Professor of Head and Neck Oncology, Director of Head and Neck Oncologic Services
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
A co-founder of Vanderbilt's Department of Otolaryngology, James L. Netterville, M.D. is also its Executive Vice Chair, as well as Director of Head and Neck Oncologic Services, Associate Director of the Bill Wilkerson Center for Otolaryngology and Communication Sciences, and the Mark C. Smith Professor of Otolaryngology.
He promotes education and research in skull base, voice disorders and all aspects of head and neck oncologic surgery. His publications have been cited over three thousand times worldwide and are widely considered seminal work in the treatment of skull base tumors and their functional outcomes. In addition, he is one of the world’s foremost authorities on the etiology and management of carotid body tumors. He pioneered the widespread use of an intracapsular dissection method for carotid body tumors and vagal schwannomas that retains the neural connectors and receptors needed for blood pressure maintenance.
He has been actively involved in improving the healthcare infrastructure in low-resource countries since 1999, leading and participating in surgical educational camps in Haiti, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. He won in 2004, and the Award of Honour for contributions to the growth of the Nigerian Christian Hospital in 2016.
Dr. Netterville is a Past-President of the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. He has received many honors and awards in his career, including the deRoaldes Award and two Presidential Citations from the American Laryngological Association.