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Tales of VUMC Past

Tales of VUMC Past

The Wild Kingdom guy thought it would be a good idea to bring a python into the hospital. He was right.

By Wayne Wood

It's cold-blooded, check it and see

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Tales of VUMC Past

Polio patients, iron lung respirators, and…hey, is that Pat Boone??!!

By Wayne Wood

Polio was a terrifying disease, once filling wards at VUMC with paralyzed patients in iron lungs. Vaccines have saved us from all that.

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Tales of VUMC Past

I was the last person in an iron lung at Vanderbilt University Medical Center

By Wayne Wood

It was in a storage room. It still worked. For some reason, I was allowed to get in it.

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Tales of VUMC Past

There is a reminder, hiding in plain sight in the architecture of Medical Center North, of how VUMC dealt with a deadly infectious disease almost 100 years ago

By Wayne Wood

An open-air porch for tuberculosis patients was built into the old Vanderbilt Hospital — and it's still visible if you know where to look

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Tales of VUMC Past

An afternoon with the woman who grew up at One Hundred Oaks

By Wayne Wood

It was a retailing wonderland that VUMC transformed into a health care destination. But before all that, it was Carolyn Suschnick's home.

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Tales of VUMC Past

The mystery of “Little Jim”

By Wayne Wood

Who is the serious little boy in the 1932 picture, and why is he dressed like a miniature doctor?

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Tales of VUMC Past

The most popular VUMC Voice stories of 2021

By Wayne Wood

Love stories, an honor walk, a heroic rescue -- and plumbing

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Tales of VUMC Past

The Vanderbilt doctor who told his story of battling AIDS on “60 Minutes”

By Wayne Wood

He wrote a bestseller, was interviewed on "60 Minutes," and his story showed a more hopeful future for people infected with HIV

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Tales of VUMC Past

Harold Jordan, VUMC’s first Black resident, arrived on campus 56 years ago. He looks back on a very different time at the Medical Center.

By Wayne Wood

The pioneering physician recalls the summer of 1964, the support of his colleagues and the challenges he faced

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