He served in many capacities in the department, including residency training director, medical director of the Psychiatric Hospital, division director, vice chair and interim chair.

Dr. Johnson was performing an autopsy in 1992 when his hand slipped and he sliced through his protective gloves. He cut his finger and infected himself with AIDS.

Alongside his clinical, teaching, administrative and research work, Dr. Heller was a person of many other interests.

Mr. Wills was noted for his substantial civic contributions to Nashville and his efforts to record and preserve the history of the city that five generations of the Wills family have called home.

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.

Dr. Jordan was "a Vanderbilt and a civil rights legend."

His contributions to clinical systems, infrastructure and education have had a lasting impact not only here at Vanderbilt but across the entire field of informatics.