Dr. Kyla Terhune is the senior vice president for Educational Affairs and the designated institutional official (DIO) at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, as well as the associate dean for Graduate Medical Education and a professor of surgery and anesthesiology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. A native of Batesville, Arkansas, and a graduate of Batesville High School, she obtained her bachelor’s degree in molecular biology at Princeton University and worked as a high school science teacher and basketball coach for three years before entering medical school. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 2004, she completed a surgery residency and a critical care fellowship at Vanderbilt, where she joined the faculty as a general surgeon. She was the associate program director and then program director of the surgery residency at Vanderbilt from 2012-2014 and 2014-2019, and during this time also served as chief of general surgery at the VA Medical Center from 2016-2019.

As research and administrative roles expanded, Dr. Terhune determined that the development of sustainable educational programs also required an understanding of health care systems to align educational and clinical objectives, leading her to obtain her Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Vanderbilt in 2016. She moved into the DIO position in 2019, and also serves as an associate chief of staff at the Vanderbilt University Hospital, where she attends regularly on the acute care surgery service.

Dr. Terhune is an innovative leader and has received distinguished awards at the local and national levels, including the inaugural ACGME David Leach Award when she was a senior resident in 2010. She served on the Board of the National Resident Matching Program, on the Council of the National Board of Medical Examiners, and is a past president of the Association of Program Directors in Surgery. She frequently is asked to speak to residents/fellows and faculty members about a variety of topics related to professional development and loves to return to her roots of teaching and coaching.