Department of Surgery

PHOTO 3: Col. Matthew Kuhnle, DO, an ophthalmologic surgeon from Blanchfield Army Community Hospital, on left, reviews a lateral canthotomy, a surgical procedure for managing ocular trauma, during the recent ASSET+ course at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Vanderbilt Health hosts intensive trauma course for military medical personnel

The course provides training for military medical personnel working in deployed environments, military treatment facilities, and Level 1 trauma treatment facilities.

Rare pancreas diagnosis, rare treatment: Surgeons perform robotic Whipple procedure for pediatric patient

The milestone surgery resulted from collaboration and exemplifies a generational shift taking place in pediatric surgery.

Vanderbilt University Hospital reverified as Level 1 adult trauma center

Trauma patients come to VUH from a region covering 80,000 square miles, and approximately 9,400 acute trauma patients are treated at the hospital annually.

Kidney transplant leader Robert Richie is mourned

He helped build one of the leading kidney transplant programs in the country, both in terms of the number of transplants performed annually, and in long-term organ function and patient survival rates.

By Wayne Wood and Bill Snyder

An AI-driven rendering and analysis of a holotomography-based 3D reconstruction of a tumor tissue sample derived from a spatial molecular experimental platform. Cancer cells (blue), stromal cells (green), and immune cells (red) are highlighted, while the extracellular matrix (ECM) appears in translucent green with a green arrow indicating its orientation. By integrating spatial molecular measurements, this approach offers single-cell and subcellular functional characterization, providing key insights into cellular interactions and communication in a three-dimensional context to deepen our understanding of the tissue’s architecture and composition.

January 16, 2025

VUMC to launch Molecular AI initiative to spur precision medicine, transplantation

The leader of the new initiative, Tae Hyun Hwang, PhD, will work to apply AI and other revolutionary technologies, including advanced molecular imaging techniques, to clinical practice.

By Bill Snyder

Reginald Porter, here with his wife, Tina, was the first at Vanderbilt to receive a combined liver transplant and Whipple procedure.

January 10, 2025

Novel procedure involves liver transplant, major abdominal surgery

Reginald Porter of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, received the procedure in September after being diagnosed at an area hospital in February with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer that develops in the bile ducts.