The Unsung Heroes

The Vanderbilt Health trauma staff cares for thousands of patients each year, but the team was never expecting they would face three mass shootings in just seven months. 
 

As the only Level 1 Trauma Center for a catchment area of more than 65,000 square miles, Vanderbilt Health has one of the busiest trauma centers in the country. When tragedy strikes like it did in a nearby church, a Kentucky high school and a Waffle House restaurant, Richard S. Miller, M.D., Chief of the Division of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care, was able to mobilize nine trauma surgeons and an entire team to be down in the trauma bay and ready to go within 15 minutes. 

"When you have a team of people that works well together, collaborates and helps each other through difficult times, that's priceless," Miller says. This lifesaving, comprehensive care would not be possible without passionate community supporters like you.

"Most people, if they have the capacity, really want to do something to help. Those donors are our unsung heroes." — Richard S. Miller, M.D., Chief of the Division of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care Carol Ann Gavin Directorship in Trauma and Surgical Critical Care

Together we are giving hope and healing to patients who need us in our region and well beyond.

Thank you.