Research and Training

At Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, we are dedicated to improving the health of children in our region and around the world. Our doctors and surgeons strive to better understand, treat and ultimately prevent the most devastating childhood diseases and health concerns.

As part of Vanderbilt University Medical Center and affiliated with the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, our team of researchers, clinicians and physician-scientists lead robust programs of discovery and train the next generation of pediatric specialists. In fact, nearly half of the pediatricians caring for children in Tennessee trained at Vanderbilt. We are a key training and research center for children's health specialists across the country.

In research, Vanderbilt’s pediatric teams continue to lead the way nationally in neonatology, vaccine development, birth defects, cancer, diabetes, urology, heart disease, pediatric surgical specialties, injury prevention, obesity and many other fields. Our Department of Pediatrics is consistently among the top 10 in the country based on competitive research funding from the National Institutes of Health.

We are committed to sharing our knowledge and experience through residency and subspecialty fellowship training that attracts trainees from across the country. Our trainees have opportunities, in a remarkably collegial and intellectually stimulating environment, to work alongside and learn from some of the leading clinicians, physician-scientists and researchers in their fields. 

In addition, the Surgical Outcomes Center for Kids (SOCKs) facilitates collaborative research endeavors across multiple surgical disciplines at Children’s Hospital. Essentially, SOCKs acts as a research clearinghouse for surgeon-scientists, a place for them to hone their research interests and bring them to fruition — from hypothesis generation all the way to journal publication. Results ultimately inform clinical decision making and improve the overall health of the children treated at the hospital.

We can't do it alone

For patients and families, this means that we can attract the best of the best healthcare providers and offer access to the latest approaches to care, often before they are available anywhere else. 

Visit our magazine to see how the discoveries we make every day bring HOPE to children everywhere.

As a non-profit children’s hospital, we rely on community support to keep help us fulfill this mission. Learn more about how you can help.