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Wen Jonathan Gitlin and his wife, Patricia Hodgman, headed to Nashville from St. Louis this spring, he packed up a houseful of books and a cranky 19-year-old Siamese cat. Gitlin also brought with him an infectious enthusiasm for his new position as physician-in-chief at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital and the James C. Overall Professor and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical School.

Gitlin grew up in Boston and attended Bowdoin College in Maine before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, graduating cum laude with an English degree. He continued on with his studies in Pennsylvania and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine — also cum laude. After finishing school, Gitlin interned and did his residency at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston.

He assumed his duties in Nashville on June 1, leaving St. Louis after 22 years in the Pediatric Department of Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM). He and Patricia had moved to the Midwest from their native New England after he completed his training as a neonatologist in Boston hospitals.

The Gitlins’ son remains in St. Louis for graduate school at Washington University, while their daughter will spend her junior year studying in Australia. Patricia is joining her husband in Nashville after retiring from a career in grants management at Washington University.

Gitlin, who has broad expertise in several fields, has been on the Washington faculty focusing on the areas of neonatology, pathology and immunology, and genetics and genomic medicine. He comes to Vanderbilt from his most recent position as scientific director of the Children’s Discovery Institute, a four-year-old innovative collaboration and research partnership between St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine.

The sequence of the human genome, accomplished with considerable contribution from scientists at WUSM, offers the opportunity for profound advances in the prevention and treatment of structural birth defects, premature birth, diabetes, childhood cancer and a multitude of infectious diseases in children.

While serving as scientific director of the institute, Gitlin worked with faculties from the schools of Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Applied Science and Medicine to ensure that this potential for extraordinary improvement in children’s health is realized by enabling creative young scientists to explore new, imaginative and high-risk projects that will lead to discoveries translating directly to prevention and cures. To aid in that quest, he also spearheaded unique and novel approaches to fundraising and scientific innovation aimed at accelerating cures.

He plans to continue this inter-disciplinary work “building something even better” at Vanderbilt, he said, by drawing faculty into the project and by taking “the best and brightest and using their abilities to explore childhood disease” in new ways, thinking outside the box within their own disciplines.

Gitlin said he was excited to be in Nashville, where he noted, “everybody seems to have a talent — and they are all so accomplished.”

While he humbly maintains that he has no talents — a fact that would be soundly disputed by colleagues — he said he might have a few traits that would have made him a good standup comic if he hadn’t gone into medicine. Of course a good sense of humor could be considered an important talent when dealing with children.

Gitlin said he accepted the post at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital because he was “impressed with the quality of folks in the Department of Pediatrics. They are bright, articulate, vibrant people in an environment where good things are being done.”

He added, “This seemed like a place where I could be useful.”

Gitlin wants to deepen and intensify the relationship between the hospital and community physicians, starting with the residency program, where he hopes to utilize the experience of local pediatricians in private practice in the training of future doctors.

“I hope we can work together to the point that patients will return to their regular doctors and say ‘thank you very much for referring me to Children’s Hospital.’”

Gitlin said this kind of work has already been going on at the hospital. But, he added, “We can always do better.”

He hopes to meet with pediatricians in consultative groups to strengthen the relationship with Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital.

Gitlin said he would strive to continue the dedication to children’s health that has been a hallmark of his career and to forge ahead with the work that Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital has been doing so well for families in the Nashville area.

“I always remember that there could be a child who might not be there the next morning and that we must do everything we can for every child in our care,” he concluded.



June 2008

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