Patient Spotlight

Healing over the holidays: A nurse’s guide to spending the holidays at the hospital

There’s no place like the hospital for the holidays. And we don’t mean that in a good way. But here are some ways to make it better.

Gracie was with her mom and grandmother on a road trip. A medical emergency brought the Angel 7 ambulance to her rescue.

Angel 7 is the first pediatric transport team in Tennessee to offer extracorporeal membrane oxygenation — ECMO — for its patients. It was the difference in life and death.

The couple was staying in the hospital with a sick child. When the staff heard it was their anniversary, they arranged a special dinner with candlelight and flowers.

Jim and Jill Somerville ended up with an anniversary to remember — and a commemorative plaque

Two miracles, four years apart

Kelly Harden’s life was saved by a lung transplant. Exactly four years later, she was saved again with a kidney transplant.

A year of teamwork restores patient’s arm after devastating accident

Hundreds of Vanderbilt Emergency Medicine, Trauma, Orthopaedic Surgery, Plastic Surgery and Occupational Therapy clinicians have played a role in saving and restoring the function of patient Dawn Reed’s right arm and hand after a utility terrain vehicle accident.

By Jill Clendening

September 1, 2023

Holding hands one more time: Compassion and collaboration allow couple to spend the most precious time together

Virginia and Tommy Stevens, both 91, have been married 69 years and this was the time they needed each other the most. Compassionate problem-solving by the Palliative Care Unit and the Trauma Intensive Care Unit teams brought the loving couple together one more time.