A delegation from the Samsung Child Education and Culture Center and Samsung Welfare Foundation of Korea visited the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center recently to observe early childhood education programs. Their visit included a tour of the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt and its Junior League Family Resource Center. They are shown here visiting a preschool classroom in the Susan Gray School. Left to right are Aeyeol Yoo, M.D., Foundation vice president and center director, Gichan Choi, general manager, and Jungyoon Choi, manager of the Division of Child Studies.
photo by Melanie Bridges
The past year has been a bittersweet one, as Vanderbilt University Medical Center said goodbye to several distinguished colleagues. The following is a brief look at the people who died in 2004.
Roscoe R. “Ike” Robinson, M.D., an internationally recognized physician and educator who led Vanderbilt University Medical Center through a period of tremendous growth and change during the 1980s and 1990s, died Aug. 7. He was 74.
Dr. Robinson, professor of Medicine and vice chancellor for Health Affairs, Emeritus, served from 1981 until 1997 as the chief executive and academic officer for all of Vanderbilt's programs in health, including those of the Schools of Medicine and Nursing, the Vanderbilt Medical Group, Vanderbilt University Hospital, Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, the Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital, the Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital, and Vanderbilt Health Services.
Dr. Robinson died after suffering from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable, progressive lung disease, since 1998.
John E. Chapman, M.D., the former, longtime dean of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine who conferred degrees on two-thirds of the school's graduates, died Oct. 13, of complications from Parkinson's Disease. He was 73.
Dr. Chapman, known as a caring, scholarly, hardworking dean who treated individual students individually, led VUSM for a quarter of a century, stepping down in 2001 to assume a new role, associate vice chancellor for Medical Alumni Affairs.
While dean of the medical school, he conferred degrees on more than 3,000 Vanderbilt medical students, and, during his period as dean, grew the faculty by 789 faculty members. Dr. Chapman was part of the appointment process for every department chair appointed during his tenure, and oversaw the initiatives that led to the medical school being consistently ranked number one in the nation in terms of student satisfaction.
O. Randolph Batson, M.D., who was dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and vice chancellor for medical affairs in the 1960s and early 1970s, died Dec. 6. He was 88.
Above all, Dr. Batson was a pediatrician, and it was during his time as dean and vice chancellor that Vanderbilt Children's Hospital was founded in 1970. He also oversaw several building expansions at the Medical Center, and gave research a renewed emphasis. It was while Dr. Batson was vice chancellor that Earl Sutherland, M.D., won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, Vanderbilt's first Nobel Laureate.
Andrea Williams Carroll, remembered by her Vanderbilt friends and colleagues for her warmth, humor and hard work died at home on Jan. 11.
A native of Dallas, Texas, Mrs. Carroll created the Special Events office when she came to Vanderbilt in 1975. As director, she coordinated events ranging from the medical center's annual holiday turkey toss, where employees receive a free turkey, to alumni trips in cities throughout the United States, the medical school's biennial reunion and elaborate dinners for hundreds, held both on and off campus.
Mrs. Carroll, 54, known for her upbeat personality and joyful sense of humor, was a caring person who worked with the richest citizens of Nashville, but knew no class boundaries. She was motherly to younger staff who worked with her, sent flowers to a friend each year on the anniversary of her husband's death, and had a knack for the finishing touches on the events she planned.
Jamie Brodie, M.S.N., R.N., assistant professor of Nursing and director of the Correctional Health Program and the newly created Forensic Nursing Program at the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, died Nov. 15, in Tucson, Ariz., of complications from pneumonia. He was 52.
Vanderbilt colleagues remembered Philip Juan Browning, M.D., as a man of science, a man of faith, and a man who always pushed himself and others to make the world a better place. Dr. Browning, an internationally known physician-scientist in the area of virus-related cancers, died June 22 at his Brentwood home after a lengthy battle with colon cancer. He was 51. A graduate of Fisk University and Tufts University School of Medicine, Dr. Browning was associate professor of Medicine (Hematology-Oncology), Cancer Biology and Cell & Developmental Biology.
Robert N. “Buck” Buchanan Jr., M.D., clinical professor of Dermatology, Emeritus, died July 7 at Richland Place Health Center in Nashville. He was 93. Dr. Buchanan, born in Hendersonville, the son of a country doctor, graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1931 and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1934.
Tetsuro Kono, Ph.D., professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Emeritus, died Jan. 18 from pancreatic cancer. He was 78. Kono first came to Vanderbilt University as a postdoctoral fellow in 1960 and joined the faculty as assistant professor of Physiology in 1963. His research over the next 30 years focused on insulin action, laying important groundwork for what goes awry in diabetes and obesity.
Vernon H. Reynolds, M.D., professor of Surgery, Emeritus, died May 8 at the age of 77. Dr. Reynolds spent the majority of his life on the Vanderbilt campus, from his first year of college in 1944 to seeing patients just last week. Throughout his distinguished career, he was a pioneer in the field of surgical oncology.
Ingeborg Mauksch, Ph.D., Vanderbilt School of Nursing's first endowed chair, and the first endowed chair in nursing in the United States, died June 20 in Fort Collins, Colo. She was 82. Mauksch spent more than 50 years of service in nursing. She was instrumental in developing the role of the Family Nurse Practitioner, promoting Hospice Care, emphasizing team work in health care design and bringing attention to the value of patient and family decision making in health care.