Growing up in the small West Tennessee town of Toone, it’s a pretty safe bet that the younger version of Mary Yarbrough, MD, MPH, FACOEM, FACPM, couldn’t begin to guess the places her career would lead … or the string of letters that would follow her name. She just knew she was fascinated with her mother’s job as a public health nurse.

“My father died when I was really little,” she said. On school breaks, her single mother would take Mary along on rounds. “She would go into people’s homes to give shots. That was what my view of medicine was really all about,” Yarbrough recalled of her introduction to a preventive medicine model.

By the time Yarbrough earned her undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from Vanderbilt University, she had a clearer picture of what she’d like to do. She stayed at Vanderbilt to earn her medical degree, followed by an Internal Medicine internship and residency. However, at the end of her residency, Yarbrough found she had some questions about the exact career path.

“I took a year off and did a Luce Scholarship,” she said of being selected by the prestigious Henry Luce Foundation. Her assignment was with a helicopter clinic in Sabah, East Malaysia (formerly North Borneo) to provide health services to remote populations. “We would go out to the jungle, and they would drop us off for three or four days,” she said. “If the weather was good, they’d pick us back up,” Yarbrough added with a laugh.

Although the work was tough, it crystalized her vision and brought her back to her first love. “That’s where I realized preventive medicine was what I wanted,” she noted.

Back in Tennessee, she spent three years as director of Emergency Services for University Medical Center in Lebanon while she paid down student loans. By 1989, Yarbrough was on her way to Johns Hopkins where she completed a general Preventive Medicine and Public Health residency, which also included earning her Masters of Public Health degree with an emphasis on international health.

As part of her studies, Yarbrough spent a year completing a practicum with the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. “When you work at the WHO, you’re in Geneva, but then you’re assigned a country to work in … I was in Tanzania in the diarrheal disease division,” she said.

Upon completion of her work at Johns Hopkins ant the WHO, Yarbrough was recruited back home to work with the Tennessee Department of Health as director of Environmental Epidemiology. “We had a $12 million grant to study the offsite releases from Oak Ridge and the impact they had on the community,” she said of her work with the state. “We also did the first lead grant in Tennessee where we were looking at the lead content in residential homes and the exposure to children and adults.”

While she enjoyed her work, she couldn’t pass up the chance to return to Vanderbilt when the opportunity arose in 1994. Triple board certified in Internal Medicine, General Preventive Medicine and Public Health, and Occupational Medicine, Yarbrough has worn many hats at Vanderbilt, but most all of them have focused on prevention and keeping patients and staff well. When Vanderbilt is acknowledged as one of the city’s healthiest employers or the National Influenza Vaccine Summit recognizes the Vanderbilt Fluapalooza mass vaccination event, Yarbrough and her colleagues have been working behind the scenes to bring those efforts to fruition.

Her current titles include serving as director of Health and Wellness for the Vanderbilt Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, executive director of Vanderbilt’s Faculty/Staff Health and Wellness Programs, an associate professor of Internal Medicine, and an assistant professor of Health Policy. A newer title that has recently been added is medical director of Employer Services for the Vanderbilt Health Affiliated Network (VHAN), which extends her work to a more southeastern regional focus. 

Research is another priority for Yarbrough, and she is currently engaged in two projects. “I’m working with the CDC’s National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory,” she said of developing a monitoring system for the personal protective gear used by healthcare workers in case of pandemic or bioterrorism threat. “There’s a limited supply of equipment so how we manage that supply is going to be very important,” she stated.

“I also have a grant from the state to work on a diabetes prevention program. The CDC developed this great weight control program. The state has a grant from the CDC to implement components of the program so I’m looking at how we can get primary care providers to refer pre-diabetic patients to the program,” Yarbrough explained.

She added the idea is very simple with no gimmicks or gadgets and relies heavily on a balanced diet. As for weight loss, she continued, the plan “demystifies it and makes it manageable and gives you tools.”

Yarbrough added, “In our own health and wellness program at Vanderbilt, we have implemented that model of weigh control. We’re seeing a 5 percent loss of BMI and then maintenance of that weight loss.”

Yarbrough believes diets aren’t the only thing that should be balanced. It’s important to reset and recharge with those you love outside of work, as well. Married to Terry Wharton, Yarbrough noted, “I have one wonderful stepdaughter, two terrific grandchildren and four fantastic dogs.” She then added with a laugh that ‘fantastic’ actually depended on the day when it came to the dogs.

She noted the family loved to spend time outdoors together hiking, fishing and gardening at their farm in West Tennessee, which they try to visit every weekend. “It’s about the exercise, and the stress control … as well as just being away. When you’re away from work, you’ve really got to be away from work,” she said.

Yarbrough said she counts herself as incredibly fortunate. Although there were times when she was uncertain of her path, the journey always led her back to prevention and population health … and now the industry as a whole is catching up to her lifelong passion. “I think it’s our time,” she concluded.

Additional Resources:

Vanderbilt Occupational & Enviornmental Medicine

Vanderbilt Faculty & Staff Health & Wellness