Rheumatology Fellowship Training Program

The Division of Rheumatology and Immunology offers a two-year ACGME-accredited fellowship that provides comprehensive training in clinical rheumatology and instruction in the principles of investigative rheumatology and basic science research. Three fellows are admitted each year through the National Resident Matching Program. 

The mission of the program is to produce physicians who possess the specialized, current knowledge and clinical skills required to function as consultants in rheumatology; who are capable of practicing in a variety of settings; who maintain habits of lifelong learning; who can become investigators, leaders and innovators in the development of knowledge and the provision of care; and who can teach the principles of rheumatology to medical students, residents, primary care providers and other specialists. 

Fellows train across four clinical sites: Vanderbilt University Hospital, the VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System Nashville VA Medical Center, Nashville General Hospital, and Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt. Training across four health systems exposes fellows to a broad spectrum of disease presentation and acuity, and to the differing ways in which health systems organize the delivery of subspecialty care.

 

Exceptional patient care, groundbreaking research

Our exceptional patient care and groundbreaking research, coupled with the collegial training environment within our division and across VUMC, is a major benefit for fellows as they advance towards successful careers in rheumatology.

All fellows are expected to undertake some research during their training, but the goals of the research component are broad and flexible according to the skills and needs of individual trainees.

Clinical Sites

Vanderbilt Health: The Vanderbilt Clinic (TVC) and Vanderbilt University Hospital (VUH) are the tertiary care facilities of Vanderbilt Health, serving patients from Tennessee, Kentucky, southern Indiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. VUH is the only site providing inpatient rheumatology care in middle Tennessee. The adult practice records approximately 26,000 outpatient visits annually and three to five new inpatient consultations daily. The patient population includes those with rare and severe conditions, among them vasculitis, myositis, systemic sclerosis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and systemic lupus erythematosus. 

VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System Nashville VA Medical Center: As one of only two VA facilities in Tennessee that provides rheumatology services, the Nashville campus serves veterans across the state and neighboring regions, many of whom travel more than 100 miles for care. 

Nashville General Hospital (NGH): As the safety net hospital of Metro Nashville, NGH serves uninsured patients within Davidson County and patients with Medicaid from across the state. 

Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt: Fellows rotate through pediatric rheumatology clinics and can participate in the Strengthening Pathways in Adolescent Rheumatology Care (SPARC) clinic, which serves adolescents and young adults at elevated risk of poor outcomes during the transition from pediatric to adult care. 

Structure of training

Fellowship begins with a four-week introductory course covering the foundations of rheumatologic evaluation and management, procedural skills, and orientation to the clinical systems in use across the four sites. 

The first year emphasizes inpatient consultation, with fellows covering the VUH consult service and the VA and NGH consult services in two-week blocks. Consult volume at Vanderbilt is substantial, and a medical resident or student is frequently assigned to the service, which provides early opportunity to develop teaching skills. 

From the outset, first-year fellows maintain continuity panels at TVC and the VA, staffed by dedicated preceptors. At NGH, fellows are assigned to team-based patient panels, pairing a first- and second-year fellow to support continuity of care. The second year emphasizes outpatient depth and the development of teaching skills. 

Second-year fellows assume expanded new patient responsibilities, present at division conferences, and participate monthly in the Center for Experiential Learning and Assessment (CELA), where they observe medical interns performing a rheumatologic history and physical examination and provide instruction in history-taking, examination and arthrocentesis. 

Outside of inpatient consults and continuity clinics at each site, fellows have opportunities to work within division centers in systemic lupus erythematosus, systemic sclerosis, vasculitis, idiopathic inflammatory myopathies, metabolic bone disease, and psoriatic arthritis. The systemic sclerosis and myositis programs benefit from co-localization with pulmonary medicine. Elective opportunities to rotate through rheumatology-dermatology, rheumatology-pulmonary and cardio-rheumatology clinics are also available. Outside of the division, additional experiences are available in radiology, orthopedics, and physical medicine and rehabilitation. 

Musculoskeletal ultrasound and advanced diagnostics 

The division maintains a formal musculoskeletal ultrasound curriculum for fellows, supported by weekly diagnostic and procedural ultrasound clinics at TVC and the Nashville VA Medical Center. Interested fellows can apply for the USSONAR program and/or sit for the RhMSUS certification if available. Fellows also can receive training in nailfold capillaroscopy for the evaluation of secondary Raynaud's phenomenon and the identification of connective tissue disease.

Research is an integral component of the fellowship. The division has active clinical research programs evaluating patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, vasculitis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, connective tissue disease-associated interstitial lung disease, osteoporosis, and inflammatory myositis. Basic science investigators within the division study lymphocyte biology in autoimmunity, pathways of angiogenesis and vasculogenesis, and gene expression profiling in patients with autoimmune disease. 

Each fellow leads a scholarly project and submits an abstract annually to the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Annual Meeting under faculty mentorship, supported by a structured timeline and periodic presentation at informal research meetings. The goals of the research component are broad and flexible according to the skills and needs of individual trainees. 

Two institutional resources are of particular value for clinical research: the Synthetic Derivative, a deidentified copy of the electronic health record, and BioVU, a biorepository of deidentified DNA samples linked to the health record. Fellows have consistently produced ACR abstracts and peer-reviewed publications using these resources. 

Quality improvement is treated as a form of scholarship. Recent fellow-led work includes an evaluation of three double-stranded DNA autoantibody assays undertaken with laboratory leadership to guide institutional ordering practice, and the establishment of a patient advisory board at Nashville General Hospital that informed subsequent changes to clinic workflow. 

Fellows with sustained research interests may pursue the Master of Science in Clinical Investigation or a Master of Public Health. Third and fourth years of research training are available through the division's NIH-funded T32 in Interdisciplinary Training in Rheumatic Diseases, and additional opportunity is available through the Immunological Mechanisms of Disease Training Program. 

Interdisciplinary Training in Rheumatic Diseases

  • Advanced training for research careers in Rheumatic Disease is offered through our NIH-funded T32 for Interdisciplinary Training in Rheumatic Diseases. The goal of the program, which supports MD and PhD postdoctoral fellows and predoctoral students, is to sustain a culture of biomedical discovery for the next generation of clinical and basic science investigators in pediatric and adult rheumatology. 

Precision Medicine

  • One of the most exciting opportunities for trainees in the Division of Rheumatology and Immunology at Vanderbilt is in the area of Precision Medicine. Leveraging a wide range of resources at Vanderbilt such as deidentified biobanks and large clinical datasets such as BioVU, faculty have collaborated on NIH-funded projects focused on the genetic susceptibility of antinuclear antibodies, as well as on the genetics of systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis susceptibility. They use electronic health records to stratify patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, and have led projects on the pharmacogenomics of immunosuppressants. In addition, they have developed strong multidisciplinary networks as they collaborate with investigators from the Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, the departments of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, and the Department of Medicine divisions of Genetic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology, Nephrology and Hypertension, and Infectious Diseases.

The didactic curriculum incorporates flipped-classroom and active-learning methods. Sessions are sequenced so that topics reinforce one another across the week. 

Landmark Articles and Guidelines conferences: Fellows review six key papers on a given condition and present the principal findings in “PICO format,” facilitated by an expert attending. The following week, the Guidelines conference addresses the same condition through case-based vignettes, with attention to how the preceding week's literature informed current recommendations. 

Radiology rounds and ultrasound integration: Monthly radiology rounds pair assigned reading with group image interpretation. Later in the same month, fellows perform musculoskeletal ultrasound on the corresponding anatomic region using standardized patients. 

Board preparation: Dedicated Friday afternoon board review includes weekly American College of Rheumatology (ACR) lecture discussions, fellow-generated board-style questions, and faculty-facilitated review sessions. Monthly workshops focus on the ACR Image Bank and additional board preparation resources. 

Patient Care Conference: This weekly, two-part conference begins with review of plain films and other imaging alongside colleagues in musculoskeletal radiology, followed by fellow-led presentation of challenging inpatient and outpatient cases to the division. 

Fellows additionally participate in weekly Division Grand Rounds, Department of Medicine Grand Rounds, monthly journal club conferences, and two fellow-led morbidity, mortality and improvement conferences each year.

All graduates in recent cohorts have passed the ABIM Rheumatology certifying examination on the first attempt. Graduates have entered academic medicine, private practice and industry, taking positions that incorporate clinical care, teaching, and clinical and basic research.

The program participates in the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS). Applications are reviewed holistically. Interviews are conducted in person, allowing applicants substantive contact with faculty and current fellows. The program considers all applications and is able to grant interviews to applicants requiring J-1 visas. 

Required documents:

  • Common Application Form
  • Personal Statement
  • Three letters of reference, one of which should be from the Residency Training Director
  • Dean's Letter
  • Medical school transcript
  • ECFMG Status Report, if applicable
  • USMLE or COMLEX transcript, if applicable
  • Photograph 

Registration for ERAS and for the match are separate processes. Questions regarding the match should be directed to the Medical Specialties Matching Program of the National Resident Matching Program.

Please email the Megan Porter, Program Administrator, at megan.porter@vumc.org.

Name Year
Robert Corty, MD 2025
Genesis Maldonado, MD 2025
Rachel Ward, MD 2025
Jacob Zaslavsky, MD 2025
Ganiat Adeogun, MD 2024
Catherine Deffendall, MD 2024
Erin Chew, MD 2023
Sarah Luebker, DO 2023
Benjamin Boone, MD 2022
Megan Hansen, MD 2022
Sarah Tarplin, MD 2021
Jennifer Young-Glazer, MD 2021
J.B. Boone, MD 2020
Tyler Reese, MD 2020
Ashley Blaske, MD 2019
Bret Sohn, MD 2019
Lia Jamian, MD 2018
Wenlu Xiong, MD 2018
Kevin Byram, MD 2017
Kenneth Johnsen, MD 2017
Carolyn Casey, DO 2016
Ami Joglekar, MD 2016
Jayanth Doss, MD, MPH 2015
Susan Harwell, MD 2015
Oana Zaha, MD 2015
Natalie Braggs, MD 2014
Charles Moore, MD 2013
Luma Kharabsheh, MD 2013
Morteza Azimian, MD 2012
Cecilia Chung-Nakandakari, MD 2012
Anne Eyler, MD, MS 2011
Michelle Ormseth, MD, MSCI 2011
Cara Hammonds, MD 2010
David Brey, MD 2009
Andrew Miller, DO 2008
Chad Boomershine, MD 2007
Dina Titova, MD 2007
Ingrid Avalos, MD 2006
Christian Rhea, DO 2006
Leslie Cuevas, MD 2004
Michael Watterson, MD 2003
;

Program Leadership

Tyler Reese, MD

Assistant Professor of Medicine
Program Director, Rheumatology Fellowship Program

Narender Annapureddy, MD, MSCI

Associate Professor of Medicine
Associate Program Director

Erin Chew, MD

Assistant Professor of Medicine
Associate Program Director