News: Departments

“When it’s you, it’s a whole different feeling,” Orrin Ingram said, gazing at logs burning in the fireplace. A black Labrador puppy slept near his feet. Outside the window of his farmhouse, the remnants of a January snow slowly melted. “I never really thought that at 57 years old that I would be diagnosed with […]

  On the third Monday of each month, a large conference room at Vanderbilt Health One Hundred Oaks whirs with activity and is all business — the business of sewing. Shortly before 10 a.m., a small army of women quietly enters the sliding doors of the Nashville healthcare complex, toting and wheeling the tools of […]

  The phrase “lightning never strikes twice” means little to Thomas Brewer of Charlotte, Tennessee, because for him, it did — once in 2000 and again in 2017. The “lightning” in Brewer’s case was cancer — first, esophageal; then, colon. For some, developing a secondary cancer — not a spread or recurrence of a first […]

  When James Goldenring, MD, PhD, talks about the landscape of the stomach, he sounds a bit like a real estate agent: this is a desirable neighborhood, this one is a bit sketchy, and by all means, steer clear of this area. In the case of the stomach, these “neighborhoods” are collections of different types […]

  Claudia Barajas knows health disparities in the Hispanic/Latino and African-American communities will not be resolved simply by having patients come to Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC). To address those disparities, she must go to them. Barajas is a community health educator who leads the Healthy Communities Program, offering culturally appropriate cancer prevention education and information […]

  Instead of undergoing more than a month of radiation therapy for prostate cancer, Phillip Perry finished his treatments in just five days. “The process was quick and I was able to carry on with my normal activities each day,” said Perry, a 53-year-old flight attendant from Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, who enjoys travel photography. He […]

  Hi, my name is Katie. I have a brain tumor — please don’t be shocked. It sounds worse than it is. Or maybe it really is as bad as it sounds. It is hard to tell people you have a brain tumor. Sometimes they get a glazed look on their faces. I get it. […]

Advanced imaging tools reveal architecture of cell division machinery For years, Kathleen Gould, PhD, and her colleagues have drawn models of the contractile ring — the molecular apparatus that physically divides cells — and its parts. They used genetic studies to probe how the protein parts fit together, but their models involved some educated guesses. […]

Novel anti-cancer drug resistance mechanism identified Vanderbilt investigators have discovered a novel nongenetic cause of resistance to cetuximab, a mainstay of treatment for advanced colorectal cancer. The findings of Robert Coffey Jr., MD, and colleagues, published Oct. 16, 2017, in Nature Medicine, suggest a strategy for overcoming this resistance, which their research indicates is due […]

  Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) has 343 full-time equivalent nursing and ancillary positions, and one administrator responsible for their work. She is Anna Rodriguez, MSN, MHA. “What I really like about the leadership role is problem-solving, taking complex issues and developing solutions with the team,” said Rodriguez, who became associate nursing officer of VICC in […]