Singer Kelly Clarkson, center, surprised patients and families at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt during the holidays, with a special performance and room-to-room visits.

For the third straight time, Vanderbilt’s heart and lung life-support program has received the ELSO Award for Excellence in Life Support by the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO).

Joseph Schlesinger, M.D., a clinical fellow in the Division of Anesthesiology Critical Care Medicine, received third place in the clinical medicine poster category at the recent American Medical Association Research Symposium.

Clinical pharmacologist Jens Titze, M.D., and colleagues have discovered that – in contrast to the prevailing dogma – human sodium levels fluctuate rhythmically with 7-day and monthly cycles.

According to a medical literature review published last month in the Annals of Internal Medicine, approximately 50 percent of medications for chronic disease are not taken as prescribed.

Patients with pancreatic diseases can now access a team of multi-disciplinary specialists with one phone call to the new Vanderbilt Pancreas Center.

On Monday, Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute became the first heart program in Tennessee to implant the HeartWare ventricular assist system (VAS) as a bridge to transplantation.