Churchwell among 2023 inductees to Tennessee Health Care Hall of Fame | VUMC Reporter

by Holly Fletcher

Nationally renowned cardiologist and champion of diversity in academic medicine André Churchwell, MD, Levi Watkins Jr. MD Professor of Medicine and professor of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology and Radiologic Sciences, is among five honorees who will be inducted in October to the Tennessee Health Care Hall of Fame.

Churchwell, also Vice Chancellor of Equity, Diversity, Institutional Belonging, Community Outreach and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer of Vanderbilt University, is a stalwart in regional and national conversations about how to bring more people into the medical education pipeline and into leadership roles.

At Vanderbilt University Medical Center, he served in various roles to increase the Medical Center’s diversity and inclusion efforts for more than 12 years and served as VUMC’s Chief Diversity Officer from 2015 to 2021.

His career-long dedication to the U.S.’s medicine talent pipeline and advancing clinical outcomes demonstrates his commitment to improving care for patients and the community.

Churchwell was the first African American chief medical resident at Atlanta-based Grady Memorial Hospital in 1984. Later, he and other experts from Emory University and Georgia Tech in Atlanta formed a bioengineering center.

In 2016, he was named to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) for his work in biomedical engineering education.

The Emory University School of Medicine established the Churchwell Diversity and Inclusion Collective (CDIC), a resident-run organization, to foster and sustain a welcoming environment for internal medicine house staff from diverse backgrounds.

The Tennessee Health Care Hall of Fame was created in 2015 by Belmont University, the McWhorter Society and the Nashville Health Care Council to honor people who have made significant, lasting contributions to health care and the health care industry,

This year’s other inductees include Wilsie Bishop, an early leader in the critical care neonatal nursing field who taught at East Tennessee State University; Vicky Gregg, former CEO of BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee; Stephen Reynolds, president emeritus and senior consultant at Baptist Memorial Health Care in Memphis; and Philip Wenk, current CEO of Delta Dental Tennessee.

The Hall of Fame has previously inducted 14 members with ties to Vanderbilt: David Barton, MD; Monroe Carell Jr.; Stanley Cohen, PhD; Colleen Conway-Welch, PhD; Kathryn Edwards, MD; Carol Etherington, MSN, RN; John Flexner, MD; William Frist, MD; Ernest Goodpasture, MD; David Gregory, MD; Harry Jacobson, MD; Stanford Moore, PhD; William Schaffner, MD; and Mildred Stahlman, MD.