Last May, Ian Jones, M.D., associate professor of Emergency Medicine and executive medical director of Emergency Services at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, stopped in his tracks when news reports flashed about lava overflowing the crater lake at the summit of the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii.

Many doctors and nurses recall their first patient interaction — a rite of passage that occurs during medical or nursing school training. Now an innovative program is pushing the patient encounter for a few Vanderbilt University students into the undergraduate years.

New Instructor in Nursing Susanna Rudy brings to Vanderbilt a wealth of experience. She’s a board-certified nurse practitioner in emergency, family and adult-gerontology acute care who earned a master’s degree in forensic science before earning master of science in nursing and doctor of nursing practice degrees, the latter two from Vanderbilt.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) has received a five-year, $2 million award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish the Vanderbilt Emergency Care Research Training Program.

A new study finds that uninsured heart attack patients are more likely to be transferred.