U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt has appointed Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Director Pat Levitt to the National Advisory Mental Health Council.

Michelle Grant, a poison specialist at the Tennessee Poison Control Center, said many poisonings occur when there is a distraction in the home, and there are plenty of those during the holidays, when decorating, cooking and giving gifts are abundant.

Equity Music Group's Little Big Town is coming to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt joining the annual visit by members of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc. (known for the Grammy awards).

Vanderbilt University's Kevin Niswender, M.D., Ph.D., has been named one of three 2006 Charles E. Culpeper Medical scholars, according to Goldman Philanthropic Partnerships.

Daniel Masys, M.D., professor and chair of Vanderbilt's Department of Biomedical Informatics, is the new president-elect of the American College of Medical Informatics.

Michael R. Petracek, M.D., a cardiothoracic surgeon currently practicing with Cardiovascular Surgery Associates and the Saint Thomas Heart Institute, and one of Nashville's leading heart surgeons for over 20 years, is leaving Saint Thomas Hospital to join the faculty of Vanderbilt University Medical Center as a full-time clinical professor of Surgery in the Department of Cardiac Surgery.