Linda Ashford, PhD

Linda
Ashford
PhD
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Developmental Medicine
Phone
(615) 936-0271
Doctors' Office Tower
2200 Children's Way
Room / Suite
11101
Nashville
Tennessee
37232-9003
linda.ashford@vumc.org

Developmental medicine; selective mutism; child anxiety

Specialty
Child Development
M.S.
Early Childhood Education, University of Tennessee, Knoxville TN, 1973
Psychology, George Peabody College of Vanderbilt Unversity, 1982
Ph.D.
Developmental Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 1988

Catherine E. Arthur-Johnson, MD

Catherine
E.
Arthur-Johnson
MD
Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition
Doctors' Office Tower
2200 Children's Way
Room / Suite
10th Floor
Nashville
Tennessee
37232-9175
cathy.arthur@vumc.org

Specialty
Gastroenterology, Pediatric
M.D.
Meharry Medical College, 1983
Fellowship
Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition Fellowship - UCLA Medical Center, Mattel Children's Hospital, Los Angeles, CA, 1988

Donald H. Arnold, MD, MPH

Donald
H.
Arnold
MD, MPH
Professor of Pediatrics
Emergency Medicine
Research Director
Emergency Medicine
Phone
(615) 936-3898
Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt
2200 Children's Way
Room / Suite
1025
Nashville
Tennessee
37232-9001

Dr. Arnold's early contributions to science included studies to examine whether mathematic information in the pulse oximeter plethysmograph waveform can be used to measure pulsus paradoxus non-invasively and in real-time. If so, plethysmograph-estimate of pulsus paradoxus (PEP) will be a significant contribution to science and technology because it will provide clinicians an objective metric of acute exacerbation severity and response to treatment. He first studied healthy young adult participants who performed tidal-breathing through an airway circuit with adjustable inspiratory and expiratory resistance valves to generate pulsus paradoxus. PEP was calculated using a dedicated microprocessor and software program, based on change of plethysmograph waveform indices during the respiratory cycle. PEP predicted the degree of applied airway resistance. He has subsequently reported the validation of PEP using the criterion standards %-predicted FEV1 and airway resistance in the pulmonary function lab and in the emergency department with COPD and asthma. Assessment of acute asthma exacerbation severity directs treatment and the decision whether to hospitalize a patient, yet there are few objective measures to assess severity and predict outcome. His scientific contributions in this area have included work to improve assessment of acute exacerbations and to decrease variability of assessment between clinicians. These studies have examined the use of patient characteristics and clinical variables that are readily available at the bedside. He has demonstrated that select characteristics and variables can be used to accurately measure exacerbation severity and response to treatment with high inter-rater reliability. There are limited tools available to clinicians to inform hospitalization decisions for pediatric patients with acute asthma exacerbations. The scientific contributions of his team have included development and validation of the Asthma Prediction Rule (APR). This included development of both a comprehensive 15-variable and a reduced-form 5-variable prediction model for electronic decision-support. The APR might provide clinical decision-support to decrease unnecessary treatment variability, improve resource utilization, and improve patient outcomes measured using need-for-hospitalization criteria.

>> View Publications on PubMed

don.arnold@vumc.org

Acute asthma exacerbations; Predictive modeling in the ED

Specialty
Emergency Medicine, Pediatric
M.D.
Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, 1979
M.P.H.
The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, 2006
Residency
Pediatric Internship and Residency-University of Virginia Health Sciences Center Children's Medical Center, Charlottesville, VA
Fellowship
Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship-University of Alabama at Birmingham

James W. Antoon, MD, PhD, MPH, MSc

James
W.
Antoon
MD, PhD, MPH, MSc
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Hospital Medicine
Doctors' Office Tower
2200 Children's Way
Room / Suite
11th Floor
Nashville
Tennessee
37232-9000

Dr. Antoon is a NIH-funded clinical and health services researcher with a program focused on pharmacoepidemiology and medication safety in the pediatric population. As a physician-scientist, Dr. Antoon designs and conducts pragmatic clinical trials and population-based observational studies of medications, with a focus on the treatment of respiratory illness (e.g., pneumonia, influenza, COVID-19, RSV) in children. He evaluates the relationship between serious adverse events and medication exposures, as well as determining the role of drug-drug interactions and underlying infections in the development of serious adverse events in children. Dr. Antoon’s studies have investigated medication-related neurologic and psychiatric adverse events, severe cutaneous adverse reactions (e.g., Stevens Johnson Syndrome), cardiac events, and anaphylactic allergic reactions, among others.

Dr. Antoon is an expert on the safety and effectiveness of antivirals in the treatment of influenza and other respiratory viruses. He is the recipient of a NIH Career Development Award focused on determining the association between influenza, oseltamivir, and serious neuropsychiatric events, such as suicide or self-harm, encephalopathy, and psychosis.

Dr. Antoon has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in the fields of pediatrics, pharmacology, and drug safety. He is a member of the Society for Pediatric Research, the International Society for Influenza and Other Respiratory Virus Diseases, and the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology. Dr. Antoon was a 2021 recipient of the Young Investigator Award from the Academic Pediatric Association.

Dr. Antoon is a practicing pediatric hospitalist at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt. He is board certified in both General Pediatrics and Pediatric Hospital Medicine.

>> View Publications on PubMed

james.antoon@vumc.org

Care of hospitalized children, children with medical complexity, pediatric respiratory illness

Specialty
General Pediatrics, Pediatric Hospital Medicine
M.D.
Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA
Ph.D.
Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA
M.P.H.
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN
M.Sc.
Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
Residency
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

Julia L. Anderson, MD, MSCI

Julia
L.
Anderson
MD, MSCI
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition
Doctors' Office Tower
2200 Children's Way
Room / Suite
10th Floor
Nashville
Tennessee
37232-9175
julia.anderson@vumc.org

Specialty
Gastroenterology, Pediatric
M.D.
Mercer University School of Medicine, Macon, GA, 2001
M.S.C.I.
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 2008
Residency
Pediatric Residency - Tulane University Health Science Center, New Orleans, LA, 2004
Fellowship
Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition Fellowship - Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, 2008

Uchenna E. Anani, MD

Uchenna
E.
Anani
MD
Assistant Residency Director
Pediatric Residency Program
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Neonatology

Dr. Anani completed her medical training at Howard University Medical School followed by her pediatric residency training at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She moved to Nashville in 2015 for fellowship in Neonatology at Vanderbilt, completed her training in addition to a certificate of distinction in biomedical ethics in 2018, and stayed on as faculty.

Dr. Anani’s clinical and research interests include shared decision-making, antenatal counseling, and trauma informed care. She is also passionate about medical education and mentoring.

In her spare time, she enjoys spending quality time with her husband and twin boys as well as exploring the food scene in Nashville.

Phone
(615) 936-5953
Doctors' Office Tower
2200 Children's Way
Room / Suite
11111
Nashville
Tennessee
37232-9544
uchenna.e.anani@vumc.org

Specialty
Neonatology
M.D.
Howard University College of Medicine, Washington, D.C., 2012
Residency
C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2015
Fellowship
Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, 2018
Certificate of Distinction in Biomedical Ethics, 2018

Mhd Wael Alrifai, MD, MS

Mhd
Wael
Alrifai
MD, MS
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Neonatology
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics
Phone
(615) 343-6518
Doctors' Office Tower
2200 Children's Way
Room / Suite
11111
Nashville
Tennessee
37232-9545

Dr. Alrifai is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Biomedical Informatics, a board-certified neonatologist in the Division of Neonatology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), and a board-certified clinical informatician in the Department of Biomedical Informatics. He holds a master's degree in applied clinical informatics. Dr. Alrifai is a VUMC HealthIT Clinical Director and the Medical Director for Inpatient Pediatric Informatics. He designed electronic health records clinical content for the VUMC neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and multiple NICUs in Tennessee. Dr. Alrifai's research focus is clinical decision support (CDS) for pediatric care, workload and patient acuity modeling, and clinical analytics. He designed and published clinical trials to evaluate health information technology systems in neonatal care and has ongoing trials in the evaluation of CDS tools.

wael.alrifai@vumc.org

Applied clinical informatics, clinical decision support, modeling of provider workload and patient acuity, pediatric informatics, neonatology

Specialty
Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, Applied Clinical Informatics
M.D.
Damascus University School of Medicine, Damascus, Syria
M.S.
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Internship
Internship-American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
Residency
Pediatric Residency-University of South Alabama
Fellowship
Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellowship-Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Alexander G. Agthe, MD, PhD

Alexander
G.
Agthe
MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Neonatology
Doctors' Office Tower
2200 Children's Way
Room / Suite
11111
Nashville
Tennessee
37232-9545
alexander.agthe@vumc.org

Specialty
Neonatology
M.D.
Freie Universaitat Berlin School of Medicine, Berlin, Germany, 1993
Ph.D.
Freie Universaitat Berlin School of Medicine, Berlin, Germany, 1997
Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health Graduate Training Program in Clinical Investigation, Baltimore, MD, 2008
Residencies
Pediatric Residency-Freie Universitat Berlin Kinderklinik, Berlin, Germany
Pediatric Residency-Sinai Hospital, Baltimore, MD
Fellowships
Neonatology Research Fellowship-Harvard University, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA
Neonatology Fellowship-Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD

Sari A. Acra, MD, MPH

Sari
A.
Acra
MD, MPH
Director
Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition
Professor of Clinical Pediatrics
Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition
Delivery Address
Doctors' Office Tower
2200 Children's Way
Room / Suite
10th Floor
Nashville
Tennessee
37232-9175

Dr. Acra is a Professor of Pediatrics and Chief of the D. Brent Polk Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He directs a busy clinical program with over 20,000 annual visits and more than 4,000 endoscopies. He has had a long academic career focused on clinical service, education and clinical research in the field of pediatric gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition. His major clinical and research focus is in the area of upper gastrointestinal pathology, including dyspeptic, functional and diarrheal disorders and nutrition. With a background in chemical engineering, he has had a lifelong interest in intestinal transport phenomena and energy expenditure. Early in his career, he helped describe the function of several intestinal electrolyte and nutrient transporters in animal models and in humans.

His recent clinical nutrition research is focused on measuring energy expenditure in chronic disease states. Specifically, his research relates to measurement of energy metabolism in children using whole-room indirect calorimeters (metabolic chambers). This system is coupled with movement sensors to provide a similar-to-free-living environment where a study subject or patient's energy expenditure, substrate oxidation, physical activity and body composition are accurately measured on a minute-by-minute basis. Through this approach, his lab is investigating the physiological regulation of energy metabolism in children with inflammatory bowel disease and other chronic disease states, as well as improving the technologies for measuring body composition and physical activity.

With his background in engineering, he also has experience in developing and modeling new technologies. As Director of the Pediatric Aero-digestive Program, he is conducting studies on dyspeptic disorders, including piloting a novel non-invasive technology for measuring esophageal inflammation via measurement of mucosal electric resistance (plenary presentation at NASPGHAN, 2016) and co-developing a non-invasive tool to measure functional nausea based on gastric electromagnetic wave conduction abnormalities – now supported by recent R01 NIH funding.

As a pediatric gastroenterologist, Dr. Acra recognized that despite recent advances in our understanding of some congenital diarrheal disorders, undiagnosed Congenital Diarrheas and Enteropathies (CODE) still represent a considerable health problem for those affected, and sought to use his clinical and clinical research experience and the experience of his co-investigators at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (Dr. Goldenring, leading epithelial biologist with expertise in transport and epithelial turnover; Dr. Correa, pediatric pathologist with extensive experience in intestinal pathology) to better understand these conditions. Supported by their preliminary work, they have hypothesized that identification of specific cellular abnormalities in children with CODEs, whole genome sequencing of effected neonates and their parents, and studying the disease by recapitulating it in defined biologic systems will lead to insights into the causes of CODE cases, and potentially lead to individualized treatments. This is demonstrated in the group’s work on understanding and reversing the transport-trafficking defect associated with the pathology of DGAT1 deficiency. This innovative approach, in collaboration with other major centers with common interests and complementary expertise, led to the creation of the PediCODE consortium, now funded by the NIH, with the goal of enhancing our ability to study the pathophysiology of CODE and improve diagnose, manage, and treat CODE.

Dr. Acra is also part of a multidisciplinary program continuously supported by the NIH for the past 25 years that investigates bio-psychosocial processes associated with pediatric functional abdominal pain. This group has phenotyped a cohort of over 800 pediatric patients with functional abdominal pain followed from childhood into adolescence and young adulthood. The results of these studies have led to published predictors of persistence of functional pain from childhood into adulthood, allowing earlier targeted care for those with greatest predilection for chronicity.

>> View Publications on PubMed

sari.acra@vumc.org

Specialty
Gastroenterology, Pediatric
M.D.
American University of Beirut, 1989
M.P.H.
Vanderbilt University School of Public Health, Nashville, TN, 2005
Residency
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, Nashville, TN, 1994
Fellowship
Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition Fellowship - Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, Nashville, TN, 1996