News and Updates

Dr. Muñoz and colleague James M. Dale have published a book about Dr. Muñoz's time as a young cardiologist with the Cardiovascular Disease Training Fellowship at Johns Hopkins. The book was recently reviewed on Baltimore Magazine. 


 
 February is heart month! 
 
 Vanderbilt Heart is participating in the following special events to celebrate National Heart Month. 

Yale School of Medicine announced the launch of the Yale Center for Health & Learning Games. This center is dedicated to the research and development of games aimed at teaching health behaviors to youth. Yale's play2PREVENT Lab, a V-CREATE collaborator, will be a part of the new center. Dr. Lynn Fiellin is the director of play2PREVENT and Dr. Kimberly Hieftje serves as the deputy director. V-CREATE and the ViTAL Center at Vanderbilt have teamed with Dr.

The American Heart Association will host their annual Scientific Sessions this month in Orlando, Florida. Members of our team will be there to present.

Dr. Wang, the director of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine which houses V-CREATE, recently made the "highly cited" list for "exceptional impact." Thomson Reuters ranked 3,125 scientists whose papers ranked among the top 1% most cited for their subject and year of publication. Five Vanderbilt University Medical Center faculty members were on the list, including Dr. Wang.

A recent study was published in Circulation by Dr. Freiberg's team that highlights the role of HIV and depression in cardiovascular outcomes. This study was the first to conclude that major depressive disorder (MDD) is an independent risk factor for heart failure in adults with HIV. Prior to this study, background research found that depression was a common comorbidity, but previous studies did not look at MDD as an independent risk factor.

Dr. Matthew Freiberg had the privilege of speaking at the International Aids Society (IAS) Conference in Vancouver in July of 2015. For those who were unable to attend the event, you can still learn about his participation in the conference right here.
 
  
 
 Dr. Freiberg was interviewed about how we should consider cardiovascular disease in the context of HIV.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center takes great pride in supporting the fight to end heart disease and stroke. The Division of Cardiovascular Medicine is one of the numerous groups who is forming a team to help in this cause. This year's team is led by Facility Leader, Dr. Tommy Wang and Team Leaders, Adrian Cadar, Ashley Williams-Bond, and Sarah Loch. The American Heart Association's Greater Nashville Heart Walk will take place on Saturday, October 3, 2015 beginning at 10am at the Vanderbilt University Sports Field at the corner of Natchez Trace and Blakemore Ave.

The Million Veteran Program (MVP) is a program developed by the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) Research and Development (R&D) program to look at genetic, clinical,  lifestyle, and military exposures to understand critical health concerns for our veterans. With almost 400,000 veterans already enrolled, the MVP program has allowed the VA to create the largest and most comprehensive database of its kind.

On May 18th-19th, 2015, Vanderbilt University Law School and and Medical Center joined forces to present "The Clean Power Plan: Health, Energy Demand and Economic Effects". Held at the Law School, experts were invited to discuss U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan to significantly reduce carbon emissions from power plants.Policymakers, scholars, and practitioners were invited to speak to the group about the economic, energy demands, and health effects of the proposed act. Representing the health effects, Dr.