Jill Clendening

For the fourth straight year, VUMC surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and support staff provided free surgeries for underinsured individuals with chronic upper extremity conditions such as carpel tunnel syndrome and cysts.

In October 2018, Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Defining Personalized Care — Elevating Our Culture of Service initiative was launched, and leaders are applauding the service education’s reinforcement of positive behaviors for improved delivery of service to each other, to patients and to their family members.

The multicellular, 3-D structure of human pancreatic islets — the areas of the pancreas containing hormone-producing or endocrine cells — has presented challenges to researchers as they study and manipulate these cells’ function, but Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers have now developed a pseudoislet system that allows for much easier study of islet function.

While some smokers might rationalize continuing to smoke because of the lower weight often associated with the habit, Vanderbilt University Medical Center investigators have determined that even with a lower body mass index (BMI), smokers have a higher risk of depositing fat in and around organs and tissues compared to those who never smoked.

On March 27, Nashville resident Bill Boyce, 73, earned the unwelcome distinction of becoming the first patient intubated on Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s dedicated COVID-19 unit.

There has been nothing normal about the COVID-19 pandemic, and grieving the loss of a life at a time when families have been unable to gather beside a bedside to say goodbye, or to even hold a traditional funeral, has been one of the worst consequences of this health crisis’s uncharted territory.