Roger M. Des Prez came to Nashville in 1963 as Chief of the Medicine at the Nashville Veterans Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University. Des Prez was the driving force on the Medical and Pulmonary Services at the VA Hospital. He became an Emeritus Professor in July 1995, at which time the Vanderbilt Department of Medicine honored one outstanding pulmonary fellow with the Roger M. Dez Prez Award for Teaching.

Des Prez returned to Vanderbilt in 1996 when he joined the faculty of Vanderbilt School of Nursing as Clinical Professor of Nursing and preceptor at Vine Hill Community Clinic. He made seminal advances in understanding the role of blood platelets in infectious diseases and of disseminated histoplasmosis. He passed away in 2009.