Griffin Rodgers, MD, director of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), was a special guest during the 10th annual NIDDK Medical Student Research Symposium held earlier this month on the Vanderbilt University campus.

As the 96 members of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine’s first-year class took their seats at the front of 208 Light Hall, Bonnie Miller, MD, MMHC, welcomed them and their family members to the school’s annual Convocation and White Coat Ceremony.

Student-run free health clinics, a hallmark of most medical schools across the country, not only provide valuable clinical experience for the students who volunteer there, but may actually reduce hospital utilization by the patients in their care, according to a Vanderbilt study recently published in the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.

The 2018 Shade Tree Trot, which took place April 21, was a great success, raising $98,000, in combination with funds from the Benefit Dinner and Silent Auction, to support the medical student-run Shade Tree Clinic, which provides care to the underserved population of Nashville.

Fourth-year medical students Katie DesPrez and Joe Wick met at orientation during their first year at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

The Vanderbilt University School of Medicine student-run Shade Tree Clinic was founded in 2004 as a means to provide primary care to Nashville’s uninsured population and to allow medical and nursing students to receive valuable hands-on training while providing healthcare to those in need.

Aspiring medical students Lauren Holroyd and Julian Genkins took a break from academics after earning their undergraduate degrees and went to work for the health care software company Epic, based in Verona, Wisconsin. Although they did not know each other at the time, they would both end up at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) where they would put their Epic expertise to work.