Dr. André L. Churchwell

Dr. André L. Churchwell is associate professor of medicine, associate professor of radiology and radiological sciences, associate professor of biomedical engineering, and associate dean for diversity in graduate medical education and faculty affairs at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.  He was named the 2005 Walter R. Murray Jr. Distinguished Alumnus by the Association of Vanderbilt Black Alumni. The award recognizes lifetime achievements in personal, professional and community arenas.

Churchwell graduated from the Vanderbilt School of Engineering magna cum laude in 1975. He won the Biomedical Engineering Student Program Award that same year. He received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1979 and later completed his internship, residency and cardiology fellowship at Emory University School of Medicine and affiliated hospitals in Atlanta. In addition, he was the first African American chief medical resident at Grady Memorial Hospital (1984–1985).

Churchwell received the J. Willis Hurst Award for Best Clinical Teacher in 1991 from Emory and in 2004 he was named the Emory University School of Medicine Resident Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award winner. For the past nine years he has been named one of the nation's top cardiologists in “The Best Doctors in America.”

In 1986 while at Emory he was also named Most Outstanding House Officer, made an honorary Morehouse Medical School class member and he received a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Minority Medical Faculty Development Award.

Churchwell lives in Brentwood, Tenn., and is married to Doreatha Henderson Churchwell, a nurse educator at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. They have two children, Crystal A. Churchwell and André L. Churchwell Jr.