Sickle Cell Center

The Meharry Sickle Cell Center has more than a thirty-year history of service to the community and to patients with Sickle cell disease and other hemoglobinopathies.  In this capacity, the Center provides comprehensive services including clinical care, education, genetic counseling, laboratory services, and research. 

The Center's Director, Steven N. Wolff, M.D., provides comprehensive medical and diagnostic care for adults with Sickle cell disease residing in the 40 Counties in the Middle Tennessee area.   The Sickle cell clinic is located on the second floor of Metropolitan Nashville General Hospital.  It provides easy access to the laboratory and other hospital resources.  The Center's nurse practitioner, Lateesa Posey, provides continuity of care and clinical follow-up to the adult and pediatric patients with Sickle cell disease. Tené Hamilton Franklin provides genetic counseling and educational services.

The Center is also part of the State of Tennessee Newborn Screening Program and serves as the State's diagnostic and confirmatory hemoglobinopathy laboratory.  In this capacity, all children born in Tennessee suspected to have a hemoglobinopathy and all adults seeking evaluation undergo state of the art evaluation using HPLC, electrophoresis and IEF methodology to confirm or establish a hemoglobinopathy.  Annually, over 6,000 blood samples for suspected hemoglobin disorders undergo laboratory evaluation.  It is our responsibility to notify the health care agencies and parents of the patients with positive results promptly so that proper medical management can be instituted.  Additionally, the Center provides follow-up services to newborns with Sickle cell disease to ascertain that all children are undergoing appropriate preventive care such as receiving prophylactic antibiotics within three months of birth.

The Center provides activities for the community, health care professionals and students. Each year, we sponsor a heritage lecture on Sickle cell disease for the entire Nashville community in memory of the late Dr. Joseph Phillips, who was affected by this condition.  This year more than one hundred individuals were in attendance. We also provide workshops, health exhibits and hemoglobinopathy screening for local churches. 

Currently under early development is a coordinated effort with Vanderbilt University to develop a regional comprehensive care center for patients with Sickle cell disease.  This center would combine resources from many institutions to develop an outpatient facility to provide medical and psychosocial care for children, their families and adults with hemoglobinopathies.

The Middle Tennessee region should be proud of the heritage of Meharry Medical College as a leading center for the care of patients with Sickle cell disease.