This fall marks a profound moment of reflection as we celebrate the centennial of graduate medical education at Vanderbilt. That iconic photograph from September 1925 — two rows of determined residents in white coats standing outside our original hospital — captures more than just a moment in time. It represents the beginning of a legacy that continues to shape health care not just in Nashville, but around the world.
A century ago, those first dozen house staff lived within the hospital walls, ready to race to patient wards at all hours. Today, our graduate medical education program has grown to more than 1,200 residents and fellows across 170 highly competitive programs. But what strikes me most is how the core values of our training programs have remained unchanged — while everything around them has transformed.
This place. Our place. It’s always been a brilliant, creative community where we achieve excellence without sharp elbows. We see our warm, welcoming environment not as a weakness, but as an abiding strength — a distinctive, mutually supportive culture that’s been deliberately cultivated and handed down through generations for over a century.
The residents who walked those halls in 1925 faced their own set of unprecedented challenges. Today’s trainees navigate a world of genomic medicine, artificial intelligence and volumes of information from myriad sources those early pioneers couldn’t have imagined. Yet the core principles remain constant: the commitment to care that keeps the patient’s needs at the center, a relentless passion to find the cures that change lives, and training that develops compassionate healers who will lead medicine into the future.
Our alumni understand this continuity amid change. You’ve lived it. Whether you trained here decades ago when residents truly lived in the hospital or graduated last spring into a health care system still recovering from a global pandemic, we’ve all learned fundamental lessons — and among them, how leaning into uncertainty creates remarkable opportunities.
Today’s challenges are formidable. Yet I remain hopeful because of what I see in our current trainees and what I know about our graduates like you. As we look toward the next century of medical education, Vanderbilt training — past, present and future — propels us to meet whatever challenges await. The foundation laid a century ago continues to guide us — and always will.
Jeff Balser, MD, PhD
President and CEO, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Dean, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine