Reporter Aug 23 2013

Neal Patel, M.D., MPH, has been named chief medical informatics officer for the Vanderbilt University Health System. Patel, professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, has served as the inpatient chief medical information officer since 2006.

Nora Volkow, M.D., director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, will begin the 2013-2014 Flexner Discovery Lecture Series next Thursday, Aug. 29, with a discussion of “Advances in Addiction Science.”

Robert and Michele McClellan expected the experience of their infant son’s birth via cesarean section to be like that of other women who had had the procedure — unable to witness their son’s exit from the womb and for him to be immediately whisked away.

Gautam Bhave, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of Medicine, is receiving the Burroughs Wellcome Fund 2013 Career Award for Medical Scientists (CAMS) for his research on the role of peridoxasin and protein halogenation in diabetic nephropathy.

Utpal Davé, M.D., and Sandra Zinkel, M.D., Ph.D., have each received one-year, $100,000 “bridge grants” from the American Society of Hematology (ASH) to support research that has not been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) due to budget cuts.

A telemedicine initiative in Vanderbilt’s Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences is working to make follow-up hearing tests for newborns more accessible in rural areas of Tennessee, while teaching young pediatric audiology and pediatric speech language pathology students to treat patients remotely.

Stephanie Duke, LPN, is quick and focused when she moves from patient to patient at the Vanderbilt Hillsboro Medical Group clinic. She says there is plenty going on here to keep her interest.