The start of a new year is a good time to reflect upon what anchors us in life and work. As we continue to “grow to new heights,” we are reminded of our mission at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt to serve all children, and their families, through the delivery of specialized medical and surgical programs. It is a true privilege to participate in the development and growth of multidisciplinary services that improve the health and well-being of children and adolescents in our immediate community, but also regionally and across the state. Wrapped around and supporting the delivery of excellent clinical care is our commitment to discovery research and teaching the next generation of pediatric providers.

The cornerstone of building specialized programs for children and adolescents is the ability to collaborate, within the greater Vanderbilt medical community but also beyond our campus to meet the needs of families in a more convenient way.

Through the telling of heartwarming stories, you will learn about some of the partnerships that illustrate how we meet the needs of children and their families through our innovative services — some within our hospitals and clinics and some using new technologies that extend far beyond our walls.

One example is our Brachial Plexus Clinic, which brings together specialty-trained pediatric surgeons and occupational therapists to create a personalized approach of care to restore arm movement to children of all ages.

Another example is the combining of expertise of the pediatric intensive care unit in partnership with our regional comprehensive burn center physicians, nurses and therapists to enable not only the physical but equally important emotional healing of children and families impacted by burns.

Children and adolescents with conditions that affect development, like autism, benefit from the efforts of specialty-trained pediatricians in collaboration with researchers at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center. Through the use of telemedicine, diagnosis and treatment plans can be personalized to care for children of all ages remotely and in partnership with schools and other community-based resources.

We also don’t want to leave out the importance of music as therapy. Our patients love to sing and we provide lots of opportunity for them within the hospital and outside — sometimes with their own caregivers.

The key to great collaborative endeavors is the foundation of relationships between many services but also community partners who generously support our mission of being a place of hope and healing. We begin this new year of further growth and innovation with gratitude for our compassionate staff, our committed faculty, our community and of course our patients and families who come to us with both routine and very complex needs.

 

Sincerely,

Luke Gregory, FACHE
Chief Executive Officer

Meg Rush, MD, MMHC
Chief of Staff and Executive Medical Director

John W. Brock III, MD
Senior Vice President of Pediatric Surgical Services, Monroe Carell Jr. Professor and Surgeon-in-Chief

Steven Webber, MBChB, MRCP
Pediatrician-in-Chief, Chair of the Department of Pediatrics and James C. Overall Professor