Keynote Speakers
F. Andrew Gaffney
Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs and Chief Quality and Safety Officer
Vanderbilt University
Dr. F. Andrew Gaffney is the associate dean for clinical affairs and chief quality and safety officer at Vanderbilt University. He is also a former NASA shuttle astronaut.
Gaffney, a well-known cardiologist, was the clinical chief of Cardiology since joining the Vanderbilt faculty in 1992, and interim director of the division of Cardiovascular Medicine for nearly two years. He helped lead the establishment of the Cardiology Patient Care Center through the Vanderbilt Page-Campbell Heart Institute, one of the first such centers involved in this major restructuring of how patients are cared for at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Before joining Vanderbilt, Gaffney spent 17 years at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, first as a cardiology fellow and then as a member of the faculty.
An active researcher as well as clinician, Gaffney became a living science experiment in space in 1991, when he blasted into orbit aboard the space shuttle Columbia with a catheter inserted in his veins to within an inch of his heart. The experiment gathered data about the body's behavior in space - information vital to the long-term goals of the nation's space program.
Gaffney, a native of Carlsbad, New Mexico, earned his medical degree in 1972 from the University of New Mexico. He served his internship and residency at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio.
