Welcome to the Department of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. As one of the largest departments within the medical center, we are proud to be home to some 450 primary faculty, 280 community-based volunteer faculty, 126 residents, and over 300 administrative and research staff. The Department is rooted in a rich history of commitment to excellence in research, education, advocacy, and patient care. Our faculty, fellows and trainees represent the very best of academic medicine – extraordinary people doing incredible things to advance the care for children in Middle Tennessee, across the nation, and throughout the world. The result is a Department which reaches far beyond the walls of our hospital to provide high-quality patient care, to train the next generation of leaders in pediatric medicine, and to advance our knowledge of important conditions that affect vulnerable infants and children through world class research.

The Department of Pediatrics is a national leader in pediatric research, ranking consistently in recent years in the top ten for National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding among pediatric departments within academic medical centers, according to the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research. For 2023-2024, the Department ranked No. 1 among peer departments in NIH research funding.

The Department has a long history of great success with junior faculty embarking on careers as physician-scientists. Our conversion rate from K to R awards completed in the past 10 years is over 60%. Through training and support from our departmental K12 Mentored Research Scholars Program, Pediatric Physician-Scientist Training Program, and R38 Stimulating Access to Research in Residency (StARR) Program, the Department strives to enable junior faculty to have successful, independent research careers.

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