Noel Tulipan, M.D., has left an indelible mark on many facets of life during his pioneering career at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt — from his impact on the field of neurosurgery and fetal surgery repair; to the children and families he cared for; to the residents he trained; to the operating room team he scrubbed in alongside; to his many friends and colleagues.

When Steffanie and Jon Sawyer were told their unborn son had a spinal birth defect called spina bifida, they decided to travel from their home in the Chicago area to Vanderbilt for fetal surgery.

Results of a landmark, seven-year National Institutes of Health-funded trial, Management of Myelomeningocele Study (MOMS), demonstrate clear benefit for babies who undergo fetal surgery to treat spina bifida, the most common birth defect in the central nervous system.