Reporter

Vanderbilt researchers have published findings indicating that regardless of whether a woman delivers a child by cesarean section or by vaginal birth, if they fill prescriptions for opioid pain medications early in the postpartum period, they are at increased risk of developing persistent opioid use.

Vanderbilt LifeFlight is part of an elite group of air ambulance services across the country that offer emergency transport of critically ill patients who are on Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), and it is the first helicopter program in Tennessee to offer this highly skilled, specialized transport.

Children and young adults without psychosis who are prescribed high-dose antipsychotic medications are at increased risk of unexpected death, despite the availability of other medications to treat their conditions, according to a Vanderbilt University Medical Center study published today in JAMA Psychiatry. Unexpected death includes deaths due to unintentional drug overdose or cardiovascular/metabolic causes.

Country music star Tim McGraw has teamed up with Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt to promote the hospital’s Give to the Next Breath initiative, a philanthropic marketing effort to support the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt Advisory Board member Kailey Hand and her daughter, Harper, recently brought the joy of the holidays to Children’s Hospital by generously hosting the annual gingerbread house event for patients and families.

The VUMC shuttle service Purple Route, which serves buildings along the West End Avenue corridor near campus, will convert to two routes beginning Dec. 31.

Signs have been posted around the Medical Center plaza noting that the area, which is designed for pedestrians passing between VUMC buildings, is a no-vehicle zone.