The Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is a medical provider with multiple hospitals in Nashville,Tennessee,as well as clinics and facilities throughout Middle Tennessee. VUMC is an independent non-profit organization,but maintains academic affiliations with Vanderbilt University. As of 2023,the health system had more than 3 million patient visits a year,a workforce of 40,000,and 1,741 licensed hospital beds.
The Duke University School of Medicine,commonly known as Duke Med,is the medical school of Duke University. It was established in 1925 by James B. Duke.
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) is the graduate medical school of Vanderbilt University,a private research university located in Nashville,Tennessee. The School of Medicine is primarily housed within the Eskind Biomedical Library which sits at the intersection of the Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) campuses and claims several Nobel laureates in the field of medicine. Through the Vanderbilt Health Affiliated Network,VUSM is affiliated with over 60 hospitals and 5,000 clinicians across Tennessee and five neighboring states which manage more than 2 million patient visits each year. As the home hospital of the medical school,VUMC is considered one of the largest academic medical centers in the United States and is the primary resource for specialty and primary care in hundreds of adult and pediatric specialties for patients throughout the Mid-South.
Brigid L. M. Hogan FRS is a British developmental biologist noted for her contributions to mammalian development,stem cell research and transgenic technology and techniques. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Cell Biology at Duke University,Born in the UK,she became an American citizen in 2000.
Jeffrey R. Balser is the president and CEO of Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM). Balser is a 1990 graduate of the Vanderbilt M.D./Ph.D. program in pharmacology and subsequently completed residency training in anesthesiology and fellowship training in critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins. He continued to work at Johns Hopkins as a cardiac anesthesiologist and ICU physician before returning to Vanderbilt University and joining VUMC in 1998. Balser was appointed dean of the VUSM in 2008 and,the following year,was appointed the vice chancellor for health affairs at Vanderbilt,in charge of the medical center. He became president and CEO of VUMC in 2016 when the medical center became a financially distinct non-profit organization.
Brett P. Giroir is an American pediatrician. He was formerly the U.S. assistant secretary for health,a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and an acting Food and Drug Administration commissioner.
David Charles is an American neurologist,professor and vice-chair of neurology,and the medical director of Telehealth at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
John Michael Katko is an American attorney and politician who served as the U.S. representative for New York's 24th congressional district,based in Syracuse,from 2015 to 2023. A member of the Republican Party,he previously was an Assistant United States Attorney who led the organized crime division at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Syracuse. In that role,he helped to prosecute gang members under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) is an anti-abortion organization founded by David Daleiden in 2013. The CMP is best known for producing undercover recordings that prompted a controversy over Planned Parenthood in 2015;CMP established a fake company to pose as buyers of fetal tissue and secretly recorded Planned Parenthood officials during meetings.
In 2015,an anti-abortion organization named the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released several videos that had been secretly recorded. Members of the CMP posed as representatives of a biotechnology company in order to gain access to both meetings with abortion providers and abortion facilities. The videos showed how abortion providers made fetal tissue available to researchers,although no problems were found with the legality of the process. All of the videos were found to be altered,according to analysis by Fusion GPS and its co-founder Glenn R. Simpson,a former investigative reporter for The Wall Street Journal. The CMP disputed this finding,attributing the alterations to the editing out of "bathroom breaks and waiting periods". CMP had represented a longer version of the tapes as being "complete",as well as a shorter,edited version. The analysis by Fusion GPS concluded that the longer version was also edited,with skips and missing footage. Nonetheless,the videos attracted widespread media coverage;after the release of the first video,conservative lawmakers in Congress singled out Planned Parenthood and began to push bills that would strip the organization of federal family planning funding. No such attempts by Congress to cut federal family planning money from Planned Parenthood have become law. Conservative politicians in several states have also used this as an opportunity to cut or attempt to cut family planning funding at the state level.
The United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce Select Investigative Panel on Planned Parenthood was a select subcommittee of the United States House of Representatives. Following the 2015 release of undercover videos filmed by The Center for Medical Progress,an anti-abortion group,purporting to show Planned Parenthood engaging in the sale of tissue from aborted fetuses,John Boehner,the Speaker of the House,announced in September 2015 that he was considering forming a select committee to investigate Planned Parenthood. The committee fell under the jurisdiction of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The House approved the committee on October 7,2015,by a party-line vote of 242–189,with all but one member of the Republican Party supporting the committee and only two members of the Democratic Party voting in favor of its creation.
Daniel Scavino Jr. is an American political adviser who served in the Trump administration as White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications from 2020 to 2021,and Director of Social Media from 2017 to 2021. Scavino previously was the general manager of Trump National Golf Club Westchester,and the director of social media for the Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign.
Fusion GPS is a commercial research and strategic intelligence firm based in Washington,D.C. The company conducts open-source investigations and provides research and strategic advice for businesses,law firms and investors,as well as for political inquiries,such as opposition research. The "GPS" initialism is derived from "Global research,Political analysis,Strategic insight".
The social policy of the Donald Trump administration was generally socially conservative. As of 2016,Donald Trump described himself as pro-life with exceptions for rape,incest,and circumstances endangering the life of the mother. He said he was committed to appointing justices who may overturn the ruling in Roe v. Wade. Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices during his presidency. All of them later went on to vote in the majority opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization,the Supreme Court case overturning Roe v. Wade and ending federal abortion rights nationwide.
Manish Kumar Sethi is an American physician and former political candidate. He is the president and founder of the non-profit Healthy Tennessee and an orthopedic trauma surgeon at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Sethi serves as the Director of the Vanderbilt Orthopedic Institute Center for Health Policy and is the lead author of the books An Introduction to Health Policy and Orthopedic Traumatology:An Evidence Based Approach.
Ricky Wayne Wright is an American orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist. He was the Jerome J. Gilden Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine before becoming the Dan Spengler,M.D.,Chair in Orthopaedics at Vanderbilt University. His tenure as chair has been overshadowed by a myriad of lawsuits relating to his professional conduct including,but not limited to:discrimination,retaliatory behavior,and bias relating to gender and sexual orientation.
Nancy J. Brown is an American physician-scientist. She is the Jean and David W. Wallace Dean and C.N.H. Long Professor of Internal Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine,having formerly served as the Hugh Jackson Morgan Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology,and Chair and Physician-in-Chief of the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Barney S. Graham is an American immunologist,virologist,and clinical trials physician.
Alissa Margaret Weaver is an American scientist. In 2017,she was promoted to the Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair of Cell and Developmental Biology and Pathology,Microbiology and Immunology at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
W. Kimryn Rathmell is an American physician-scientist whose work focuses on the research and treatment of patients with kidney cancers. She is the 17th Director of the National Cancer Institute,having previously served as the Hugh Jackson Morgan Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC),and Physician-in-Chief for Vanderbilt University Adult Hospital and Clinics in Nashville,Tennessee. On November 17,2023,Rathmell was nominated by President Biden as the next Director of the National Cancer Institute and she assumed office on December 18,2023.
