After 10-Year Extension, Vanderbilt Doctors Look Forward to Continued Relationship with Preds

During a season already brimming with historical significance and storylines, the Nashville Predators this week laid the groundwork for a new chapter with one of their oldest partners.

On Monday, the Predators and Vanderbilt Health announced a 10-year partnership extension, kicking off the next decade of a relationship that’s been a cornerstone of the team’s identity since 2008.

As a linchpin of the two organizations, Head Team Physician Dr. Jed Kuhn, MD, MS couldn’t be happier to see the relationship continue.

“The Predators organization is absolutely first class,” he said. “They make us feel welcomed, they're grateful for what we do and we feel like we're part of the system. And honestly, there's no better system and no better organization than the Predators in all of the NHL… From the top down, it's just been fantastic.”

The feeling on the Predators’ side of the table is no doubt mutual. And how could it not be? 

Over the last 15 years, Dr. Kuhn and his roster of world-class medical professionals have set the gold standard for what a pro sports team’s healthcare partnership can and should look like - whether it’s the small army of medical staff ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice during every Predators home game, or the crew of EMTs whose expertise is so revered, they’ve been called on to instruct other sports EMTs across the country.

“The beauty of having a relationship with Vanderbilt is that we offer every single service that the Predators could ever need, and we're all one team; we're all one family,” Dr. Kuhn said. “There are other teams where the orthopaedic group might be in charge and then they have to look outside their group to find somebody else to provide those additional services. But when the team partners with Vanderbilt, we’re just this giant family of physicians of all different types, and we're all available to help take care of the team.”

And take care of the team, they have.

Just think of any one of the numerous injuries that have befallen Nashville’s players over the past decade and a half - it could be former winger Kevin Fiala’s fractured femur during the 2017 Cup run or Filip Forsberg’s concussion last season - and you’ll have Dr. Kuhn’s colleagues to thank for getting each of them back onto the ice in full working order.

The medical attention isn’t limited to the Preds roster either.

When the “Voice of the Predators” Pete Weber underwent a procedure last year to curb the symptoms of normal pressure hydrocephalus, an expert team of Vanderbilt surgeons got the call. And this summer, when beloved locker room attendant Craig “Partner” Baugh needed immediate surgery after a prostate cancer diagnosis - that was Vanderbilt, too.

All the care for the Predators occurs, mind you, while Dr. Kuhn and his team hold full-time positions in one - or oftentimes several - of Vanderbilt’s many medical enterprises.

In other words, the same group caring for Smashville’s team is caring for Nashville, too.

“I have a full-time job at Vanderbilt; I take care of patients, I do research, I do teaching, I do some administrative work, so this is a little extra - this is the icing on the cake,” Dr. Kuhn said. “We're all doing it for the fun and for the love of the players, and we love doing it because the organization is phenomenal. They treat us exceptionally well and we're really happy to be able to do it.”

That same joy is almost certainly felt by Dr. Meg Rush, MD, MMHC, president of Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, who has worked alongside another notable product of the Preds-Vanderbilt relationship for the last 10 years: the 365 Pediatric Cancer Fund presented by Twice Daily.

“One of the really great things about a 10-year relationship is that yes, it changes as people come and go, but the excitement on both sides of this partnership and both sides of this relationship with the Preds and the 365 Fund has only grown and deepened,” she said. “And I think that's pretty special.”

Started during the 2013-14 season by former Preds Captain Shea Weber and netminder Pekka Rinne, the 365 Fund has to date raised over $4 million for pediatric cancer research at the hospital.

However impressive the fundraising figure, though, Dr. Rush says the 365 Fund has also brought immeasurable support to the hospital’s clinical care programs over the years.

“It’s just hugely invaluable, whether it's bricks and mortar or adding play spaces in the hospital so kids can have a respite from their treatment and room to normalize care,” Dr. Rush said. “That was fundamentally important to the Carell family as they helped plan for this hospital, that kids could feel as safe and as close to home as possible, and the 365 Fund and the Preds Foundation have enabled that as well.”

Along with shared community-oriented values, the Predators and Vanderbilt Health have, over the past 15 years, found common ground in many of their organizational ideologies. The most striking, though, may be the unwavering “team-before-me" mentality that exists both in the Predators locker room and the many wings of Vanderbilt’s medical campus.

“It isn't about me,” Dr. Kuhn said. “This is a team approach. We have a lot of people that help out when we do preseason physicals. We call people out to do EKGs and bloodwork and all these other things behind the scenes and they don't usually get a chance to see the athletes and they just do it at six in the morning and they jump at the opportunity.

“So again, having Vanderbilt involved is just great because we are really one big happy family.”