Press

Volunteers from Vanderbilt’s Shade Tree Clinic and the REMEDY organization stepped up to help residents in Kentucky following the devastating floods there.

Seventy-five percent of participants in a diabetes prevention program run by medical students lost at least 5% of their body weight, and many participants also reported less pain and an overall improved quality of life.

Vanderbilt’s Michael Fowler, MD, associate professor of Medicine in the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, a celebrated Master Clinical Teacher, and co-medical director of the Shade Tree Clinic, died Feb. 20. He was 49.

When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down international travel necessary for overseas medical initiatives, Vanderbilt’s Rondi Kauffmann, MD, MPH, began brainstorming ways to extend surgical care to those in need much closer to home.

The 11th annual Shade Tree Trot, presented by Messer Construction and Carrabba’s, was held April 20 on the Vanderbilt campus. The 5K fun run/walk raised $30,000 for the Shade Tree Clinic and the Clinic at Mercury Courts, which offer educational opportunities for medical, nursing, law and pharmacy students to learn how to deliver comprehensive care and address social determinants of health. The Shade Tree Benefit Dinner and Auction raised an additional $110,000.

The annual Shade Tree Trot, a vital and long-standing fundraiser for the Shade Tree Clinic, will be held virtually again this year. The weeklong event is open to the public.

Regular vision care for Shade Tree patients just got easier with the addition of new equipment – a new retina camera and auto refractor. This allows patients to receive more comprehensive management at the clinic while giving students a valuable, hands-on opportunity to learn about ophthalmology.

The 2018 Shade Tree Trot, which took place April 21, was a great success, raising $98,000, in combination with funds from the Benefit Dinner and Silent Auction, to support the medical student-run Shade Tree Clinic, which provides care to the underserved population of Nashville.

Approximately 550 runners and walkers registered for the ninth annual 5K race on the Vanderbilt campus organized by Vanderbilt University School of Medicine students.

Organizers are hoping to attract at least 800 participants for the 5K fun run/walk to raise money for the Shade Tree Clinic, which provides comprehensive primary care to more than 400 uninsured Middle-Tennessee residents at no cost.

Dr. Robert Miller, medical director of Shade Tree Clinic, was recently published in The Tennessean advocating for underserved and uninsured patients.

The Healing Trust continued their long tradition of funding Shade Tree Clinic with a large grant to support and expand clinic programs.

The Shade Tree Trot raised a record $58,000 in 2016, and was featured in the Vanderbilt Reporter.

Shade Tree’s Medical-Legal team recently attended the Annual Medical-Legal Partnership Summit in Washington, D.C.

Addressing the persistent challenge of inadequate prenatal care requires innovative solutions. Student-run free health centers are poised to rise to this challenge. The Shade Tree Clinic Early Pregnancy Program, jointly operated by university medical and nursing programs, functions as an ongoing access-to-care portal for pregnant women without health insurance.

In 2010, as the Affordable Care Act was being introduced, a controversial article was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. It focused on how well U.S. medical schools were doing in increasing the nation’s primary care physician workforce, the number of physicians in medically underserved locations and the pool of minority physicians. Many leading academic medical centers — including Johns Hopkins — were relegated to the bottom ranks in progress toward these goals. [archived PDF]

The Legal Aid Society has teamed up with Shade Tree Clinic, a venture run by Vanderbilt School of Medicine students, to offer basic legal services — think Social Security issues or housing assistance — to the clinic’s patients. As part of the partnership, Legal Aid attorney Chay Sengkhounmany is spending time at eight-year-old Shade Tree three days a month. [Press Release] [archived PDF]

The Shade Tree Clinic’s success has been a study in the force of will of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine students. But recently, it was the force of their muscles that moved the clinic — which provides free care to uninsured people living in East Nashville — to a new, larger facility located at 1223 Dickerson Road. [archived PDF]