Professional Bio
Gordon R. Bernard, MD, is a Professor in the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine and holds the Melinda Owen Bass Chair in Medicine, Department of Medicine, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
He has overseen the extensive and multifaceted clinical and translational research programs of Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), including the Human Research Protections Program, which manages the Institutional Review Board. He has led the development of the single IRB, iREx portal, which helps to organize the increasingly complex environment of multicenter IRB oversight. He chaired the Vanderbilt University Hospital Pharmacy, Therapeutics and Diagnostics committee for over 20 years.
Dr. Bernard joined the faculty at Vanderbilt in 1981 as a physician scientist and became medical director for the Medical Intensive Care Unit and director for Pulmonary and Critical Care research program in 1983. He established the Vanderbilt Coordinating Center in 1987 to support local investigators in the conduct of large multi-institutional and international clinical research. He served as the Executive Vice President for Research and Chief Research Officer for seven years until stepping down from these positions in 2023. Dr. Bernard served as the director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, which he helped to establish, for 16 years.
He continues to make contributions to VUMC in his roles as Co-PI of Vanderbilt’s Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) and Co-PI of the NIH (NCATS) sponsored Vanderbilt Trial Innovation Center. His research is primarily focused on improving the care and outcomes of critically ill patients with sepsis and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
In recent years, Dr. Bernard has championed the evolution of a Learning Healthcare System (LHS) Research Platform infrastructure to provide a supportive, experiential learning framework for junior researchers, operations experts, quality and safety professionals, and others who want to “learn from what we do and do what we learn.” He is also a member of the American Association of Physicians and has written or co-authored more than 350 original articles and book chapters.
Publications
Education
Fellowship - Vanderbilt University
MD - Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, 1976
Residency - Internal Medicine - University of Kentucky, 1979
Contact
Email
Kimryn.Rathmell@Vumc.Org
Address
777 Preston Research Building
2220 Pierce Ave
Nashville, TN 37232-6307