More than 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for an organ transplant, and about 13 people die each day waiting.

Hanlon, who joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 2016, succeeds Mary Margaret “Meg” Chren, MD, the department’s inaugural chair.

Being one of the nation’s largest academic medical systems provides a structural advantage. VUMC invests heavily in its own infrastructure for research and training.

He guided a packed audience through a century of history at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

The new chair celebrated the department’s achievements and growth for the past year and set a vision for the future.

Faced with great challenge and uncertainty, those who make up the department’s faculty have remained true to their mission and completed “outstanding, lifesaving work,” she said.

Through cost savings initiatives that began earlier this year, the Medical Center is positioning itself to thrive despite reductions in research funding from the NIH and changes impacting reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid.