[4] In the early days, the School of Medicine was owned and operated as a private property of the practicing physicians who composed the faculty and received the fees paid by students.

[4] Vanderbilt University made no financial contribution to the school's support and exercised no control over admission requirements, the curriculum, or standards for graduation.

[4] The research happening at Vanderbilt during this time included advancements that had far-reaching implications for the practice of medicine.

Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas conducted research into blue baby syndrome that led to their 1933 medical-first neonatal cardiothoracic surgery, which formed the basis for the development of the Blalock–Taussig shunt, a life-saving procedure for infants with the Tetralogy of Fallot.

[8] In March 2014, the institution was being sued by the federal government in a whistle-blower case for a decade-long Medicare fraud scheme.

[9] In May 2015, a federal court ruled that the Vanderbilt University Medical Center was in violation of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act for laying off 200 employees without adequate notice and would have to pay out $400,000, pending an appeal.

[10] In November 2014, the university admitted that one of its scientists fraudulently falsified six years of biomedical research in high-profile journals.

[11] The scientist, Igor Dzhura, was a senior research associate hired by Vanderbilt University's Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Among VUSM's basic science departments, Biochemistry ranks third; Cell and Developmental Biology, first; Molecular Physiology & Biophysics, third; and Pharmacology, sixth.