VUMC mourns loss of noted cardiologist Dr. Gordon Sell
Drs. Sarah and C. Gordon Sell, last year. (Photo by Donna Jones Bailey)
Dr. C. Gordon R. Sell, a prominent Nashville cardiologist with close ties to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for more than 40 years, died last week at the age of 81.
Dr. Sell, clinical professor of Pediatrics, was a member of the VUMC faculty since 1954.
As one of the nation's leading infant cardiologists, Dr. Sell, formerly chief of pediatric cardiology, helped establish VUMC's clinical cardiac catheterization laboratory as well as laboratories at St. Thomas Hospital and the former Hubbard Hospital, now part of Meharry Medical College.
Born to English missionary parents, Dr. Sell was educated in Australia, India and England and received his medical degree from Cambridge University in 1941. He served with the British military in Southeast Asia during World War II and was a commanding officer in a field ambulance unit in the Indian Medial Service.
In 1948 Dr. Sell was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and moved to the United States to study pediatric cardiology at Johns Hopkins University. The Sell family moved to Middle Tennessee in 1954 when Dr. Sell arrived at VUMC to help establish the city's first clinical cardiac catheterization laboratory.
In addition to his wife, Dr. Sarah H. Sell, professor of Pediatrics, Emerita, Dr. Sell is survived by his sons, Charles Sell of Nashville and Dr. Clive Sell of Phoenix; brother, Noel Sell of Saffron Walden in Sussex, England; and four grandchildren.