Jessica Pasley

In 2011, doctors at the Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute performed the state’s first transcatheter valve-replacement (TAVR) procedure for high-risk patients suffering from aortic stenosis, the most common valvular heart disease in the United States.

As Tennessee’s opioid epidemic escalates and the prevalence of opiate dependency in pregnancy continues to require additional resources, Vanderbilt will open another Drug Dependency Clinic at the Vanderbilt Center for Women’s Health at NorthCrest Medical Center in Springfield, Tennessee.

When Mount Juliet resident Andrea Pierson signed up as an altruistic kidney donor a year ago, she could not have imagined her gift would result in the donation of seven life-saving kidney transplants.

On Aug. 4, 2014, Mary Thomas of Tullahoma biked 10 miles. Fourteen days later she received a life-saving heart transplant at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC).

The Vanderbilt Transplant Center, one of the largest organ transplant programs in the Southeast, has not only surpassed the projected number of transplants it expected to perform for fiscal year (FY) 2016, but also experienced an increase in the total number of transplants performed over the previous year.

Turning tragedy into triumph is something Khris Downing is learning to do. He’s getting a lot of practice, as he is alive today because of a life-saving organ donation from his older sister, Geraldine Williams, who died on July 26.