Completion is nearing for one of the key phases of the restoration of the Medical Center plaza behind Vanderbilt University Hospital (VUH), at the south end near the Courtyard Café.

Executive Chief Nursing Officer Marilyn Dubree, MSN, R.N., delivered the 2015 State of Nursing Address to a full audience in Light Hall on May 14 as a part of Nurses Week, an annual occasion to celebrate nurses. It was a time to assess where Vanderbilt Nursing is today, and where it’s going.

The Vanderbilt-based Mid-South Clinical Data Research Network (CDRN) is among seven CDRNs that will collaboratively mount a three-year, $14 million randomized clinical trial to determine the best daily dose of aspirin for preventing heart attacks and strokes among people living with heart disease.

Bonnie Miller, M.D., senior associate dean for Health Affairs at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, offered some sound advice to the class of 2015 during last week’s commencement ceremony.

Linda Norman, DSN, R.N., Valere Potter Menefee Professor of Nursing and dean of Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, told graduates during Vanderbilt’s Commencement and Investiture ceremonies last week that “nursing today is as influential as when Florence Nightingale defined and organized nursing in the United Kingdom in the 1800s. We are one of the most essential elements in health care delivery today and are being recognized for it.”

“It takes a village to raise a scientist.” That’s how Shenika Poindexter describes Vanderbilt University’s approach to graduate training in the biomedical sciences.

Valerie Malyvanh Jansen, M.D., Ph.D., a third-year medical oncology fellow, recently received several national awards and grants, as well as a Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center fellowship, in recognition of her translational cancer research.