Vanderbilt University Hospital celebrates 25 years of service
From left, Harry Jacobson, M.D., Andy Byrd and Norman Urmy cut the cake at Tuesday’s party celebrating VUH’s 25th anniversary.
photo by Dana Johnson
Cutting the ribbon to open VUH in 1980 were, from left, VUSM dean John Chapman, M.D.; Bill Kreykes, hospital director; VU Chancellor Harvie Branscomb; VU president Emmet Fields; and VU Vice President Vernon Wilson.
In July 1978, the foundation for what would become VUH takes shape.
Vanderbilt University Hospital opened in September 1980 with the cutting of ribbons, the making of speeches and the expression of pride and hope.
The ribbons are long gone and even the people who made the speeches might have trouble remembering what was said, but the pride and hope in the facility and its role in both the University and the region has remained.
The forethought that went into the design of the Vanderbilt University Hospital that opened 25 years ago is evident in the vastly changed VUH that exists today, because the constant renewal that is necessary to keep a facility up to date was built into the hospital's design.
“A hospital is basically obsolete by the time it is completed because there is so much new equipment that constantly needs to be installed and old equipment that needs to be replaced,” Parviz Zargarpoor, one of the architects of VUH, said in 1980. “This requires that a hospital be designed in a way that is absolutely flexible, so that the new equipment can be received without tearing the whole hospital apart.”
That combination of realism and optimism expressed by Zargarpoor is confirmed by Fred DeWeese, current vice president of Facilities Planning and Development.
“The neat thing about this hospital is it has some structural capabilities that bode well for the future,” DeWeese said. The recent renewal of the fifth floor of VUH after Children's Hospital moved to its own facility last year is a case in point, DeWeese said.
“We were able to do that because the structure of the building gave us the ability.”
On Sept. 12, 1980, patients were moved from the “old” hospital building — now called Medical Center North — into the new $65 million facility under the glare of TV lights and the smiles of employees. Members of the press were plied with gee-whiz facts such as, “In VUH there are 9,000 light switches, 14,000 electrical outlets, 2,000 public-address speakers, and 30,000 fluorescent lights.”
Over the weekend, there was even an employee singalong, complete with a song sheet, featuring an especially written parody of the Carpenters' “We've Only Just Begun,” which started out: “We've only just begun to grow/Twelve stories standing tall/A million bricks and we're proud of it all…”
On Monday, Sept. 15, the official dedication took place, with speeches and remarks from Sam Fleming, then chairman of the Board of Trust; Nashville Mayor Richard Fulton; and Nathan Stark, undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The dedication was witnessed by a large crowd, including William Kreykes, executive director of VUH, and Emmet Fields, president of the University, and was presided over by Chancellor Alexander Heard. The official welcome was issued by the one man who, more than any other, had brought the new hospital from notion to reality: Vernon E. Wilson, M.D., the truck-driver-turned-physician who, as vice chancellor over the Medical Center in the 1970s, had refused to settle for anything other than a new Vanderbilt Hospital, and led the Medical Center through some turbulent times.
“Vernon Wilson…came to Vanderbilt to build a new hospital, come hell or high water,” remembers Jane Tugurian, who has been executive assistant to three vice chancellors at the Medical Center and who had a front row seat for the events of the time. “He did build that hospital, and — you could ask anyone who was around then — there was a lot of hell and high water.”
Over its 25 years VUH has been repurposed, reinvented, and renewed time and time again.
It has seen, among many changes:
• LifeFlight's helipad located first on a hill outside the Emergency Department, then on the roof of the ED before being relocated to the tower roof with a complete crew quarters and offices
• The opening of the Trauma Unit, the Neurological Intensive Care Unit, and the Hybrid OR
• The renewal of Radiology and the ORs with new equipment many times over as two-and-a-half decades of technological improvements have been incorporated into practice
• Two complete renovations of the ED, including the expansion completed earlier this year
• Most dramatically, the complete relocation of Children's Hospital.
When VUH opened in 1980, all of the fifth floor and part of the fourth and sixth floors were made up of Vanderbilt Children's Hospital — which moved to the free-standing Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt in 2003. Those previous children's areas have been renewed for adult patients, with a fifth floor that can serve as a prototype for the future VUH.
“This hospital has a good framework and it will go well into the future,” DeWeese said.