Welcome to the Department of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. As one of the medical center’s largest departments, we are proud to include approximately 460 primary faculty, 270 community-based volunteer faculty, 82 clinical fellows, 127 residents, and more than 300 administrative and research staff. Rooted in a rich history of excellence in research, education, and patient care, our faculty, clinicians, fellows, and trainees represent the best of academic medicine—advancing care for children in Middle Tennessee, across the nation, and throughout the world. Our work extends far beyond the hospital walls to deliver high-quality care, train the next generation of pediatric leaders, and advance knowledge about conditions affecting vulnerable infants and children through world-class research.
The Department is primarily housed within Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, while providing care at approximately 30 locations across Tennessee and supporting pediatric services at outlying community hospitals. The Children’s Enterprise is fully integrated within the main VUMC campus, alongside Vanderbilt University Hospital, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital, Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital, and Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health.
Our integration within VUMC and the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine provides ready access to exceptional collaborators and world-class facilities and resources. We are a leading pediatric research center, consistently ranking top 10 nationally in NIH funding among academic departments of pediatrics, with approximately $101M in annual research awards—mostly from Federal sources, including NIH. Our investigators address fundamental questions in child health from the prenatal period through the intersection of childhood and adult disease.
We are also home to world-class educators who take great pride in training medical students, residents and fellows. Vanderbilt has trained approximately 40 percent of all pediatricians currently practicing in Tennessee, and our programs include a world-class Pediatric Physician-Scientist Training Program (PPSTP).
Nashville, Tennessee is a thriving center of commerce, finance, healthcare, and music—named the 3rd Top Meeting Destination in North America, ranked among the Top 10 Best Big Cities in the United States, and in 2023 ranked fifth in The South’s Best Cities. The Nashville metropolitan area is home to an estimated 2.04+ million people and is diverse and continually growing.
Whether you are a prospective applicant, an investigator interested in our research, or someone who wants to learn more about how we improve child health every day, I invite you to explore our site. If you’d like to connect or learn more, please don’t hesitate to contact our department.
Juan C. Salazar, MD, MPH, FAAP
James C. Overall Professor and Chair,
Department of Pediatrics
Vanderbilt Health
System Pediatrician-in-Chief,
Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt
1Cvent Top Lists 2024, Top 50 Meeting Destinations in North America
2Condé Nast Traveler, The Best Cities in the US: 2023 Readers' Choice Awards
3Southern Living, The South's Best Cities (2023)