Matt Batcheldor

October 1, 2020

Transplant program reaches milestone 10,000th procedure

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has completed its 10,000th organ transplant, a monumental achievement representing nearly 60 years of life-saving work.

By Matt Batcheldor
September 25, 2020

In memory of Kyle

Last year, an honor walk for paramedic Kyle Fisher went viral. Now, his mother, a nurse at Vanderbilt Wilson County Hospital, is promoting organ donation in his memory.

By Matt Batcheldor
September 24, 2020

Heart Walk 2020

The money is still rolling in, but the Greater Nashville Heart Walk has already raised $1.3 million in its fight against heart disease and stroke as well as to provide funding for public and professional education and community service programs.

By Matt Batcheldor
September 17, 2020

New device may aid advanced heart failure patients

Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute (VHVI) has implanted its first V-Wave, an interatrial shunt device, as a part of a multi-center clinical trial.

By Matt Batcheldor
Sourav Panja, PhD, underwent a complicated procedure at VUMC to treat his relatively rare form of pulmonary hypertension.
September 10, 2020

Technique helped treat patient’s rare pulmonary disorder

Sourav Panja, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, was working in his lab one evening last year when he began coughing up blood. Even breathing was becoming difficult.

By Matt Batcheldor
September 9, 2020

VUMC Nursing’s ‘Boot Camp’ hones critical care skills

About 250 nurse practitioners and physician assistants nationwide gathered over Zoom from Sept. 2-4 for the ninth annual ACNP/PA Critical Care Boot Camp, the first in its history to be entirely virtual, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

By Matt Batcheldor
September 8, 2020

The police officer needed a kidney transplant. The donor turned out to be very familiar to him — he had arrested her numerous times.

He had been a cop for four decades. She had been featured on "Alabama's Most Wanted."
By Matt Batcheldor
September 2, 2020

Greater Nashville Heart Walk to go virtual on Sept. 12

Instead of drawing thousands of walkers to the Vanderbilt campus, the 2020 American Heart Association (AHA) Greater Nashville Heart Walk will take place virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
By Matt Batcheldor
August 26, 2020

Kidney transplant patient returns home to joyous reverse parade

Lee Foster's friends and neighbors smiled, waved, honked and enjoyed cake pops
By Matt Batcheldor
August 26, 2020

Four heart transplants performed in whirlwind 48 hours

The Vanderbilt Transplant Center’s cardiac surgeons transplanted four hearts in one 48-hour stretch in August, thanks to VUMC’s perfusion and organ recovery teams traveling more than 4,000 miles across the country to obtain the donor organs.
By Matt Batcheldor
August 13, 2020

Study suggests new threshold for diagnosing PAH

Doctors diagnosing pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) — elevated pulmonary pressure due to an issue in the small vessels of the lung — rely on a hemodynamic threshold set in the early 1970s to determine whether patients would be candidates for pulmonary vasodilator therapy.
By Matt Batcheldor
August 12, 2020

Congenital heart patient receives unexpected transplant

For years, doctors told Piper Davis it was impossible to have a heart transplant. She was born with just one ventricle, or pumping chamber, instead of two. A generation ago, such patients didn’t survive into adulthood.
By Matt Batcheldor