When Debby Booth started college in the early 1970s, she didn’t want to be a nurse. That was something her older sister did.

Galen Perdikis, M.D., professor and chair of the Division of Plastic Surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, has been named professor and chair of Vanderbilt’s Department of Plastic Surgery. His appointment is effective Aug. 1.

Plastic surgeons at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) have published a prospective study that proves there are specific risk factors — such as obesity, smoking and diabetes — that contribute to development of a major surgical site infection following cosmetic surgery.

Routine use of hydroxocobalamin should be considered for victims of smoke inhalation, Vanderbilt researchers suggest.

Vanderbilt researchers have shown that an injectable material improves wound healing and may be useful for large skin wounds such as those in patients with diabetes.

When Kelly Davis woke up one morning in April, she told her husband Anthony that she dreamed her face was moving; then she looked in the mirror and saw that it really was.

Surgeons have limited tools to successfully repair and track the recovery of peripheral nerves that have been severely damaged as a result of a traumatic injury, but Vanderbilt investigators hope to change this through research studies recently funded with more than $3 million in grants from the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health.