The Beads of Courage Program provides innovative arts-in-medicine programs for children coping with serious illness, their families, and the clinicians who care for them.

Schlisner, who is based at Vanderbilt Health One Hundred Oaks, grew up in a family that valued physical fitness and playing sports, and he says, with considerable understatement, “The whole family is quite athletic.”

In addition to the Gold Performance Achievement Award given to Vanderbilt University Hospital, Vanderbilt Tullahoma-Harton Hospital earned a Silver Performance Achievement Award.

Access to the new center’s services are limited to existing adult Vanderbilt Health patients referred by Vanderbilt Health clinicians. The center will not accept walk-up patients or referrals from providers outside the Vanderbilt Health system.

Michelle Gontko, BSN, RN, works in the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care unit at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. She is one of the latest Vanderbilt Health DAISY Award winners.

Katie Leavy, RN, works in the Labor and Delivery unit at Vanderbilt University Hospital. She is one of the latest Vanderbilt Health DAISY Award winners.

Six medically important tick species live in the state, and many Tennesseans encounter ticks in their own yard or neighborhood. Perhaps attributable to changing weather patterns and rising temperatures, Vanderbilt Health’s Emergency Medicine physicians around the region began treating patients with tick bites in March this year.