The total amount raised for ovarian cancer research and patient support by the annual Chic Awearness fashion show is expected to surpass $1 million with the 2024 gala, scheduled for 6 p.m., Sept. 20, atW Nashville, 300 12th Ave. South, Nashville, Tennessee. This year will mark the event’s 11th anniversary. Visit chicawearness.org to learn more […]
Eighty-year-old Lois Taylor is getting a big kick out of telling everyone she knows that she’s a celebrity. And she’s not wrong. Lois is the first person at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) to undergo a fully robot-assisted, minimally invasive colon and liver resection to remove cancer performed by two surgeons under a single anesthesia. […]
Johnny Cleveland thought he was having a heart attack when he went to a community hospital, but medical imaging revealed something suspicious with his pancreas. The retired educator from Red Bay, Alabama, then went to Birmingham for more testing where he was diagnosed with an intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm — a cyst in the duct […]
The parallel paths that surgeons Kamran Idrees and Aimal Khan took to combine their skills in an operating room in Nashville, Tennessee, took several decades and more than 7,000 miles. Khan, MD, assistant professor of Surgery, remembers his first visit to Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) in 2020 when he was being interviewed as a […]
It’s a quiet March day on the hematology/oncology floor at Vanderbilt University Hospital (VUH), and the calming sounds from an acoustic guitar are trickling out of Kayla Kidney’s room. Inside the room, Kidney, a Nashville, Tennessee, nurse who was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in February, sat cross-legged on her hospital bed. Tori Langham, […]
The children of E. Bronson Ingram II and Martha Rivers Ingram have continued their legacy of giving with the establishment of the Ingram Cancer Innovation Fund. This gift will propel treatment improvements for gastrointestinal oncology and sustain Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center’s internationally respected leadership in cancers of the digestive system. The fund will also support research […]
Gail Kraemer did what she wanted, how she wanted, when she wanted to do it. In her early years, she traveled through Africa and Mongolia big game hunting. Later in life, she got her pilot’s license and became an avid golfer. Whether she was jet skiing around Tellico Lake or hosting a dinner party, Kraemer […]
Leslie Sheffield’s life changed on her lunch break. The primary care nurse practitioner had a CT scan in the middle of her shift, thinking she had a kidney stone or urinary tract infection. It turned out to be a “very large” tumor on her bladder. “I automatically started researching and trying to figure out how […]
“However small the chance might be of striking luck; the chance is there. The chance has to be there.” – Roald Dahl, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” Stage 4 cancer monopolized three years of my life in my mid-20s. There is a platitude that likens the process of the diagnosis, treatment and survivorship of cancer […]
In this issue of Momentum, we highlight people who give hope, inspire innovation and improve cancer care. They are the force behind the scientific advancements, breakthrough therapies and treatment protocols at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center that help our patients achieve longer and better lives. Our cover story is about the resilience of an 80-year-old woman who underwent […]
