Department of Anesthesiology

Some members of the Critical Care Outreach Team at Vanderbilt University Hospital include, front row, left to right, Casey Ernfelt, ACNP, Lindsay Trantum, ACNP, Rebekah Pike, ACNP. Back row, left to right, Liza Weavind, MBBCh, Cody Bowers, AG-ACNP, Kipp Shipley, DNP, Megan Shifrin, DNP, ACNP-BC, and Christopher Hughes, MD. (photo by Donn Jones)
January 13, 2026

Critical Care Outreach Team’s rapid response interventions improve patient safety, prevent ICU transfers

Since January 2020, members of the VUH CCOT have responded to more than 10,000 rapid response calls in every non-ICU unit in the adult hospital.

An initiative at VUMC is helping patients recover more quickly from major surgery, leave the hospital earlier and have fewer side effects from their pain management. (photo by Joe Howell)
December 2, 2025

Ketamine fails surgical recovery trial

In a large, placebo-controlled, randomized trial, the pain reliever ketamine posed side effects while failing to aid patient recovery after major surgery.

(AdobeStock)
September 16, 2025

Forgotten opioid has resurfaced as lethal street drug

Originally developed in the 1950s but never approved for clinical use, these substances are over 20 times more potent than fentanyl and hundreds to thousands of times more potent than morphine.

Michael Topf, MD, wears a model of a new head-mounted augmented reality system that can guide surgeons during operations to excise head and neck cancer.
August 26, 2025

Grant supports development of head-mounted augmented reality system to guide tumor resection 

The technology will allow surgeons to rely less on a fallible mental construction of the resection plane, thereby reducing the risk of human error affecting the procedure. 

Amanda Toye, MD
April 7, 2025

Amanda Toye named division chief of Pain Medicine in the Department of Anesthesiology

Toye plans to expand community outreach programs to educate patients and health care providers about pain management options.

Nicole Werner, PhD
March 27, 2025

Nicole Werner named director of the Center for Research and Innovation in Systems Safety

CRISS uses a wide range of human factors and systems engineering, cognitive psychology, biomedical informatics and implementation science techniques to study performance during patient care.