celeste Hemingway, MD, MHPE, left, and Matthew Grace, MD, MMHC
In a state where 30% of counties are considered maternal care deserts, Vanderbilt Health continues to set and raise the bar for maternal health care and education. Following their appointments as Vice Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Vice Chair of Education, we spoke with Matthew Grace, MD, MMHC, and Celeste Hemingway, MD, MHPE, about how they plan to support mothers, babies and future OB-GYNs in an ever-evolving field.
What is your vision for medical education within the department?
HEMINGWAY: I think my role is less about my vision and more about how I can support the vision of our leaders in each space. I had my chance to shape the residency in the last 16 years — seven years as assistant program director and nine years as program director. Now I have the opportunity to ask our clerkship team, our residency team, our fellowship directors: What do you need to push your programs to the next level, and how can I help make that happen for you?
What is your vision for obstetric care within the department?
GRACE: My vision is for Vanderbilt Health to be the place where patients receive the highest-quality obstetric care regardless of where they enter our system. As Vanderbilt Health continues to grow and expand, patients will enter into care from across the region. Patients should expect a safe and personalized experience from the first prenatal visit until they are safely at home with their baby (or babies) no matter which clinic they visit or at which Vanderbilt Health hospital they deliver. This means delivering exceptional care across the entire continuum — from routine pregnancies to the most medically complex cases — while ensuring patients experience seamless coordination between outpatient clinics, Labor and Delivery, subspecialty services and our regional network.
How has medical education changed in recent years and how should the department adapt?
HEMINGWAY: We are moving more and more toward individualized residency experiences. We already afford our trainees opportunities to customize their time in our training programs, but I sincerely hope we are moving toward competency-based promotion that will allow us more flexibility in the time it takes to meet milestones during training.
How do you see obstetric care evolving over the next several years?
GRACE: It is an exciting era in obstetric care. Patients with complex medical conditions who, just a few years ago, may have been told that pregnancy was too dangerous are now increasingly able to pursue pregnancy safely because of advances in medicine and the multidisciplinary expertise available at places like Vanderbilt.
The future of obstetrics isn’t just about treating pregnancy complications — it’s about bringing the right experts together before, during and after pregnancy, to help patients achieve the families they hope for. Whether that’s collaborating with maternal-fetal medicine specialists, cardiologists, geneticists, endocrinologists, anesthesiologists, surgeons or neonatologists, our ability to provide coordinated, personalized care continues to expand. Vanderbilt Health is and has been the leader in this model of care, and I feel a deep sense of responsibility to continue and expand our leadership in this area.
Are there any new educational initiatives or innovations you’d like to introduce?
HEMINGWAY: In the residency program, we have spent a lot of time thinking about and understanding procedural milestones for our residents and developed a surgical curriculum that prepares each year of residents with their own curriculum targeting the procedures they are expected to master as their training progresses. We’ve presented it at the Council on Resident Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology national meeting, our specialty’s annual education conference, with lots of interest from other institutions in our simulation models and curriculum.
Are there areas of maternal health you plan to strengthen or expand?
GRACE: One area I’m particularly passionate about is improving access to care and making it easier for patients to navigate a large academic health system. Vanderbilt offers extraordinary expertise, but for someone who is newly pregnant — or facing a complex pregnancy — that breadth of services can also feel overwhelming.
I want us to continually ask how we can make this easier for our patients. That starts with helping patients enter care efficiently through intuitive scheduling, tools like My Health at Vanderbilt, and clear communication. It also means ensuring they are connected with the right clinicians and multidisciplinary experts at the right time, without having to navigate the system on their own. There are many experts across Vanderbilt Health already working very hard on this, and I am excited to partner with them.
Ultimately, our shared goal is for every patient to feel that their care is personalized to their unique needs. Whether someone has an uncomplicated pregnancy or requires the expertise of Vanderbilt’s specialists, they should feel that Vanderbilt is coordinated around them — not that they have to coordinate Vanderbilt.
