On June 30, John Tarpley, M.D., retired after 23 years of service at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and the Nashville VA Medical Center. The next day, he packed a suitcase, and on July 2 he boarded a Kenya-bound plane, a move that was absolutely no surprise to all who know him.

John and Valerie Longoria breathed a sigh of relief when the team lead by John C. Pope IV, M.D., professor of Urologic Surgery and Pediatrics, told them a minor procedure on their 8-month-old son Maverick had been successful, and they could soon take their son home to Oak Grove, Kentucky. But then, things quickly changed.

Bruce Shack, M.D., has announced plans to step down, effective July 1, as chair of the Department of Plastic Surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), and he will remain on the faculty as a professor of Plastic Surgery.

When the Mullis family straps on their helmets on June 11 to ride in the local Tour de Cure, one of a series of cycling events held nationally to benefit the American Diabetes Association (ADA), they will remember a day seven years ago that motivated their annual participation in the event.

When former Nashvillian Carol O’Hare speaks about a specific group of physicians at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC), her voice softens, and she refers to them affectionately as “my fellows.”

The most recent Credo Award and Five Pillar Leader Award winners were announced at this week’s Clinical Enterprise Leadership Assembly at Langford Auditorium.