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AL S O F E A T U R E D :
❯ The Human Genome at 20
❯ A Physician-to-be in Haiti
❯ Reunion 2010 coverage
f a l l
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the place where your medical career began.
Recall the good times. Renew old friendships.
Reconnect with faculty. Revisit
June 10–12
FALL
2011
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2 From the Dean
26 President’s Corner
3 College News
27 Class Notes
A record amount of research
funding; the Courtyard at Given
wins gold; a new chair of family
medicine is named, and more.
12
29 Development News
36 Obituaries
38 Reunion ’10
25 Hall A
12
1941, ’46, ’51, ’56, ’61,
’66, ’71, ’76, ’81, ’86, ’91, ’96, ’01 & ’06!
Attention Classes of
16
to join your classmates for Reunion 2011 — June 10–12, 2011. Come back to
have lost contact with your classmates and former teachers, but Reunion will
give you the chance to reconnect, rekindle old friendships, check out favorite
first-hand the growth and evolution of your medical alma mater.
For more information, call the UVM Medical
Development & Alumni Relations Office at
(802) 656-4014 or email [email protected]
Events Include: Medical Education Today Session • Tours of the College, including the Medical Education Center
and new Courtyard Building • Alumni Awards and Reception • Medical Alumni Picnic • Nostalgia Hour • Class Receptions
Register today for your reunion! www.med.uvm.edu/alumni
14
Commencement 2010
One-hundred six new physicians
strode out of Ira Allen Chapel this
year, on their way to residencies
and careers across Vermont and
throughout the nation.
Burlington and the UVM campus, your home during medical school. You may
places, talk with faculty, meet the medical students of today, and experience
16
“Genome science … will
revolutionize the diagnosis,
prevention, and treatment of most,
if not all, human disease.” So said
then-President Bill Clinton in 2000
when the successful sequencing of
the human genome was announced.
Ten years later, two College of
Medicine faculty members share
their views on the revolution.
14
The UVM Medical Alumni Association invites you and your family to plan now
Defining the
Revolution
Learning on
the Front Line
In increasing numbers, both in
Vermont and across the country,
medical students are choosing
emergency medicine as a specialty.
Vermont Medicine follows a group
of fourth-year medical students
as they complete their rotation
in the Emergency Department
at Fletcher Allen Health Care.
By Jennifer Nachbur
22
Shaken
A medical student shares his
recollections on a recent rotation
in post-earthquake Haiti.
By Nicholas Aunchman ’11
On the cover: A patient arrives at the Fletcher Allen Health Care Emergency
22
Department. Photograph by Raj Chawla, UVM Med Photo
Frederick C. Morin III, M.D.
Dean, University of Vermont College of Medicine
r
m
o
n
t
College News
Assistant Dean for
Communications & Planning
Carole Whitaker
Assistant Dean for Development
& Alumni Relations
Rick Blount
Contributing Writer
Jennifer Nachbur
Assistant
Aliza Mansolino-Gault
Art Director
Steve Wetherby, Scuola Group
University of Vermont
College of Medicine
2
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Raj Chawla, UVM Med Photo
$89.3
06 07 08 09 10
R E S E A R C H F U N D S AT T H E CO L L E G E O F M E D I C I N E
by Fiscal Year, in Millions of Dollars
A total of 151 principal investigators spanning every
department of the College received 342 grants in
fiscal year 2010.
Dean
Frederick C. Morin III, M.D.
Senior Associate Dean for
Medical Education
William Jeffries, Ph.D.
Senior Associate Dean for
Clinical Affairs
Paul Taheri, M.D.
Senior Associate Dean
for Research
Ira Bernstein, M.D.
Senior Associate Dean for
Finance & Administration
Brian L. Cote, M.B.A.
Vermont Medicine is published quarterly
by the University of Vermont College of
Medicine. Articles may be reprinted with
permission of the editor. Please send address
changes, alumni class notes, letters to the
editor, and other correspondence to:
University of Vermont College of Medicine
Alumni Office, Courtyard at Given,
89 Beaumont Ave., Burlington, VT 05405
Telephone: (802) 656-4014
Letters specifically to the editor may be
e-mailed to: [email protected]
Magazine Honors
UCDA Design Competitions; Excellence in Illustration (2008)
AAMC-GIA Robert G. Fenley Writing Award of Excellence (2008)
AAMC-GIA Award of Distinction; External Publications (2007)
AAMC-GIA Award of Distinction; External Publications (2006)
At the close of the 2010 fiscal year this summer, the
College of Medicine posted a record level of research
funding from the National Institutes of Health and
other sources — $89.3 million, representing a more than
$11 million increase over the fiscal 2009 total.
“While a good amount of that increase can be
credited to the hard work done by our faculty to secure
funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act, what’s notable is how strong and widespread our
research growth is across the College,” said Senior
Associate Dean for Research Ira Bernstein, M.D.’82.
“This is a 35 percent increase in funding over the
last three years,” noted Dean Rick Morin. “And that is
due to the outstanding efforts by all our departments.”
$77.8
Editor
Edward Neuert
College Hits $89.3 Million
in Research Funding
$80
FALL 2010
$65.9
The last few months have seen the broad process of
fulfilling our missions played out here on campus.
In May we sent 106 new physicians out into Vermont
and states across the nation. In August we welcomed
111 new medical students to the campus — a class
that continues our trend of both increasing academic
performance while at the same time enhancing our
diversity. The College now has by far the most diverse
student body of any school at the University. And,
in between, we welcomed back hundreds of our
dedicated graduates at Medical Reunion. I don’t think
there is a better span of time to get a feeling for how
deeply affecting this College is on so many of the people whose lives are
changed here, and who go on to change so many other lives for the better.
A new chapter in our educational mission began this summer and is
broadening throughout the fall. In addition to the clinical education experiences
with our partner, Fletcher Allen Health Care, some of our students will now
be able to pursue clerkships at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut, St. Mary’s
Medical Center in West Palm Beach, and Eastern Maine Medical Center
in Bangor. These new programs will offer our students increasingly diverse
educational opportunities that will help them practice better medicine in an
increasingly diverse world.
We’ve also had successful collaborations here at home, and the new
Clinical Simulation Laboratory, which began construction this summer, is a
prime example. When it opens early next year in its new quarters in the Rowell
Building, the laboratory will offer a greatly enhanced educational experience
to our students, as well as students from the College of Nursing and Health
Sciences, Fletcher Allen staff, physicians in Vermont and around the region,
and members of the Vermont National Guard.
Our clinical faculty are the living embodiment of the collaborative
relationship between the University and Fletcher Allen. So I am very pleased
that the formal affiliation agreement that governs this relationship was
approved by all parties this summer. Under this agreement we have formed
the University of Vermont Medical Group, and for the first time have integrated
all of its members into the full-time faculty. I look forward to the continued
strong partnering of medical care and medical education that improves the
lives of patients today and ensures continued improvement in the future.
e
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FROM T H E DE A N
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Send Us Your Stories!
If you have an idea for something that should
be covered in Vermont Medicine, please email:
[email protected].
Peterson Named Family Medicine Chair and Clinical Leader
Thomas C. Peterson, M.D., has been named as chair of family
medicine at the College of Medicine and physician leader of
family medicine at Fletcher Allen Health Care.
Peterson joined UVM/Fletcher Allen in 1986 and
has served as interim chair and physician leader of family
medicine since July 2006. He was twice voted Family Practice
Teacher of the Year, honored as Family Physician of the Year
in 2003 by the Vermont Academy of Family Physicians, and
named one of the 2009–10 Best Doctors in America.
“Tom is an outstanding teacher, leader, and clinician
who has earned the admiration and respect of his students,
his colleagues and his patients,” said Morin. “He is a strong
advocate for primary care, and has mentored hundreds of
medical students and residents on the path to becoming
caring, compassionate physicians.”
Peterson is a board-certified family physician practicing
at Colchester Family Practice. He is past president of the
Vermont Academy of Family Physicians, and continues to
serve on the Board and as Vermont Delegate to the American
Academy of Family Physicians.
Peterson earned his medical degree from the University
of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, followed by a
residency in family medicine at the Medical Center Hospital
of Vermont, where he was chief resident in his final year. He
joined the faculty at UVM/Fletcher Allen in 1986, rising to
UVM Med Photo
Thomas Peterson, M.D.
full professor in 2002. He served as director of the Family
Medicine Residency Program from 1993 to 2004, and was
named the Department’s Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs in
2004. He became acting chair and physician leader in 2006,
and assumed interim leadership in 2008.
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Medical Class of 2014 Welcomed to Campus
On August 10, the College of Medicine welcomed 111
new members of the Class of 2014. The class has a collective
academic standing that ranks among the best entering
medical classes ever. Vermonters make up the largest
component of the Class of 2014 — 29 students—with
Californians a close second with 27 students.
A large percentage of the 59 male and 52 female
students — 77 percent — are beginning medical school with
previous health care experience, though only 72 percent were
science majors. Nearly 100 percent of these new first-year
students participated actively in extra-curricular activities
while completing their undergraduate work and achieving
an average GPA of 3.66. A total of 5,516 applications were
received for spots in the College’s Class of 2014.
Orientation topics and activities included learning
about professionalism; meeting “Your First Patient” on
day one; getting familiar with the Vermont Integrated
Curriculum and the College’s laptops and COMET system;
finding out about student groups, how different learning
styles impact managing a medical school workload, career
planning, campus safety, global health, financial services; and
touring the campus.
A “Pediatrics Perspectives” article in the July 26 online
edition of the journal Pediatrics by William Raszka, M.D.,
professor of pediatrics and director of the first-year “Attacks
& Defenses” course, underscores the value of medical
student orientations. Raszka and his co-authors maintain
that providing an enthusiastic welcome, introduction to
how the health care team works, and describing the
education process, objectives and goals helps students
feel valued and supported and sets the stage for a positive
learning experience.
Bianca Yoo ’14 and the other members of her class began their
four years of medical education with an introductory session in
the Sullivan Classroom on August 10.
Courtyard at Given Gains
LEED® Gold Certification
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED),
the internationally recognized green building certification
system, has awarded the College of Medicine’s Courtyard
at Given its gold level status.
LEED was developed by the U.S. Green Building
Council, a non-profit trade organization that promotes
sustainable building design. LEED provides design
guidelines that aim to reduce energy usage, water
consumption, solid waste, air pollution, and
building toxicity.
The Courtyard building project began in
June 2008 and was completed in July 2009.
Among the environmentally friendly features
of the 35,000 square feet structure are the use of
plentiful natural day lighting, lighting with infrared
and motion occupancy sensors for energy efficient, and
a raised floor air system that reduces energy use.
4
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Research Milestones
Kien
Examines
Effect of
Dietary Fats
on Fat in Body
Carr Investigates Thyroid Cancer
Development and Diagnostics
UVM Professor of Pharmacology and
Vermont Cancer Center scientist Frances
Carr, Ph.D., is working to identify
biomarkers that could make follicular
thyroid tumor diagnoses easier for
physicians and less invasive for patients.
Her team’s work recently identified a panel
of candidate biomarkers from human
thyroid cancer cell lines that may reveal the
pathways involved in the transformation
of normal cells to malignant cells. “We’re
interested in identifying biomarkers that
can help accurately diagnose thyroid
nodular diseases without surgical biopsy,
sparing patients unnecessary procedures,”
says Carr. “Our studies will also help
explain the cellular processes involved in
the transformation to cancer cell types.”
Carr and pharmacology research associate
Elzbieta Zakrzewska have funding support
from the Lake Champlain Cancer Research
Organization. To translate their findings to
a clinical setting, Carr and her colleagues
are collaborating with VCC/Fletcher Allen
physician-scientists Muriel Nathan, M.D.,
and Scott Anderson, M.D., as well as with
endocrinologist Whitney Goldner, M.D.,
of the University of Nebraska, and that
institution’s Thyroid Cancer Collaborative.
The type of fat
you eat — and
how that fat is
stored in your
body — may be
an important key
to understanding the link between obesity
and type 2 diabetes, which affects more
than 24 million people in the United States.
C. Lawrence Kien, M.D., Ph.D., The Mary
K. Davignon Green and Gold Professor
of Pediatrics and Medicine, recently
published a paper in the journal Obesity that
demonstrated, for the first time in humans,
that a one-week change in dietary fatty
acid composition produced corresponding
changes in the fatty acid composition of
skeletal muscle fats and in the fatty acids
found in blood.
Since the completion of these studies,
Kien has been awarded two National
Institutes of Health grants to pursue
these findings in much greater detail with
emphasis on measurements of insulin
sensitivity using the approaches of genomics
and metabolomics. His collaborators at UVM
on the latest grant are Janice Bunn, Ph.D.,
research associate professor of mathematics
and biostatistics and research associate
professor of rehabilitation and movement
sciences; Naomi Fukagawa, M.D., professor of
medicine; Dwight Matthews, Ph.D., professor
and chair of chemistry and professor of
medicine; Matthew Poynter, M.D., associate
professor of medicine; and Richard Pratley,
M.D., professor of medicine. Fukagawa coauthored the Obesity study.
Pratley Seeks Better Therapy
for Hard-to-Control Blood Sugar
in Type 2 Diabetes
An estimated 285 million people
worldwide and 24 million in the United
States currently have type 2 diabetes, a
condition accompanied by a higher risk
of vascular and heart disease, death, and
excessive health care costs. If blood sugar
levels are controlled, this risk is reduced, but
many people with type 2 diabetes are unable
to achieve blood sugar goals, partly due
to the low efficacy and adverse side-effects of
available drugs. New findings reported by
Richard Pratley, M.D., professor of medicine,
compared the effectiveness of injections of
the recently FDA-approved drug liraglutide to
sitagliptin, a commonly-used oral treatment,
in controlling blood glucose levels in type
2 diabetes patients who have inadequate
control on the standard treatment
metformin. The study results appeared
in the April 24 issue of the journal Lancet.
Dana Medical Library Receives Outreach Award
The Courtyard at Given, which won an award for commercial design
and construction from Efficiency Vermont earlier this year, has now
achieved LEED Gold certification.
UVM Med Photo; The ‘LEED® Certification Mark’ is a registered trademark
owned by the U.S. Green Building Council® and is used with permission.
Marianne Burke, M.L.S.
UVM Med Photo
An award from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine New England Region will allow UVM’s Dana Medical
Library to conduct an assessment of the information needs of Vermont’s community health care providers. The project
also includes two surveys — one focused on Vermont hospitals’ knowledge-based information resources and services;
and a second survey conducted in collaboration with the Area Health Education Centers and Office of Primary Care at
UVM regarding the information needs of primary care providers throughout the state. In addition, the grant will allow
Dana faculty to offer classes on campus and around the state on how to find free and low-cost clinical information
resources to support evidence-based practice. Marianne Burke, M.L.S., A.H.I.P., director of the Dana Medical Library,
is principal investigator of the grant.
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Celebrating the Freeman Legacy
Many of the recipients of Freeman Scholarships at the College of Medicine
gathered on May 18 at UVM’s Billings Center with faculty members and
administrators from hospitals across the state of Vermont to honor the widereaching effect of the Freeman Medical Scholars program, funded for more
than ten years by the Freeman Foundation of Stowe and New York City.
At the event Dean Rick Morin also announced that Class of 2011 medical
student Kira Fiset was the first recipient of the Freeman Foundation Legacy
Medical Scholarship. This new program carries forward the legacy of the
Freeman Foundation, seeking funding for scholarships to support students
just as the Freeman Foundation has done with scholarship support for
hundreds of UVM medical students since 2000.
While the original Freeman Medical Scholarships are ending and the
final Freeman Scholars will graduate in 2012, the Freeman Foundation
Legacy Scholarship will honor the Freeman Foundation for the impact it has
had, throughout the state of Vermont. Gifts to this new scholarship fund
will continue to assist UVM medical students in pursuing their medical
education with the goal of practicing here in Vermont, following in the
tradition of the Freeman Foundation scholarships.
This first Freeman Foundation Legacy Medical Scholarship was funded
by a gift from program co-founder Mildred Reardon, M.D.’67, professor
emerita of medicine. Fiset was chosen for her demonstrated passion for, and
commitment to, meeting the health care needs of Vermonters, particularly in
rural and underserved areas.
AROUND CAMPUS
Notables
Mann Receives
Chaigneau Prize
Hudziak and Osol
Named University
Scholars
VCHIP Symposium Draws
National Audience
An audience from around the U.S. came to the
UVM campus on July 30 and 31 as the Vermont
Child Health Improvement Program (VCHIP)
hosted the “Vermont Child Health Symposium:
Partnerships for Care Quality, Integration, and
Coordination.” In addition to addresses from
Vermont Blueprint for Health Director Craig
Jones, M.D., American Academy of Pediatrics
President Judith Palfrey, M.D., and several UVM
faculty, participants attended sessions with VCHIP
Director Judith Shaw, Ed.D., M.P.H., R.N., to learn
how to establish similar child health improvement
programs based on the Vermont model.
A national leader in the charge for healthcare
reform for children, the VCHIP was the nation’s
first “Improvement Partnership” — a statewide
collaboration of multi-disciplinary public and
private partners that uses quality improvement
science to improve child healthcare systems,
practice, and child health outcomes.
Two College of Medicine
faculty members have been
named 2010–2011 University
Scholars. James Hudziak,
M.D., professor of psychiatry,
pediatrics, and medicine, and
George Osol, Ph.D., professor
of obstetrics, gynecology, and
reproductive sciences, were
honored at an awards ceremony
and reception for the new
Scholars earlier this year. The
University Scholars program
recognizes distinguished UVM
faculty members for sustained
excellence in research and
scholarly activities. The Scholars
are selected by a panel of
prominent faculty, based upon
nominations submitted by
UVM colleagues.
James Hudziak, M.D.
VCC Confers Juckett and Pilot Awards
George Osol, Ph.D.
Five Emeriti Honored
Five retiring members of the College of Medicine faculty
were honored at Commencement 2010 as emeriti. Richard
Bernstein, M.D. was Associate Professor of Psychiatry for 33
years; Kenneth Brown, M.D. was Professor of Medicine for
25 years; Jerold F. Lucey, M.D. was Professor of Pediatrics for
54 years; Arthur Levy, M.D. was Professor of Medicine for 47
years; and Susan K. Sobel, M.S.W. was Associate Professor of
Psychiatry for 15 years.
Simpatico and VPT
Earn NAMI National
Media Award
Exploring Careers in Health Care
Emerita Professor of Medicine Mimi Reardon, M.D.’67, donor and co-founder of the
Freeman Foundation Legacy Medical Scholarship program, with recipient Kira Fiset ’11.
6
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
MedQuest, a highly structured week-long
residential program for students interested in
future medical-related careers, took place on the
medical campus this summer. Students learned
from medical practitioners they shadowed and
from medical students who staff the program.
First-year medical student Nkem Aziken (above
right) helped lead a discussion in the College of
Medicine’s pathology lab during the program.
MedQuest is a program of UVM’s Area Health
Education Centers.
XXXX
Fred Friendly Seminars and
Vermont Public Television (VPT)
jointly received the National
Alliance on Mental Illness’
Outstanding Media Award for
Public Service in July at the
closing banquet of the NAMI
annual meeting in Washington,
Thomas Simpatico, M.D.
D.C. Professor of Public
Psychiatry Thomas Simpatico,
M.D., was both a panelist in the nationally-aired Fred Friendly
Seminars’ “Minds on the Edge: Facing Mental Illness” public
television program, and co-led a series of statewide activities
organized in collaboration with Vermont Law School and VPT.
UVM Med Photo
Professor of Medicine
Kenneth Mann,
Ph.D., was awarded
the Henri Chaigneau
International Prize of the
Association Française
des Hemophiles. The
annual, juried award was
presented for the impact
of Dr. Mann’s “seminal
work on phenotype
and genotype on future
theraputic interventions
Kenneth Mann, Ph.D.
for hemophiliac patients.”
The announcement was
made during an awards ceremony by the president of the
association during the Congress of the World Federation of
Hemophilia, which was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from
July 10th to July 14th.
Professor of Pathology Yvonne Janssen-Heininger,
Ph.D., has been named the Vermont Cancer Center’s
2010 Juckett Scholar. The two-year, $75,000 award
is funded by the Lake Champlain Cancer Research
Organization in memory of its founder, philanthropist
J. Walter Juckett. Three other UVM researchers,
Alan Howe, Ph.D., Karen Lounsbury, Ph.D., and
Mercedes Rincón, Ph.D., received one-year, $50,000
Pilot Project Awards, also funded by the LCCRO.
Sobel Recognized with Distinguished
Scientist Award
Yvonne JanssenHeininger, Ph.D.
The Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine (SEBM)
presented Burton Sobel, M.D., professor of medicine and
biochemistry, with an inaugural Distinguished Scientist Award
at its annual meeting
this spring in Anaheim,
Calif. The new award
was created to recognize
biomedical scientists who
are leaders in the field of
biomedicine, and who
have made significant
contributions to SEBM.
Burton Sobel, M.D.
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Skelly One of Six Lambaréné Schweitzer Fellows
The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship
(ASF) has announced that
University of Vermont medical
student Kathryn Skelly ’11
has been selected as one of six
U.S. medical students to serve
as a 2010 Lambaréné
Schweitzer Fellow.
ASF’s mission is to develop Kathryn Skelly
“Leaders in Service” who are
dedicated and skilled in meeting the health needs of
underserved populations, and whose example influences
and inspires others.
Skelly joins a select group of the more than 100 senior
medical students who have been competitively selected
as Lambaréné Schweitzer Fellows since 1979 — each
traveling to the iconic Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné,
Gabon, Africa. Founded in 1913 by Nobel Peace Laureate
Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the Schweitzer Hospital has served
as the surrounding region’s primary source of health care
for nearly 100 years. As one of only three Lambaréné
medical fellows, Skelly will spend three months acting
as a junior physician, working with an international staff
of the hospital’s Gabonese and expatriate professionals,
helping them to provide skilled care through over 35,000
outpatient visits and more than 6,000 hospitalizations
annually for patients from all parts of Gabon. Upon her
return to the U.S., she will become a Schweitzer Fellow for
Life, committed to working with vulnerable populations
throughout her professional career.
Fourth-year UVM medical student Kathryn Skelly will spend
three months working at the clinic founded by Dr. Albert Schweitzer
(at right) in Lambaréné, Gabon.
ASF also announced that eight UVM medical students
have been selected as 2010–11 New Hampshire-Vermont
Schweitzer Fellows. They join the nearly 200 other 2010–11
Schweitzer Fellows across the country in conceptualizing and
carrying out service projects that address the health needs of
underserved individuals and communities.
Irina Archipova-Jenkins ’13 and Vicash Dindwall ’13
will be working with the Vermont Refugee Resettlement
Program. Their aim is to empower refugees in the
Burlington, Vermont, area by creating a culturally
competent health literacy workshop series at the
Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program.
Krista Buckley ’13 and Kuang-Ning Huang ’13,
plan to improve the maternal and reproductive health of
Burlington’s Somali-Bantu refugee population by creating
a culturally competent Mothers-to-Mothers network. The
network will pass on information and advice relating to
maternal and reproductive health.
Delia French ’13 and Erica Pasciullo ’13 plan to
address refugee health by conducting a medical orientation
program for a target group of refugees living in Vermont’s
Champlain Valley region. The program will cover six basic
topics pertaining to health care in America. Sessions will
be led by first-year medical students and will empower
marginalized refugee groups to participate in their own
health care and navigate the American system, while also
providing medical students with an opportunity to develop
the skills necessary to communicate with patients across
cultural and language barriers.
Matthew Graf ’13 aims to address pediatric health
and literacy by improving and expanding “Bedside
Brainiacs,” a program established by 2009–10 Schweitzer
Fellow Piyush Gupta ’12 that offers daily school work
tutoring to pediatric inpatients receiving treatment at
Vermont Children’s Hospital at Fletcher Allen Health
Care. Graf will pursue expansion of the program into the
geriatric population.
In order to address the health of children with special
health needs, Cristine Velazco ’13 plans to develop an
extracurricular community-based program providing
organized recreational activities for this population. The
program will provide opportunities for the children to take
part in activities, such as art or music, that are adapted
to their unique needs, and to interact with their peers
through the help of volunteers. The program will also seek
to encourage participation from an interdisciplinary group
of UVM undergraduate and graduate students in nursing,
physical therapy, social work, as well as medical and
pre-medical students.
3 Questions
for William Jeffries, Ph.D.
One year ago, William B. Jeffries, Ph.D., became Senior Associate Dean for
Education at the College of Medicine. An accomplished teacher, scholar, and
administrator, Jeffries came to Vermont from Creighton University School
of Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska, where he was most recently Associate
Dean for Medical Education and Director of Academic Computing. At UVM,
he has responsibilities for Admissions and Vermont Integrated Curriculum.
He has worked extensively on the expansion of clinical clerkship programs
and the new Clinical Simulation Laboratory.
William Jeffries, Ph.D.
just marked your first
Q: You’ve
are some of the other
Q: What
1
anniversary at the College of
Medicine. What has surprised
you the most?
A: I came here knowing that UVM
students performed at a high level
and that there was a great deal of
effort from the faculty that went into
developing the Vermont Integrated
Curriculum [VIC]. But what I
really didn’t appreciate was the
high standards to which the faculty
hold the VIC. The dedication that
they have is really extraordinary. I
commented to one clerkship director
about how deeply invested in the
process they were and they said
“You’re darned right we’re invested —
this is our life. It’s highly important
to us!” It seemed to him that I was
stating the obvious, but in my opinion
the faculty here are first among peers
with respect to valuing teaching and
their commitment to ongoing quality
improvement of the curriculum. I’m
pleased to find these aspects here.
My job is made easier by the fact that
the faculty are leading the way on so
many curricular issues.
2
are your thoughts about
Q: What
recruiting the Class of 2014?
A: The students here are great.
They are very highly qualified,
and our Office of Admissions and
admissions committee have given
great attention to all kinds of diversity.
As a result, the College has enrolled
a record number of students from
underrepresented cultures. And we’ve
consistently increased academic
performance by our admitted
students. So our student body is now
more academically qualified than
ever, and more diverse than ever.
We have a fantastic representation
of Vermont and America in our
classes. In the coming year, we will
increase student involvement in the
admissions process. We’re looking for
new ways for students to participate
in the process — whether as fulltime members of the committee or
as interviewers. Every institution has
a culture, and the culture finds its
expression in the students, since they
have been selected to represent our
ideals. Thus, they have significant
insights into whether an applicant is a
good fit for our College.
3
key initiatives you’ve been
working on?
A: First is the establishment of
our new clinical education sites, in
addition to our primary partner,
Fletcher Allen Health Care.
Fortunately for me a number of
contacts had been made prior to my
arrival and we have had three new
partners who emerged to help us
with clinical education, at Danbury
Hospital, St. Mary’s Hospital in West
Palm Beach, and Eastern Maine
Medical Center in Bangor. Secondly,
I’ve worked with a team from the
Colleges of Medicine and Nursing and
Health Sciences, and from Fletcher
Allen, to establish a clinical simulation
laboratory. This is a natural outgrowth
of our long tradition of innovative
clinical teaching and assessment. I’m
also looking at the culture of medical
education scholarship, seeing where we
can contribute further to the literature
on best practices in teaching, We’ve
been leaders in a number of educational
innovations and we need to capture
those and put them forward for the
wider educational community to learn
from. And finally, I’m working on a
teaching academy — a way of sharing
best practices among our own faculty.
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Top: UVM Med Photo; Above: Keystone/Corbis
PHOTOGRAPHER
UVM
Med Photo NAME, PHOTOGRAPHER NAME
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C OLLEGE NE W S
High School
Student’s Stem
Cell Research
Earns Accolades
Clinical Simulation
Laboratory Construction
Underway
Extra-curricular school and sports activities
fill the lives of many teens, but South
Burlington High School student Pooja
Desai has an additional, less-typical
pastime — studying stem cells at the
College of Medicine. Since January 2010,
Desai has spent two to three afternoons
per week working in the laboratory of
Daniel Weiss, M.D., Ph.D., associate
professor of medicine and pulmonary
and critical care medicine specialist, with
support from laboratory/research assistant
Pooja Desai (at right) a student at South Burlington High School, performed stem cell
research with Amanda Daly (left) in the Weiss laboratory.
Amanda Daly. The results of her work
— research titled “The Effect of Injecting
specimens, and then find out if, once recellularized with
Stem Cells into Cadaveric Decellularized Lungs” — earned
stem cells, the cells would differentiate into the alveolar and
a gold medal at the Vermont State Science and Mathematics
airway epithelial cells typically found in the lungs.
Fair this spring, as well as the privilege to attend the Intel
“Pooja is one of the most motivated and talented
International Science and Engineering Fair in San Jose,
people I’ve had pleasure to mentor,” said Weiss, whose
California — and event that brings together 1700 high
own extensively published work centers around stem
school students from around the world.
cells and lung disease.
Inspired by a lack of lung transplant donors for patients
Desai, who began her senior year this fall, also
with Cystic Fibrosis and other lung diseases such as emphysema,
received a Society for In Vitro Biology award, Naval
Desai’s general hypothesis was to determine whether or not
Science award and Next Generation Scholarship from St.
functional lung tissue could be generated by injecting stem
Michael’s College at the State Science and Mathematics
cells into decellularized lungs. The two main aims of her
Fair. She plans to continue working in Dr. Weiss’
work are first to determine whether she could decellularize
laboratory throughout this current school year.
— remove all the cellular tissue from — the lung in her
AROUND CAMPUS
Recognizing Years of Leadership
William Pendlebury, M.D.’76, professor of
pathology (at right in photo) and Paula Duncan,
M.D., professor of pediatrics (at left) have
been co-directors of the Foundations Level
Generations course in the Vermont Integrated
Curriculum since its first delivery in the fall
of 2004, and Pendlebury is the original course
director from the inception of course planning
in 2001. Their contributions to Generations
and the VIC were celebrated on June 24 at
a reception in the College’s Hoehl Gallery.
Charlotte Reback, M.D., clinical assistant
professor of family medicine, takes over this fall
as the new course director for Generations.
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V E R M O N T
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UVM Med Photo
Late this summer work commenced on the new Clinical
Simulation Laboratory on the second floor of the Rowell
Building. The new facility is a cooperative project of the
College of Medicine, the College of Nursing and Health
Sciences, and Fletcher Allen Health Care.
When completed in January 2011, the laboratory will
contain surgical skills stations, simulated patient rooms and
control stations, and a multi-purpose suite that can simulate
an intensive care unit, trauma unit, or post-anesthesia
care unit. The new facility will provide
state-of-the-art simulation learning
experiences to medical and
nursing students, Fletcher
Allen providers, and
members of the Vermont
National Guard.
A second later phase
of the project will connect
the laboratory directly to the
second story of the Given Building
with a glassed-in corridor.
The new Clinical Simulation Laboratory in the Rowell Building
contains settings and state-of-the-art equipment to simulate
almost any medical procedure.
AHEC and Office of Nursing Workforce Merge
The UVM Area Health Education Centers (AHEC)
Program announced in July that the Office of Nursing
Workforce Research, Planning, and Development would
formally become part of AHEC. The statewide Office of
Nursing Workforce was established in December 2001
to implement the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon
Nursing Commission to respond to Vermont’s nursing
shortage with support from the Vermont Agency of
Human Services and other state and federal grants.
“We are pleased to make official this interdisciplinary
approach to Vermont’s healthcare workforce development
needs,” said Elizabeth Cote, director of the UVM AHEC
Program. “Primary care and nursing are intricately linked and
adding these nursing workforce activities helps strengthen
our program. This merger formalizes and streamlines the
team approach to health education and healthcare workforce
research that AHEC and the Office of Nursing Workforce
have collaborated on for the past nine years.”
Mary Val Palumbo, D.N.P., A.P.R.N., director of
the Office of Nursing Workforce and associate professor
of nursing, said “Becoming a part of AHEC will provide
UMV Med Photo
a sustainable and
efficient framework
that will allow us to
continue to build on the
education, research, and
development programs
for Vermont’s nursing
students and nurses.
The biggest change for
our stakeholders will be
higher efficiency and
greater synergy since we
can leverage the grant
As a new part of AHEC, the Office of Nursing
writing opportunities,
Workforce will continue to work to help meet
Vermont’s nursing needs met by people like Doreen
resources, reach, and
Goodrich, R.N., at Fletcher Allen Health Care.
programs available
through AHEC.”
In addition to nursing workforce research, Palumbo
will continue to teach UVM nursing students, and serve as
AHEC’s liaison to both the UVM College of Nursing and
Health Sciences and the UVM Center on Aging.
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t
his year marked the 10th anniversary of
the completion of the draft sequence of
David Yandell, Sc.D.
the human genome. On the day in June of
Professor of Pathology and Medicine
2000 when the sequencing was announced,
then-President Bill Clinton was quoted as
predicting that “Genome science will have a
real impact on all our lives — and even more,
the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of
most, if not all, human disease.”
Vermont Medicine asked two College
of Medicine faculty experts to share their
perspectives on the scientific value that has
been realized by the sequencing of the human
genome, and the biomedical advances that
have been achieved over the past ten years,
as well as a look ahead to what might be
expected in the scientific future.
Revolution
defining the
F a c u lt y P e r s p e c t i v e s o n t h e H u m a n G e n o m e 1 0 th A n n i v e r s a r y
Russell Tracy, Ph.D.
Professor of Pathology and
Biochemistry, and Director, Clinical
Technologies, Center for Clinical
and Translational Science
An ABCC-Board certified clinical chemist, Tracy is the former
senior associate dean for research at the College of Medicine and
serves as director of the Laboratory for Clinical Biochemistry
Research, which currently uses a wide variety of assays in
the research settings of molecular and genetic epidemiology,
particularly in the areas of coagulation, fibrinolysis, thrombosis,
and inflammation. His research interests include the
pathophysiology of, and influence of genes on, atherosclerosis
and coronary heart disease, other chronic diseases, and aging.
“In my experience, when biomedical scientists and
clinicians think about genome sciences, they tend to fall
into one of two camps. Most of the people in both camps
feel that the publicity which has accompanied the various
milestones to date (the first human genome sequence, the
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UV M
The work of two UVM researchers shows genomics
at work in today’s labs at the College.
Yandell, who established a Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory at UVM
in order to enhance the University’s capacity to perform research in cancer
genetics, served as director of the Vermont Cancer Center from 1995 to
2006 and created the Familial Cancer Program of the VCC. His research
focuses on the molecular genetics of familial cancer predisposition. Yandell
played a key role in the identification and sequencing of the gene for
retinoblastoma — a hereditary cancer that causes tumors of the retina and
typically afflicts 250 to 300 children per year. With Alan Guttmacher,
M.D., a former Vermont Regional Genetics Center director and former
acting director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, Yandell
helped establish a statewide Vermont Human Genetics Initiative.
on the lives of our children. It will revolutionize
@
g e nomics
HapMap, and more recently, the spate of Genome-Wide
Association Studies, or GWAS), has been overstated.
In addition, one camp feels the process has been a ‘bust,’
and that little of real significance has been found. The
other camp believes that genome science is a long process,
one which we have just begun; therefore, it’s not surprising
we haven’t yet made many — some might say any —
major breakthroughs.”
“I’m in the second camp. Genome sciences take a
lot of resources, so justifiably it’s a target for criticism;
those resources could have gone to other projects, other
science. However, I believe the process should be driven
considerably further than it has been, and strongly support
it. I believe we will, one day, understand how genes and
the environment interact to affect human health and
disease, but that it’s going to take time. The systems are
far more complex than was originally thought. As we
peel back each successive layer of the onion, we find the
complexity has gone up by another order of magnitude.
Nonetheless, I feel this work must be done, and the
complexity will ultimately yield to hard work. The
reward will be enormous.”
UVM Med Photo; James Yang, Corbis
“So far, predictions that sequencing the entire human genome
would revolutionize medical care for the masses have not come true,
but it’s important to understand that most geneticists and genome
scientists never said this would happen. The revolution that has
occurred from sequencing our genome — and that of other species,
including many pathogenic organisms that cause disease in humans
— has been in our understanding of exactly how many of these
human diseases occur. So far, the revolution in new treatments hasn’t
materialized, but there certainly has been a revolution in the number
of targets and strategies that can be exploited by future treatments.
This work is not finished.”
“Our health care system has taught us to demand magic bullets
for our ailments, but the human body is a complex system. Complex
systems can fail in complex ways that don’t always respond to simple
solutions. Our understanding of the human genome from the last
20 years tells us that most very common human diseases, for the
most part, have no simple single genetic basis or mechanism that
will be fixable with a magic bullet. This is especially true of the most
common diseases associated with aging, which occur as a complicated
dance between our environment, time, and the natural genetic
variation that occurs in our species. For these diseases of aging, there
seem to be many possible routes to arrive at the same endpoint that
we call ‘disease,’ but which in fact may be a natural and necessary
by-product of the need for biological variation in evolution. It’s also
very important to understand that, while sequencing the human
genome has so far led to no major revolution in medical care for the
most common human diseases, there has been a true revolution in
treatment and in hope for many, many people with rare disorders that
have a simple genetic basis — literally thousands of disorders affecting
millions of people worldwide. The human genome project has been
massively successful in finding the causes of these simple genetic
diseases, revolutionizing both diagnosis and treatment options for
those who are affected.” VM
Above: UVM Med Photo; at top right: istockphoto.com/artisticcaptures;
at bottom right: MedicalRF.com/Getty Images
Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, and Pediatrics James
Hudziak, M.D., who also directs the Vermont Center for
Children, Youth and Familes, is spearheading a genomic
study of more than 4,700 twins and their families. He
and his co-investigators Robert Althoff, M.D., Ph.D.,
and Davis Rettew, M.D., are searching for clues to the
possible genetic factors that contribute to Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder, and other behavioral conditions
such as anxiety and depression. By examining over one
million small sequence variations in the DNA of twins, they
hope to find the one thing that changes in the genome to
contribute to specific childhood disorders.
Associate Professor of Medicine Mercedes Rincón, Ph.D.,
is using genomic science to study the mechanism at the
molecular level that controls the development, activation,
differentiation, and survival of T-cells, also known as
T-lymphocytes, cells that play a key role in the fighting of
infection by the body’s immune system. Rincón’s work has
already resulted in important findings published in the
top-tier journal Science.
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Class
of 2010
Receives
Degrees
W
ith health care reform and its effect on
the physician workforce supply high on
the list of critical issues in the news, 104
new doctors — graduates in the College of Medicine’s
Class of 2010 — officially joined these ranks on May
23. A total of 45 of these graduates have headed into
residencies this summer in the primary care fields of
family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics,
and 15 members of this class will stay in Vermont for
specialty training. Darrell G. Kirch, M.D., president
and CEO of the Association of American Medical
Colleges (AAMC), which represents the nation’s
medical schools, teaching hospitals,
and academic societies, delivered
the keynote address at the College’s
Commencement ceremony in
UVM’s Ira Allen Chapel.
A member of the Institute
of Medicine of the National
Academies, Kirch joined the
AAMC as president in 2006.
Medical students began
residencies this summer in a wide
range of subspecialties, at many of
the top medical institutions across
Darrell G. Kirch, M.D.
the country. Four of the members
of the College of Medicine’s Class of 2010 completed
UVM’s M.D.-Ph.D. program (see sidebar at right).
An additional group of 16 students earned doctoral
degrees, and four others earned master’s degrees from
the College of Medicine.
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Every member of the Class of 2010 has a unique story;
here are just a few profiles of some of the most recent
Vermonters now beginning their careers as physicians.
Rutland, Vt., native Trevor Pour
organized sessions on issues
ranging from proper nutrition to
the dangers of cigarette smoking
for teens at Burlington’s King
Street Center and later conducted
research on the Catamount Health
Plan and PACE Vermont while
attending medical school.
Now working in emergency medicine as a resident
at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City, Pour would
like to play a future role in developing health care policy,
focusing on ways to cut spending while improving patient
safety and standards of care, as well as studying unique
payer-systems.
Jessie Janowski of West Glover,
Vt., benefitted from the close-knit
community and passionate local
teachers who instilled in her a love
of science and sense of civic duty.
A quantitative economics major
on the varsity basketball and crew
teams at Tufts University, she
held lab research jobs in Boston,
Vermont, and Rhode Island, but yearned for hands-on
work with the community and came to medical school.
This summer, she began her training as an orthopaedic
surgeon at Fletcher Allen Health Care.
Four Physician-Scientists
Four members of the Class of 2010 spent more than the usual four
years on the medical campus. Christopher Bradbury, Ammon Fager,
Whittney Barkhuff, and David Curley all completed their M.D./Ph.D.
“We had a lively group, with great personal chemistry and real
enthusiasm,” said Stephen Lidofsky, M.D.,Ph.D., professor of medicine
and pharmacology, who oversees the M.D./Ph.D. program.
Christopher Bradbury spent several years working in a National
Institutes of Health laboratory studying radiation and biology. This
experience, plus a longstanding interest in cancer research, dovetailed
into his work at UVM on the function of genes thought to suppress
melanoma. He is now in a radiation oncology residency program at
Washington University Medical Center.
Ammon Fager spent several years working in a cancer biology
lab after college. At UVM he found a home in the lab of Interim Chair
of Biochemistry Paula Tracy, Ph.D., where he studied ways proteins
and blood platelets interact to bring about coagulation. He is now in a
special residency at Duke University Medical Center that will allow
him to segue into a hematology fellowship in two years.
Whittney Barkhuff worked at a small biotech firm that made
patient-specific vaccines for b-lymphoma before coming to UVM and
beginning her work with Professor of Microbiology and Molecular
Genetics Gary Ward, Ph.D., studying the biology of Toxoplasma gondii, a
parasite that can cause serious infections in persons with compromised
immune systems, as well as severe pregnancy complications. She is now
a resident in pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital.
After working at the Harvard Nature Genetics Laboratory, David
Curley came to the College of Medicine and investigated the biology of
proteins linked to aggressive melanoma as part of his M.D./Ph.D. work. In
2009, he won the Warshaw Scholarship Award. His research, along with
an interest in emergency medicine developed at UVM, have led him to
an integrative emergency medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s
Hospital in Boston that will also allow him protected research time.
Kristen Van Woert Connolly
grew up in Shelburne, Vt., and
graduated from Champlain Valley
Union High School and Williams
College in Massachusetts. In
2004, she returned to Vermont,
where she coached soccer at CVU,
worked at NRG in Hinesburg,
worked in the lab of George
Osol, Ph.D., UVM professor of obstetrics, gynecology
and reproductive sciences and volunteered at Vermont
Children’s Hospital and on the oncology floor at Fletcher
Allen. She has begun serving a three-year residency in
pediatrics, joining her husband Greg, a 2007 alumnus
of the College of Medicine who now practices pediatrics
in Burlington. VM
M.D./Ph.D. graduates (L–R): Christopher Bradbury, Ammon Fager,
Whittney Barkhuff, and David Curley
UVM Med Photo
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learning on the
fronT
line
by Jennifer Nachbur
| photography by Raj Chawla
Fourth-year medical students get hands-on
experience during clinical rotations in
emergency medicine — one of today’s
fastest growing specialties.
A
Professor of Surgery and Chief of Emergency Medicine Stephen Leffler,
M.D.’90 examines a patient with Sean Toussaint, M.D.’09, during
Tousaint’s fourth-year rotation in the Emergency Department.
Toussaint is now a second-year resident in Emergency Medicine at
Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y.
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mix of beeps, hums and voices fills the air down the hallways that
wind past curtained-off treatment areas, clinical stations, and exam
rooms. Scrub-clad, Croc-footed nurses, attending physicians,
physician assistants and emergency medical technicians scurry back and forth.
A small nurses station and set of physician cubicles are separated by a row
of WOWs (computer Workstations On Wheels) where three University of
Vermont medical students stand, busily scanning electronic medical records for
test results and calmly entering patient notes amid the flurry of activity.
Nearing the end of a required month-long emergency medicine rotation
in June, these fourth-year students are working in the Acute Care Center of
Fletcher Allen Health Care’s Emergency Department (E.D.). “We’re not allowed
to sit on chairs,” jokes Matthew Meyer’11 as he looks up information on a case
through the Access Medicine portal on the PRISM electronic health record
system. On either side of him, classmates Heather Viani and Mary Guillot
update patient records, selecting symptom information like “no chest pain” from
the electronic chart’s menu, checking boxes that allow students — like providers
— to quickly enter critical information, such as when the patient came into the
unit, what type of complaint or symptoms the patient is experiencing and any
medicines they might be taking.
Around the corner in a separate hallway, M.D.-Ph.D. student Michelle
Shepard stands at the door of an exam room and talks to a patient and family
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(Above) As students Michelle Shepard and Matt Meyer enter data
at the WOW station, left, Jessica Sayer consults with Associate
Professor of Surgery Maj Eisinger, M.D., before seeing a patient.
(Below) With Eisinger’s guidance, Sayre treats a patient’s injured eye.
members. The patient, who has already undergone urine
testing, needs a finger stick before she can leave the E.D.
In her friendly manner, Shepard informs the patient that
a nurse will be in to do the stick and counsels her about
health issues that can cause glucose in the urine, then
returns the patient’s chart to a room number-ordered
inbox system at the nearest nurses’ station.
“PRISM helps us keep track of who we’re seeing,”
says Shepard, who has completed her Ph.D. and is now
finishing the “fourth year” of her M.D. “We don’t have to
chase down people for results.” The electronic system also
alerts the E.D. about patients arriving by ambulance,
which helps ensure that students get the chance to
experience a variety of training opportunities, including
imaging and diagnostics.
“You get to see a lot of different things here. There’s
definitely a learning curve, but it’s a great training ground,”
says Heather Viani, who is using one of the WOW stations
to access information about hyponatremia, an electrolyte
disturbance in patients with low sodium levels.
“It wasn’t busy in the morning, but it picked up
at noon,” says Shepard who, earlier in the day, had an
opportunity to view a lumbar puncture with attending
physician David Clauss, M.D., associate professor of
surgery. Fourth-year medical student Alan Frascoia has
been busy suturing a laceration in the E.D.’s Orthopaedic
Treatment Area.
Both Frascoia and Shepard admit that they will miss
the E.D. when their Emergency Medicine rotation ends.
Their feelings are shared by many other UVM medical
students. In the past four years, Emergency Medicine
residency matches at UVM have risen from five students in
2006 to 14 in the 2009 Match and 13 in the 2010 Match.
And that trend is mirrored across the country. According
to the National Resident Match Program, the number of
U.S. medical school seniors headed to Emergency Medicine
residencies increased for the fifth consecutive year in 2010.
So what is Emergency Medicine and why do students
find it so appealing? According to the American Board of
Medical Specialties, it focuses “on the immediate decisionmaking and action necessary to prevent death or any further
disability both in the pre-hospital setting by directing
emergency medical technicians and in the emergency
department.” An emergency physician is responsible
for providing “immediate recognition, evaluation, care,
stabilization and disposition of a generally diversified
population of adult and pediatric patients in response to
acute illness and injury.”
During any given month, as many as six UVM
students are rotating in Fletcher Allen’s E.D., the state’s only
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Medical student Alan Frascoia gives a patient his first examination.
“Being able to see patients first gives you an idea of what patients really
look like when they come in, rather than later on when they’re more
stable,” Frascoia says.
Level One Trauma Center. Stephen Leffler, M.D.’90, chief
of emergency medicine and professor of surgery, believes
the popularity of Emergency Medicine at UVM is linked
to two major factors. First, the rotation is part of the core
curriculum, so every medical student is exposed to the
specialty. Second, in a curriculum that stresses extensive
clinical exposure, the Emergency Medicine rotation packs
an extra promise: here, the student typically gets to see the
patient before anyone else does.
“When the students rotate down here, they go see
patients first. Then, afterwards, they have an attending
go back in with them and verify their findings. There’s a
lot of mentoring that goes on here,” he says. “That’s often
one of the first times in medical school that they’ve had
the opportunity to be the first person in,” explains Leffler.
“We’ve done this a long time, so we know which rooms it’s
OK for them to go in first. Sometimes I’m following them
in, and sometimes they’re following me in. They’re getting
procedures here; they’re actually part of the care team from
the beginning.”
For 15 years, while most current medical students were
growing up, the television series ER was among the top ten
weekly programs. Is there a correlation between ER’s
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success and the rise in Emergency Medicine’s popularity?
“That show probably had a positive effect on our specialty,
because people got to see what it’s like,” says Leffler. “But
I think we’ve had more people going into this specialty
because we have a really good group of docs here — we’re
very accessible,” he says. Many UVM students are exposed
to Emergency Medicine prior to the clerkships through the
mentorship of Mario Trabulsy, M.D., an associate professor
of surgery and E.D. attending who leads a first-year Medical
Student Leadership Group and invites students to shadow
her in the E.D.
Students might get a
little more frontline
exposure to patients here
than they would in a place
where there are secondand third-year residents.
—Stephen Leffler, M.D.’90,
At UVM, students interact directly with attending
physicians rather than residents, since UVM/Fletcher
Allen does not yet have an Emergency Medicine residency
graduate medical education program, though Leffler is
actively working on a future program. In the meantime,
Leffler notes that “students might get a little more frontline
exposure to patients here than they would in a place where
there are second- and third-year residents.”
Students come to the E.D. every morning, Monday
through Friday, from 8 to 9 o’clock for a group lecture
during their rotation. Students are assigned to different
shifts like the clinical staff — some work during the
daytime, some work evenings. When seeing a patient, the
student conducts a physical examination first, and then
reports to the attending physician for guidance.
Having the opportunity to learn to take care of all
kinds of problems — from pediatrics to geriatrics and
trauma cases to the common cold — also holds special
appeal, according to Leffler. “Here you get broad-based
exposure to all of medicine,” he says. “You have to have
skills across the full spectrum of medicine, and enjoy the
challenge of diagnosing and thinking on your feet.” This
means both the excitement of life-saving medicine, and the
more prosaic procedures, too. “You can go through three
to four shifts with no action,” says Leffler. Students see as
many or more sore throats as trauma cases. To help prepare
students — and especially future Emergency Medicine
specialists — for the health care system’s increasing
dependence on E.D.s, Leffler wants to ensure they are able
to make critical decisions, and to control the number of
tests they rely on — and not have the tests control them.
“Critical thinking helps no matter what specialty,” he says.
“If a test won’t change case management, our philosophy is
‘don’t get the test’.”
Class of 2010 graduates Trevor Pour, M.D., and Sarah
Logan, M.D., were among Leffler’s most recent mentees.
Their experiences prompted unexpected decisions to pursue
the specialty, but for distinctly different reasons.
An active public health and health policy advocate,
Pour was leaning toward neurology or psychiatry when
he began an emergency medicine rotation during the first
month of his fourth year in his hometown at Rutland
Regional Medical Center (RRMC). “I got hooked on it
a little bit,” he says, and after a month-long rotation in
neurology and another month doing psychiatry at Fletcher
Allen, he struggled to determine which specialty to pursue.
On a hot summer day, medical student Matt Meyer ’11, left,
and Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery Martin Bak, M.D.,
right, see a patient suffering from heat exhaustion.
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Kalev Freeman, M.D., Ph.D. (at left) with
research associate Brett Larson.
Research and Learning
from Emergent Cases
By their very nature, emergency medicine cases
present some daunting barriers to effective
medical research. They appear in front of the
physician anytime of day or night and, of course,
their immediate and effective treatment is of
paramount concern. But, by planning carefully
and using the educative possibilities of research
to the best advantage, investigators such as
Kalev Freeman, M.D., Ph.D., are increasing the
ability to gain knowledge from emergent cases.
A research assistant professor of surgery,
Freeman came to the College of Medicine three
years ago. “It’s not easy to find a place that will
offer an emergency medicine physician the
chance to have a sizeable piece of time devoted
to research,” Freeman explains. “So I was
thrilled Dr. Leffler and Dr. McFadden, the chair of
surgery, offered me this chance.” Freeman now
devotes 75 percent of his time to research, with
the remainder spent treating patients in the
Fletcher Allen Emergency Department.
One important part of Freeman’s current
research is the study of traumatic brain injury
(TBI) and the related negative effects of the
body’s stress response to TBI. “It’s amazing to
see the range of conditions that can come from
the stress response that follows even a small
TBI,” he says. “You can get a heart attack as an
outgrowth of sustaining a TBI. And yet we know
relatively little about this whole process.”
Freeman has worked with fellow faculty
members from across the university to build a
cadre of undergraduate students who gather
data for studies at any time in the Emergency
Department, and medical and graduate
students frequently assist in work in the
laboratory space he uses in the Given Building.
A bonus opportunity aided his decision-making process —
UVM students begin their training about three months earlier
than other medical schools, so Pour was able to squeeze in a second
Emergency Medicine rotation at Bellevue Hospital Center in New
York City prior to applying to residency programs. That extra
experience clinched his decision, and with guidance from Leffler, he
applied for Emergency Medicine residencies and matched at Mt. Sinai
Medical Center in New York City.
“You get to do hands-on procedural work, counsel patients and
see where medicine hits the ground — the ‘front line’,” shares Pour,
who feels the broader perspective of Emergency Medicine is better
suited to the health policy work he expects to do in the future.
Sarah Logan’s original specialty choice was linked to
a personal experience. “My brother had ALL (acute
lymphoblastic leukemia) and was successfully treated —
that was my motivation to attend medical school,” she says.
“I loved my pediatrics-related electives third and fourth year and
was 100 percent set on pediatrics and thinking about pediatric
hematology/oncology.”
During her rotation in the Fletcher Allen E.D., Logan made “a
complete 180,” she says. “It was the first opportunity where I could
use all the medical knowledge and training I had acquired in real time.
You have a unique opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life
in a short window of time.”
Now a resident at Stanford Hospital and Clinics in Palo Alto,
Calif., at graduation Logan received the College’s Society for Academic
Emergency Medicine Award for excellence in Emergency Medicine.
For current student Michelle Shepard, the E.D. is like night and day
compared to the lab where she completed her Ph.D. work. While she
finds the pace tiring, she admits the work is satisfying. “A lot of people
come in, get better, and leave,” says Shepard, who also appreciates
the rewards that come with the Emergency Medicine rotation. You
get to assess patients first and use your knowledge of physiology and
pathology. And you see the things you’ve studied about for three years
actually show up,” she says.
Fellow student Alan Frascoia agrees. “Here we get to try and
diagnose,” he says. He appreciates the ways Emergency Medicine
provides different perspectives of the patient than students usually see
on an inpatient floor. “Being able to see patients first gives you an idea
of what patients really look like when they come in, rather than later
on when they’re more stable,” he says.
In an editorial for the May 2010 AAMC Reporter, Angela
Gardner, M.D., president of the American College of Emergency
Physicians, summed up both the broad responsibilities and the broad
appeal of emergency medicine: “We also see every side of humanity
and every segment of society. We treat rich and poor, old and young,
the whole soup of human existence. One of emergency medicine’s
pioneers used to say ‘no shoes, no socks, no shorts, no shirts, no sanity,
no sobriety, no problem. I’m an ER doctor. I’m your physician. We’re
always here. We always care.” VM
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21
SHAKEN
stude n t
v i ew
A Medical Student Looks Back on a Rotation in Haiti
t
by Nicholas Aunchman ’11
he young boy’s eyes were wide with anticipation
and his mouth open as I handed him the piece of
chocolate I had been carrying in my backpack for
days. I wished I could offer him more, knowing that
his life was already filled with poverty and disease,
and his next meal was anything but planned. He
was four, but had the height and weight of a two year old.
His failure to thrive had rendered his naturally curly black
hair a tinted shade of red. His naked feet were covered in
blisters in the absence of shoes and his ribs were protruding
through his skin as if desperate to escape. The earthquake
had left his mother a widow who struggled to care for
him and his siblings in the remnants of their home town.
The same earthquake that had shattered the buildings and
what remained of the economic structure in Port-au-Prince
and its surrounding provinces on January 12, 2010, had
also shattered whatever hope he had left. The boy lived in
what used to be a beautiful city, Leogane, now only known
worldwide as the epicenter of the Haitian earthquake. I
watched as he ate the piece of chocolate, careful to leave no
crumbs, as if it were the last piece he’d ever see.
I traveled to Port au Prince two months after the
earthquake that registered 7.0 on the Richter scale,
and its more than 50 aftershocks that shook the small
Caribbean country. This was my second trip to the island
of Hispaniola, having been here three years earlier with
a group from the Department of Surgery. The journey
transformed my view of healthcare and humanity, and
further confirmed my belief that we as humanitarians
can never do enough. Once the richest colony in the
New World, Haiti now ranks as the poorest country in
the Western Hemisphere. Fourteen of every 100 children
die before the age of two, and the majority of children
under five are malnourished. The inhospitable conditions,
inadequate health care, and lack of proper nutrition
22
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
cultivated disease in Haiti unlike anything I had ever
seen. More remarkable and memorable, however, were the
children I met during my stay. Seeing them made it obvious
that disease and malnutrition had extended its grasp to even
the smallest and most vulnerable. Were it not for the meals
provided by various relief groups and militaries, a large
portion of the children would surely have perished. As it
was, an estimated 230,000 people had died, 300,000 had
been injured and over a million had been left homeless. The
majority of the children were excited to see visitors. Others
were sad and lonely, longing to be comforted, but timid to
ask for the privilege.
My time in Haiti was divided among multiple
hospitals and locations throughout Port-au-Prince and
the surrounding provinces on an as-needed basis. I arrived
with my team at Quisqueya Christian School, which was
originally constructed for foreign missionary and diplomats’
children, and now was converted into a command center
for medical disaster relief. Following the earthquake, the
school closed due to dwindling numbers of students, high
numbers of teachers returning to the U.S., and a large
portion of the children of foreign professionals who’d
left the country with their families. Struggling to stay in
“I have learned during my upbringing
in Vermont and from the education
and experiences I’ve had in school
that, no matter how far you travel
from home, problems still exist on
your own doorstep.”
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23
Working with his team members from Vermont, Nicholas Aunchman ’11
treated patients at numerous hospitals and other locations throughout
Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas.
With three years of medical school under my belt,
and a little over a year away from graduation, I was pretty
sure I would be able to handle any crush injury or infected
wound that came my way. And for the most part, minus
the experience and medical confidence to handle some
situations, I was right. Additionally, I lucked out and was
fortunate to have an amazing team to work with. Medically,
we performed some amazing acts: removing rebar from
a photographer’s leg, setting fractures, treating tropical
infectious diseases, and even aiding a young woman who
was hemorrhaging following a spontaneous abortion.
What I was not ready for was the emotional diarrhea that
would follow. I consider myself a fairly emotionally stable
person, but spending over a week caring for elderly who are
dying in front of you and mothers whose babies are limp
and lifeless because they are getting no nutrition has an
undeniable effect. I have trained for marathons, I’ve trained
for medical school, but I’d never trained for the images and
sights I witnessed in Port-au-Prince in March. It was not the
24
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
gruesome images, but the widow with one-month-old twins
who had lost her husband when their roof fell on him, or
the grown men sleeping in the streets begging for a job,
that will follow me forever. Nowadays, as I sit in the well
lit, air conditioned medical library studying for my medical
boards, the images make me realize that there are people out
there right now who may die tomorrow because no one is
there to help them.
Port-au-Prince may be thousands of miles away from
Burlington, and the 5.5 rumbling last June that passes
for an earthquake in this region may have been barely
noticeable to most, but yet there are still those here who
hang on the edge of healthcare. I have learned during
my upbringing in Vermont and from the education and
experiences I’ve had in school that, no matter how far
you travel from home, problems still exist on your own
doorstep. I have had the opportunities to see and experience
all aspects of the healthcare system, and how it affects those
it encompasses, but I have yet to understand how it misses
so many. During my clinical years of school I had the
opportunity to work in various offices throughout the state,
and I’ve learned that neglect, poverty, malnutrition, and
subsequent disease still exist even here in Vermont. It seems
to me that the question we as physicians (and those of us
soon to be physicians) have to ask ourselves is: How can this
happen? How can we learn to prevent it, and how can we
make it easier for those who seek to help themselves?
In the ever-powerful, industrialized United States,
situations such as the starving children I witnessed in Haiti
are not as common, but still present. Adults and children in
developing countries are often faced daily with starvation,
HIV, poverty and death. Countless children must fend
for themselves, orphaned or left for dead by their parents.
My goal as a future physician is to assist in caring for these
children and find ways of preventing their conditions.
Having grown up in small rural towns in Vermont, the aim
of my medical career is toward underserved regions. My
everyday experiences, connection, and enthusiasm for the
younger population push me to follow this path. Reflecting
on what I have done, seen, and hope to do as a physician I
realize I want to use the knowledge and tools I have acquired
at medical school and working in various underserved
regions in Vermont to understand how it is that so many in
Haiti are living below the poverty line, and why it is they can
barely care for themselves, let alone their offspring. I would
like to be able to apply what I have learned in rural Vermont
on a global scale to understand why certain populations are
at risk. Most importantly, I want to understand how we as
physicians, or future physicians, can best utilize our resources
and knowledge to follow the time-honored tenet of medical
ethics: salus aegroti suprema lex — always, no matter what the
cost, act in the best interest of the patient. VM
President’s Corner
26
Class Notes
27
Development News
29
Obituaries
36
Reunion ’10
38
H A LL A
part to help, the school’s remaining teachers reached out to
various groups and organizations and offered their facilities
as a base camp. Before they knew it, teams from all over the
world were setting up camp in their backyard, including the
United States military. With an intact structural foundation,
and an even stronger emotional and spiritual foundation,
the teachers of Quisqueya used their knowledge of
Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas to disperse the
various organizations and groups in their backyard to
locations with the most need. So the Vermont Federation
of Nurses and Health Care Professionals team I arrived
with were able to reach out and help as many as we could
in the small amount of time we spent in the country.
In 1905, when the College of Medicine completed its third home at the corner
of Prospect and Pearl streets in Burlington, the main lecture room was named
Hall A. For the next 63 years, students such as the members of the Class of
1955 (shown above listening to the legendary Prof. Ellsworth Amidon, M.D.’32)
spent much of their time in the hall. Today’s students take in lectures in the
Sullivan Classroom or in the recently renovated Carpenter Auditorium, but
the College’s educational mission of inspiring a lifetime of learning in the
service of the patient remains the same. The Hall A magazine section is a
meeting place in print for all former students of the College of Medicine.
Bottom: Raj Chawla, UVM Med Photo
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25
P RESIDENT ’ S C ORNER
H A LL A
University of Vermont
College of Medicine
development &
alumni relations office
Assistant Dean
Rick Blount
As I begin my tenure as president of the Medical Alumni
Association, I have to first look back with gratitude to
the men and women who have preceded me in this
office, especially Ruth Seeler, M.D.’62, who has led
the organization so well for the past two years. Ruth’s
commitment to her patients and their families is legendary,
which makes it even more amazing that she was able to give so much of her
limited free time to help foster the growth of her medical alma mater.
As a “local doc” — a professor of surgery at the College and Fletcher Allen
Health Care — I look forward to being involved on a regular basis with the
needs and concerns of my fellow alumni. I may be a local now, but there was a
time nearly 40 years ago when UVM and I were new to each other. I came here
from Maine, with my newly minted undergraduate degree from Holy Cross in
hand, and not much money in my wallet. But thanks to funds from the state of
Maine and from a New York Life scholarship I’d won, a medical education was
put within my reach: I grabbed hold and worked hard, and in return I’ve been
fortunate to have a deeply rewarding vocation. Even now, as a professor at my
alma mater, I continue to depend on the support and inspiration of others to
reach my goals. Through the generosity of my mentor Dr. Gordie Page, I am
honored to be the first faculty member to hold the Albert G. Mackay, M.D.’32
and H. Gordon Page, M.D.’45 Professorship in Surgery — a daily reminder
that those who came before me offer both support and the challenge to bring
our College to greater achievements.
Today, in my work on the College’s Admissions Committee, I often sit across
a conference room table from young men and women who remind me very much
of that young kid from Maine. I’m constantly impressed by the intellectually
gifted and altruistic people who apply and come to our medical school. But as a
participant in that process, I also get to see the wonderful applicants who, for want
of financial means, often have to make the difficult decision to attend another, less
expensive medical school. As a key focus of my tenure, I’ll be working with Dean
Morin and our development and alumni relations staff to help increase scholarship
giving, so that all those people who should come here can do so.
Part of that work, I hope, will involve finding new ways to communicate
and involve alumni, including using the Web to greater advantage, and helping
to foster a greater regional presence for alumni across the country. This magazine
is filled with opportunities for you to see what students are doing today here on
campus. If it’s been a while since you’ve visited, I hope you’ll make plans to get
back soon to see for yourself what a special place the College of Medicine remains.
Albert G. Mackay, M.D.’32 and
H. Gordon Page, M.D.’45 Professor of Surgery
V E R M O N T
Director, Major Gifts
Manon O’Connor
Director, Medical Annual Giving
Sarah Keblin
Director, Medical Alumni Relations
Cristin Gildea
Director, Medical Corporate &
Foundation Relations
Michael Healy
Senior Development Analyst
Travis Morrison
Assistants
Jane Aspinall
Ben Fuller
James Gilbert
University of Vermont
Medical Alumni
Association
alumni executive committee
Officers (Two-Year Terms)
President
James C. Hebert, M.D.’77 (2010–2012)
President-Elect
Mark Pasanen, M.D.’92 (2010–2012)
Treasurer
Paul B. Stanilonis, M.D.’65 (2010–2012)
Secretary
H. James Wallace III, M.D.’88 (2010–2012)
Executive Secretary
John Tampas, M.D.’54 (ongoing)
Members-At-Large (6-Year Terms):
Mark Allegretta, Ph.D.’90 (2010–2016)
Ellen Andrews, M.D.’75 (2010–2016)
Don P. Chan, M.D.’76 (2009–2015)
Carleton R. Haines, M.D.’43 (2006–2012)
Leslie S. Kerzner, M.D.’95 (2009–2015)
Naomi R. Leeds, M.D.’00, M.P.H. (2010–2016)
Frederick Mandell, M.D.’64 (2009–2015)
Jacqueline A. Noonan, M.D.’54 (2006–2012)
Suzanne R. Parker, M.D.’73 (2010–2016)
Betsy Sussman, M.D.’81 (2007–2012)
Upcoming Events
If you have news to share, please contact your class agent or the
Development & Alumni Relations office at [email protected]
or (802) 656-4014. If your email address has changed, please send it
to [email protected].
October 2, 2010
Vermont reception at the American Academy
of Pediatrics National Conference
San Francisco, Calif.
1943
1947
Francis Arnold Caccavo
(M.D. Dec. 1943)
51 Thibault Parkway
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-3841
[email protected]
Please email [email protected]
if you’d like to serve as 1947 class agent.
October 4, 2010
Vermont reception at the American College of
Surgeons Annual Clinical Congress
Washington, D.C.
Carleton R. Haines
(M.D. Dec. 1943)
88 Mountain View Road
Williston, VT 05495
(802) 878-3115
S. James Baum
1790 Fairfield Beach Road
Fairfield, CT 06430
(203) 255-1013
[email protected]
Harry M. Rowe
(M.D. March 1943)
65 Main Street
P.O. Box 755
Wells River, VT 05081
(802) 757-2325
[email protected]
1944
Wilton W. Covey
357 Weybridge Street
Middlebury, VT 05753
(802) 388-1555
The Costello family writes to inform the
class of the passing of Marie Winberry
Costello, age 91, on April 6, 2010. Marie
was the wife of the late John L. Costello.”
1945
Robert E. O’Brien
414 Thayer Beach Road
Colchester, VT 05446
(802) 862-0394
[email protected]
H. Gordon Page
9 East Terrace
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 864-7086
1946
r e u n i o n
M E D I C I N E
’1 1
Please email [email protected]
if you’d like to serve as 1946 class agent.
1948
Send Us Your Stories!
October 9
Fall Alumni Executive Committee Meeting
UVM Campus
October 14
Graduate Student Research Day
and 2010 Graduate Alumni Award
UVM Campus
1949
October 20, 2010
2010 Frymoyer Scholars Reception
Hoehl Gallery — UVM Campus
Joseph C. Foley
32 Fairmount Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-0040
[email protected]
November 30, 2010
Vermont reception at the Radiological Society
of North America
Chicago, Ill.
Edward S. Sherwood
24 Worthley Road
Topsham, VT 05076
(802) 439-5816
[email protected]
March 16, 2011
Medical Class of 2011 Dinner
Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center,
South Burlington
April, 2011
Spring Alumni Executive Committee Meeting
1950
June 10–12, 2011
Medical Reunion 2011
UVM Campus
Simon Dorfman
8256 Nice Way
Sarasota, FL 34238
(941) 926-8126
1951
r e u n i o n
’1 1
Edward W. Jenkins
7460 South Pittsburg Ave.
Tulsa, OK 74136
(918) 492-7960
[email protected]
Ed Jenkins writes: “Mary Jane fell and
fractured her femur late in 2009 and
after rehab, fell and fractured her pelvis.
Exercising vigorously now and doing
well with a cane. We are now living in
a gated active senior retirement cottage
and enjoying being alive.”
1952
Jim Hebert, M.D.’77
26
Director, Administration & Planning
Ginger Lubkowitz
M.D. Class Notes
F o r up d a t e s o n e v e n t s s e e :
www.med.uvm.edu/alumni
Please email [email protected]
if you’d like to serve as 1952 class agent.
If you have an idea for something that should
be covered in Vermont Medicine, please email:
[email protected].
UVM Med Photo
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H A LL A
1953
Development News
Richard N. Fabricius
17 Fairview Road
Old Bennington, VT 05201
(802) 442-4224
1954
John E. Mazuzan Jr.
366 South Cove Road
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 864-5039
[email protected]
50
M . D . C L A SS NOTES
Marshall G. London
102 Summit Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 864-4927
[email protected]
1956
’1 1
Ira H. Gessner
1306 Northwest 31st Street
Gainesville, FL 32605
(352) 378-1820
[email protected]
1957
Larry Coletti
34 Gulliver Circle
Norwich, CT 06360
(860) 887-1450
[email protected]
1958
Peter Ames Goodhue
Stamford Gynecology, P.C.
70 Mill River Street
Stamford, CT 06902
(203) 359-3340
Edgar Caldwell reports: “Joanne and
I recently moved to Bolton, Mass. I am
looking for part-time work in psychiatry
here. Otherwise I am doing well. I am
in contact with Paul Stevens, now living
in Maine.”
28
June 2010
CLASS OF
1955
r e u n i o n
th Reunion
1960
1960
Marvin A. Nierenberg
15 West 81st Street
New York, NY 10024
(212) 874-6484
[email protected]
Melvyn H. Wolk
Clinton Street
P.O. Box 772
Waverly, PA 18471
(570) 563-2215
[email protected]
John Ouellette writes: “Sally and
I are still very busy and active with
our grandchildren and our 300-acre
hardwood tree farm. Our tree farm
was designated as the number one tree
improvement farm in the county and
now we are in the [Wisconsin] state
competition for tree farmer of the year.
We have been very busy and involved
with the Madison Children’s Museum
project and I continue to do expert
witness work with the health effects
of water damaged buildings.” Email:
[email protected]
1961
r e u n i o n
’1 1
Wilfred L. Fortin
17 Chapman Street
Nashua, NH 03060
(603) 882-6202
[email protected]
Peter Goodhue retired from practice
in January and is “now helping my four
grandchildren with school.”
If you’d like to help plan for our 50th reunion,
please email [email protected].
1959
1962
Jay E. Selcow
27 Reservoir Road
Bloomfield, CT 06002
(860) 243-1359
[email protected]
Ruth Andrea Seeler
2431 North Orchard
Chicago, IL 60614
(773) 472-3432
[email protected]
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Sherwin Ritter reports: “After 40 years
of practice (orthopedic surgery) Joan and
I spend many hours getting our share of
vitamin D in Naples. Why wasn’t golf on
our curriculum?” Email: [email protected]
Ruth Seeler is the recipient of the
Northwestern Interfraternity Conference
Outstanding Foundation Volunteer Award.
She has been a Trustee of the Gamma Phi
Beta Foundation, Grants Committee Chair
and a volunteer for many years.
1963
John J. Murray
P.O. Box 607
Colchester, VT 05446
(802) 865-9390
[email protected]
H. Alan Walker
229 Champlain Drive
Plattsburgh, NY 12901
(518) 561-8991
1964
Anthony P. Belmont
211 Youngs Point Road
Wiscasset, ME 04578
(207) 882-6228
[email protected]
Lester Wurtele writes: “The Eisensteins,
Krafts and Wurteles got together for
cocktails at Boca West, where we are all
spending the winter. Remarkably, we all
live within walking distance of each other.
During the course of the evening, we had
a conference call with the Wieners who
live about 2.5 hours from here. It was
great seeing everyone.”
Robust Giving by
Reunion Classes
Schwendler Trust Supports
Cardiac Research
Reunion 2010 was a time
for classes from across
the past six decades to
come together to recall old
times. But these College of
Medicine alumni were not
Dean Rick Morin, at left receives the
just looking back during
reunion giving check from Marvin
their reunion, they were
Nierenberg, M.D.’60, at center, and
also actively supporting
Melvyn Wolk, M.D.’60, at right.
the College’s current
and future efforts with their generous donations in honor of
reunion. All told, by the end of the weekend these classes had
contributed $504,239, with the total continuing to climb
even after the event. Dean Morin accepted a check from all
the reunion classes presented by two members of the 50th
anniversary class of 1960, class agents Marvin Nierenberg
and Melvyn Wolk.
A trust established by the late Alice Schwendler of
Waitsfield, Vt. has made significant contributions
to support cardiac research at UVM. A $100,000
donation from the Alice Schwendler Charitable Lead
Annuity Trust (CLAT) is supporting the work of two
senior investigators selected through an internal
competitive process. Philip Ades, M.D., has clinical
and research expertise in rehabilitation cardiac care,
which focuses on the care of patients after heart
attacks to help prevent reoccurrence. He will use his
award to expand research on high-calorie-burning
exercise. Peter Van Buren, M.D.’87, Professor of
Medicine in the division of Cardiology, is interested
in heart failure and why obese patients develop
heart failure at high rates. He will study the heart
structure of obese patients and examine the ways
in which these structures might be modifiable.
Philip Ades, M.D.
Peter Van Buren, M.D.’87
Marathon Fundraising Hits New Record
Captained by College of Medicine Class of 2013 students
Lauren Gilligan, Katherine Irving and Erica Pasciullo, the 2010
UVM Medical Marathon Team had over 100 participants
in the KeyBank Vermont City Marathon (VCM) on May 30.
The group raised a record amount of over $40,000 for The
Penelope and Sam Fund for Neuroblastoma Research at the
Vermont Cancer Center (VCC) at UVM and Fletcher Allen.
The UVM Medical Marathon Team was launched by
members of the Class of 2011 for the 2008 VCM and in the
past three years, has raised about $80,000 for The Penelope
and Sam Fund, which was established by the parents of two
neuroblastoma patients. This often-fatal cancer affects very
young children and has only a 30 percent five-year survival
rate. The Fund supports research led by Giselle Sholler, M.D.,
UVM assistant professor of medicine and pediatric oncologist,
who is working to identify new treatments for relapsed
neuroblastoma, which occurs in 70 percent of high-risk
patients who have been treated for the disease.
More than 20 students ran the full 26.2-mile marathon,
and another 20 each ran a half marathon as part of the
two-person relay.
The members of the 2010 College of
Medicine marathon team thanked the
Medical Development & Alumni
Relations staff for their support
with a signed jersey from the race.
1965
George A. Little
97 Quechee Road
Hartland, VT 05048
(802) 436-2138
[email protected]
UVM Med Photo
Alumnus
Memorialized
His career in medicine cut short by a tragic
swimming accident off the coast of Hawaii
in 1980, Michael Neil McKee, M.D.’79
will always have a place in the hearts and
memories of his family and classmates.
Now, in recognition of a gift to the Dean’s Fund from his
mother, Maxine McKee, an alcove in the Health Science Research
Facility has been named in Dr. McKee’s memory. The McKee Alcove
is located just steps away from one of the large conference rooms
used on a daily basis by faculty, staff, and students, who often use the
adjacent alcoves as places to meet and study between classes.
Above: Plaque in the Michael Neil McKee, M.D.’79 Alcove
Jewett Gift Supports
Diabetes Research
When Melissa Jewett of Burlington
passed away in June at age 43 after
a thirty-year struggle with Type 1
diabetes, she left an indelible positive
influence on so many people in her
community, including the hundreds
of students she taught and mentored
throughout her 20-year career as an
Richard Pratley, M.D.,
elementary school teacher. Theodore
with a research subject.
and Mina Jewett, her parents, have
made a gift to the College that
will help Professor of Medicine Richard Pratley, M.D., in his work to find
answers to some of the key questions surrounding diabetes. Pratley is
the Director of the Diabetes & Metabolism Unit at the College.
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Joseph H. Vargas III
574 US Route 4 East
Rutland, VT 05701
(802) 775-4671
[email protected]
G. Millard Simmons
3165 Grass Marsh Drive
Mount Pleasant, SC 29466
[email protected]
H A LL A
George Little writes: “I remain healthy
M . D . C L A SS NOTES
and professionally active — read
‘overextended’ a bit. In addition to
clinical and academic responsibilities, my
involvement in international health is, if
anything, expanding — with a number
of commitments coming to roost in
the month of June. My main time sink
that month and for the immediate past
and future involves a project with the
American Academy of Pediatrics entitled
Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) which
involves development and implementation
of an educational curriculum for neonatal
resuscitation in resource-poor areas.
Among others goals and objectives HBB
is targeted at WHO Millenium Goal
4. The rollout of the HBB curriculum
takes place in Washington starting June
12, meaning that I’ll be at the reunion
less than I’d like. Carol and I are still at
Dartmouth, and still living in Hartland,
Vermont. The door is open!”
1966
r e u n i o n
’1 1
Robert George Sellig
31 Overlook Drive
Queensbury, NY 12804
(518) 793-7914
[email protected]
If you’d like to help plan for our 45th reunion,
please email [email protected].
Joe Beauregard reports: “My wife,
Bobbie, and I are still spending seven
months in Florida and summers in
Waitsfield, Vt. (Sugarbush). Our son, Ed
Read, owns Mad River Garden Center in
Waitsfield, so I spend some time helping
him in the greenhouses and volunteering
at the library. We also play a good amount
of golf both in Vermont and in Florida.”
Email: [email protected]
Samuel Fishbein reports that he is
moving back to Providence, R.I. this
summer. He plans to practice part time
with the Rhode Island Eye Institute.
1967
John F. Dick II
P.O. Box 60
Salisbury, VT 05769
(802) 352-6625
1968
David Jay Keller
4 Deer Run
Mendon, VT 05701
(802) 773-2620
[email protected]
Timothy John Terrien
14 Deerfield Road
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 862-8395
Todd Gladstone
[email protected]
P. R. Olson is “Still ‘retired,’ working
Continuing Medical Education
r e u n i o n
’1 1
Wayne E. Pasanen
117 Osgood Street
North Andover, MA 01845
(978) 681-9393
[email protected]
If you’d like to help plan for our 40th reunion,
please email [email protected].
1972
with a former resident three days a week.
Life is good in the mountains.” Email:
[email protected]
F. Farrell Collins Jr.
205 Page Road
Pinehurst, NC 28374
(910) 295-2429
1969
Richard Houle writes: “I’m working
Susan Pitman Lowenthal
200 Kennedy Drive
Torrington, CT 06790
(860) 597-8996
[email protected]
1970
Ursel Danielson reports: “Dear
Classmates — how time flies! I just
returned from L.A., where I attended
the graduation from USC of my oldest
grandson, Ross. He majored in computer
science. Next will be Rachel, who is
finishing her freshman year at U.C.
Irvine. She plans to major in Biology —
maybe a budding physician? Best to all.”
1971
Raymond Joseph Anton
1521 General Knox Road
Russell, MA 01071
(413) 568-8659
[email protected]
John F. Beamis, Jr.
1288 Kapiolani, Apt. 1605
Honolulu, HI 96814
in both Florida and Rutland Vermont.
I miss Vermont, think I’ll become
a snow-bird.”
2010–2011 Conference Schedule
Advanced Dermatology for the Primary
Care Physician
October 7–10, 2010
Sheraton Hotel & Conference Center
Burlington, Vt.
22nd Annual Eastern Winter Dermatology
Conference
January 14–17, 2011
Stoweflake Hotel & Spa
Stowe, Vt.
Neurology for the Non-Neurologist
October 22, 2010
Portland Regency Hotel
Portland, Maine
Emergency Medicine Update
February 2–5, 2011
Stoweflake Hotel & Spa
Stowe, Vt.
Bridging the Divide: A Conference
Fostering Collaboration among Primary
Care, Mental Health, Substance Abuse,
and Behavioral Health
November 5, 2010
Sheraton Hotel & Conference Center
Burlington, Vt.
1973
James M. Betts
715 Harbor Road
Alameda, CA 94502
(510) 523-1920
[email protected]
F o r i n f o r m a t i o n c o n t ac t :
University of Vermont
Continuing Medical Education
128 Lakeside Avenue Suite 100
Burlington, VT 05405
(802) 656-2292
http://cme.uvm.edu
College of Medicine alumni receive a special 10% discount
on all UVM Continuing Medical Education conferences.
Philip L. Cohen
483 Lakewood Drive
Winter Park, FL 32789
(407) 628-0221
[email protected]
Mark Novotny reports: “After completing
nine months as an interim CEO at
Southwestern Vermont Health Care,
I have moved to be VPMA at Cooley
Dickinson Hospital in Northampton
Mass. I also achieved Fellowship in
Hospital Medicine and the American
college of Healthcare Executives this year.”
Email: [email protected]
Phil Cohen writes: “I’m completing my
15th year as an assistant clinical professor
at the U of South Florida School of
Medicine. I have sincerely enjoyed
mentoring our young future doctors.
How the practice of obstetrics has and
is continuing to change is often times
surprising.” Email: [email protected]
1974
Douglas M. Eddy
5 Tanbark Road
Windham, NH 03087
(603) 434-2164
[email protected]
Cajsa Schumacher
78 Euclid Avenue
Albany, NY 12203
[email protected]
Walter H. Jacobs was “Graduated
from Law School and sworn in as an
attorney along with my son Travis, June
2008. Daughter Alexandria completing
second year of Law School. Happily
engaged and soon to be married.” Email:
[email protected]
45
June 2010
CLASS OF
30
40
th Reunion
1965
V E R M O N T
th Reunion
June 2010
CLASS OF
M E D I C I N E
35
1970
1975
th Reunion
June 2010
CLASS OF
UVM Med Photo
1975
Ellen Andrews
195 Midland Road
Pinehurst, NC 28374
(910) 295-6464
[email protected]
F A L L
2 0 1 0
31
1976
H A LL A
r e u n i o n
1995
’1 1
Don P. Chan
Cardiac Associates of New Hampshire
Suite 103
246 Pleasant Street
Concord, NH 03301
(603) 224-6070
[email protected]
If you’d like to help plan for our 35th reunion,
please email [email protected].
M . D . C L A SS NOTES
Matthew Zetumer writes: “My wife,
Lynn, and I plan on hiking this summer
with Anita Feins and Steve Lampert in
Northern Italy. Steve and I will finish
up with a climb of Mount Viso.” Email:
[email protected]
1977
Mark A. Popovsky
22 Nauset Road
Sharon, MA 02067
(781) 784-8824
[email protected]
1978
Paul McLane Costello
Essex Pediatrics, Ltd.
89 Main Street
Essex Junction, VT 05452
(802) 879-6556
CLASS OF
1980
CLASS OF
1985
1993
Richard Nicholas Hubbell
80 Summit Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-5551
[email protected]
Vito Imbasciani
Joanne Taplin Romeyn
22 Patterson Lane
Durham, CT 06422
(860) 349-6941
1981
r e u n i o n
[email protected]
Suzy Frisch
[email protected]
Brad Watson
[email protected]
Howard Silberstein writes: “Nancy
’1 1
If you’d like to help plan for our 30th reunion,
please email [email protected].
officer of Genzyme in Cambridge, Mass.
He was previously an executive vicepresident, and has been with the company
in a number of roles for 16 years.
1982
1979
Diane M. Georgeson
[email protected]
Ronald D. Blatt is “Happily living in
New Canaan, Conn. Three children,
ages 2, 4, and 8. Hello to all!” Email:
[email protected]
1983
Sarah Ann McCarty
[email protected]
2 Ravine Parkway
Oneonta, NY 13820
(607) 433-1620
[email protected]
Thomas Boduch writes: “I continue to
Anne Marie Massucco
M E D I C I N E
June 2010
1985
David and Sally Murdock
V E R M O N T
th Reunion
1980
and I are now living in Blowing Rock,
N.C., in the northwest North Carolina
mountains. Bill does product liability
settlements and I work three days a week
in a Boone Family Practice. We are active
in the outdoors community. Son Stephen
and his wife, Deb, are in Providence, R.I.
in the Brown University Ph.D. Program.”
Email: [email protected]
practice solo Family Medicine in Kingston,
Tennessee — just west of Knoxville. On
March 25, 2010 I was elected the 171st
Grand Master of Tennessee’s Freemasons
(Andrew Jackson was the 5th) and will
serve in this capacity for one year. As part of
my agenda, I am emphasizing supporting
Masonic Charities that involve Medical
Care especially the Shriners Hospitals,
Knights Templar Eye Foundation, Scottish
Rite Hospitals and Language Disorder
Clinics.” Email: [email protected]
25
June 2010
David Meeker is now chief executive
Anita Henderson reports: “My husband
32
30
th Reunion
Allyson Miller Bolduc
252 Autumn Hill Road
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 863-4902
[email protected]
15 Cedar Ledge Road
West Hartford, CT 06107
(860) 521-6120
[email protected]
1984
Richard C. Shumway
34 Coventry Lane
Avon, CT 06001
(860) 673-6629
[email protected]
and I are still living in Rochester, N.Y.
I recently became program director
for the neurosurgery residency at the
University of Rochester. Emily is now 18,
a freshman at Boston University. Scott is
16, a sophomore in high school.” Email:
[email protected]
1986
r e u n i o n
1994
20
Holliday Kane Rayfield
P.O. Box 819
Waitsfield, VT 05673
(802) 496-5667
[email protected]
th Reunion
June 2010
CLASS OF
Susan Apkon writes: “After 15 years at
1990
’1 1
Darrell Edward White
29123 Lincoln Road
Bay Village, OH 44140
(440) 892-4681
[email protected]
If you’d like to help plan for our 25th reunion,
please email [email protected].
1987
Please email [email protected]
if you’d like to serve as 1987 class agent.
1988
H. James Wallace III
416 Martel Lane
St. George, VT 05495
(802) 872-8533
[email protected]
Lawrence I. Wolk
5724 South Nome Street
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
(303) 771-1289
[email protected]
1990
Barbara Angelika Dill
120 Hazel Court
Norwood, NJ 07648
(201) 767-7778
[email protected]
Children’s Hospital in Denver, I moved
further west. In September I took a new
position as director of rehabilitation
medicine at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
I’m enjoying my new role as well as being
close to the water again.”
1991
r e u n i o n
Caroline Gutmann reports: “I’m working
in Bend, Oregon, as a pediatrician. My
husband Scot and I have a 9-year old
son, Reed, who’s very entertaining and
who keeps us on our toes. Reed no longer
believes me when I tell him ‘no one rides
their mountain bike through these rocks.
Everyone walks!’ I’m in trouble now. I’ll
never be able to keep up with him again.”
Email: [email protected]
While earning her medical degree Laura
Trice became fascinated with preventing
illness before it emerges. Her interest
in natural food’s effect on health has
taken her all across the globe, and she
became certain that healthy snacks do not
necessarily need to taste like cardboard.
She started Laura’s Wholesome Junk
Food, and her tasty treats are now being
enjoyed all across the US, distributed
at retailers like Whole Foods Markets
and Harry Teeters. Her recipes are now
available to everyone in The Wholesome
Junk Food Cookbook: More Than 100
Healthy Recipes for Everyday Snacking, just
published by Running Press.
’1 1
John Dewey
15 Eagle Street
Cooperstown, NY 13326
[email protected]
If you’d like to help plan for our 20th reunion,
please email [email protected].
1992
Mark Eliot Pasanen
1234 Spear Street
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 865-3281
[email protected]
1989
Brian Levine writes: “As editor-in-chief
for the 2011 EMRA antibiotic guide,
we look forward to publishing the 3rd
straight edition at Christiana Care’s
Emergency Residency in Newark, Del.”
Email: [email protected]
Future Members of
the Class of 2030?
A new addition to this year’s medical reunion was
“It’s a Family Affair: Microscopic Examination,” a
session focused specifically on the youngest folks
at reunion — most of whom had never before seen
what a medical school looks like, and some of whom
had not yet determined what sense comes into play
when using a microscope. This look at the hidden
world around us was led by Janet Schwarz of
UVM’s Microscopy Imaging Center, who also leads
UVM’s Project Micro, a program that serves Vermont
schoolchildren throughout the state.
Peter M. Nalin
13216 Griffin Run
Carmel, IN 46033
(317) 962-6656
[email protected]
UVM Med Photo
F A L L
2 0 1 0
33
1996
’1 1
r e u n i o n
H A LL A
Anne Marie Valente
66 Winchester St., Apt. 503
Brookline, MA 02446
[email protected]
Patricia Ann King
832 South Prospect Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-7705
[email protected]
M . D . C L A SS NOTES
Julie Smail
390 Bridge St.
South Hamilton, MA 01982
(978) 468-1943
[email protected]
1998
Halleh Akbarnia
2011 Prairie Street
Glenview, IL 60025
(847) 998-0507
[email protected]
1999
Everett Jonathan Lamm
11 Autumn Lane
Stratham, NH 03885
(603) 929-7555
[email protected]
Deanne Dixon Haag
4215 Pond Road
Sheldon, VT 05483
(802) 524-7528
Steven Ryder, M.D.’97 sends this photo and news: “From June 24–27, 2010 eleven well-established,
middle-aged men from the College of Medicine Class of 1997 gathered in the mountains of the
Sierra Nevada and the shores of Lake Tahoe to commemorate events of yesteryear and to forge new
memories. In absentia was Steven Yerid. In attendence were: Back row — (left-to-right): Paul Krause,
Matt Danigelis, Mike O’Brien, Mike Binette, Dave Smail. Middle row — (left-to-right): Dan Cordas,
Jason Zemmel-D’Amore, Steve Ryder, Steve Battaglia, Brett Gingold. Front — Chris Twombly.
2000
Jay Edmond Allard
USNH Yokosuka
PSC 475 Box 1757
FPO, AP 96350
[email protected]
Michael Jim Lee
71 Essex Lane
Irvine, CA 92620
[email protected]
Naomi R. Leeds
305 Third St. #204
Cambridge, MA 02142
[email protected]
2001
r e u n i o n
’1 1
Ladan Farhoomand
1481 Regatta Road
Carlsbad, CA 92009
(626) 201-1998
[email protected]
Joel W. Keenan
Greenwich Hospital
Five Perryridge Road
Greenwich, CT 06830
[email protected]
JoAn Louise Monaco
1034 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028
(212) 988-7788
[email protected]
2002
Jonathan Vinh Mai
15 Meadow Lane
Danville, PA 17821
(570) 275-4681
[email protected]
Kerry Lee Landry
(919) 732-9876
[email protected]
10
Mary O’Leary Ready
[email protected]
34
Maureen C. Sarle
[email protected]
June 2010
CLASS OF
Julie A. Alosi
[email protected]
Scott Goodrich
309 Barben Avenue
Watertown, NY 13601
[email protected]
2006
I finished my Ob/Gyn residency at North
Shore University Hospital and joined
a private practice group in Greenwich,
Conn. I also got married in September of
2007. I have also recently reconnected with
Ken Waters since I found out he moved to
the same town I grew up in! Jason Phan is
out in California, nearing the end of his
first year as a radiology attending at UC
Irvine. He works three minutes away from
Disneyland and invites any classmates in
the area to give him a holler!”
husband, Chris, and I moved to
Sacramento after finishing our training
in Salt Lake City. We love our new
town, and in April 2009 our daughter,
Sabrina, was born. She is wonderful, and
so much fun. Chris and I are both really
enjoying our jobs; he is a microbiologist
and pathologist. I work part time as a
general pediatrician, and am in charge of
the Reach Out and Read program at our
center. It is great fun. In our free time, we
like to explore our neighborhood, and we
recently returned from surf camp in Costa
Rica — we are not pros yet, but definitely
WAY better than we used to be! I am glad
to still keep in touch with Lesley Brodie
and Jenn Bergeron Carlson, who are both
doing great.”
Adriane (Cross) Trout writes: “I am
working in the Rochester area where I
trained in Family Medicine. Go family
docs! I met my husband here, at an
African drumming and dance class,
during my third year when I finally had
some time out of the hospital. Kevin is
from this area and has a good job as an
architect here, so here we stay. Hope all
is well with you!” (See column at right to
learn more about an interesting event in
Adriane’s professional life.)
2004
Jillian S. Sullivan
[email protected]
2000
V E R M O N T
Omar Khan
33 Clearwater Circle
Shelburne, VT 05482
(802) 985-1131
[email protected]
Emily Hannon (Vail) reports: “My
If you’d like to help plan for our 10th reunion,
please email [email protected].
th Reunion
2005
Elizabeth Hung writes: “Since graduating,
If you’d like to help plan for our 15th reunion,
please email [email protected].
1997
2003
Richard J. Parent
[email protected]
r e u n i o n
’1 1
William C. Eward
101 Wood Valley Corner
Durham, NC 27713
[email protected]
Deborah Rabinowitz Abrams
58 Chelsea Place
Williston, VT 05495
[email protected]
If you’d like to help plan for our 5th reunion,
please email [email protected].
2007
Allison Collen
[email protected]
Scot Millay
[email protected]
2008
Mark Hunter
21 Lindenwood Drive
South Burlington, VT 05403
[email protected]
Alyssa Wittenberg
7649 Briarcrest Lane
Orange, CA 92869
[email protected]
Ashley Zucker
2209 Albany Street
Durham, NC 27705
[email protected]
2009
Rebecca Brakeley
[email protected]
Kate Murray Mitchell
[email protected]
Campbell Stewart
[email protected]
2010
Good Doctoring,
and Detecting
It’s not often that a
physician gets to record
a first — especially early
on in his/her career. But
for Adriane Cross Trout,
M.D.’03, that opportunity
presented itself in the
summer of 2009. A female
patient presented to Dr.
Trout at her family care
practice in the Rochester,
Adriane Cross Trout,
N.Y. area. The patient
M.D.’03
complained of headache
and fever and general malaise. Over the course
of the next week those symptoms persisted and,
in addition, small bruise-like skin marking, called
petechiae began to develop on the patient’s
legs. Dr. Trout consulted with a local infectious
disease expert and began to suspect that her
patient had dengue fever. Dengue antibodies
were found in her blood, but the patient had not
been out of the United States recently — her
only recent trip had been to Key West, Florida.
Dr. Trout contacted health department officials
in Key West, who in turn consulted with the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Within a week Dr. Trout’s patient became the
first confirmed case of dengue originating in the
United States since 1945. Soon 28 other cases
originating in Key West were identified.
“She did a good job in two regards,” said
Christopher Gregory, M.D., of the CDC’s dengue
branch in Puerto Rico. “One is just thinking
about this being a possibility. I think most
doctors wouldn’t. You say you can’t get it there.
And two is making sure she reported it to the
state of Florida, who then went out and said to
doctors that there’s a possibility that people can
get dengue here. And that’s how we found out
about all the other cases.”
“To make such an impact on the public
health of a community, it’s very profound,” said
Dr. Trout.
Michael Alarian
[email protected]
Pei Chen
[email protected]
Heidi Schumacher
[email protected]
Steven D. Lefebvre
[email protected]
M E D I C I N E
UVM Med Photo; Steven Ryder
At right: istockphoto.com/VladimirDavydov
F A L L
2 0 1 0
35
O B IT U A RIES
H A LL A
Obituaries
Amore Del Giudice, M.D.’39
George H. Bray, M.D.’47
Dr. Del Giudice died February 5, 2010,
at the Claxton Hepburn Medical Center
in Ogdensburg, N.Y., at age 96. A native
of Waterbury, Vt., he completed his
residency at Vassar Brothers Hospital in
Poughkeepsie, N.Y., after his graduation
from the College of Medicine. He was a
veteran of World War II (32nd Infantry
Division), and served as captain of a
field hospital. He was trained in tropical
medicine at Walter Reed Hospital before
being stationed in Australia, New Guinea,
and the Philippines. After his service in
the U.S. Army, Dr. Del Giudice worked
as a psychiatrist at Binghamton State
Hospital until 1961. He went on to be
assistant director of the St. Lawrence
State Hospital from 1961 to 1966. He
then relocated to Middletown where
he took the position of director of the
Middletown State Hospital until 1979,
when he retired.
Dr. Bray died after a long illness on May
21, 2010. He was a leading surgeon in
the New Britain, Conn., area from 1952
until his retirement 1991. Dr. Bray was
born in 1922, and set his sights on a
career in medicine from an early age,
after the untimely death of his father,
who was a physician. He graduated from
the University of Notre Dame before
receiving his medical degree in 1947 from
the College of Medicine. He interned at
St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Conn.,
fulfilled the first year of his surgical
residency at Long Island College Hospital,
then spent three years as a flight surgeon
at Otis Air Force Base in Falmouth, Mass.
He finished his residency at New Britain
General Hospital. He began his practice
in New Britain in 1956. In 1997 he was
honored for 40 years of membership in
the Connecticut State Medical Society.
Dr. Bray was a well-respected surgeon
who joined with three other physicians
to create the New Britain Surgical Group
in 1960. He served as associate chief of
surgery and chief attending surgeon prior
to assuming the position of chief of staff
of the New Britain General Hospital from
1977 to 1986. (Dr. Bray’s father had been
the first chief of staff at New Britain.) He
served as president of the New Britain
branch of the American Cancer Society;
a volunteer and supporter of the CT BHI
Race in the Park; board member of the
Community Council; on the board of
directors of the Hartford County Medical
Association; a supporter of the New
Britain chapter of the American Heart
Association; and a Founder at Mooreland
Hill School. In 1992, the hospital board
of directors dedicated the George Bray
Cancer Center at the hospital.
Abraham Jack Moskovitz, M.D.’39
Dr. Moskovitz died April 4, 2010, in
Lynnfield, Mass., at the home of his
daughter Gail, following a long illness.
He was 94 years of age. He was born
in Boston and grew up in Burlington,
Vt., where he attended Burlington High
School, and received his undergraduate
degree from UVM before entering the
College of Medicine. Following internship
at the former Bishop DeGoesbriand
Hospital in Burlington and a brief stint
in the Army, he continued his medical
training at the former Belmont Hospital
in Worcester, Mass. Dr. Moskovitz then
went on active duty in the Army, joining
the 47th Armored Medical Battalion of
the 4th Armored Division. He served
with 4th Armored through training in
the U.S. and England, and in France as
part of General Patton’s 3rd Army, from
shortly after D-Day through the Battle
of the Bulge. He earned a Bronze Star
and a Purple Heart, and was discharged
from the Army with the rank of major.
After World War II, he settled with his
family in Bennington, Vt., where he
practiced medicine for 32 years, retiring
in 1977. Shortly after retiring, he moved
to Florida, where he lived for twenty years
before moving to Lynnfield.
36
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Aldo L. Bellucci, M.D.’54
Dr. Bellucci died May 27, 2010, at
Hartford Hospital in Connecticut. He
was 86. During his undergraduate years
at the University of Vermont, Dr. Bellucci
was elected to Sigma XI and Phi Beta
Kappa. Prior to his career as a physician,
he served in the United States Army
with the 106th Infantry Division in the
Communications Corps from 1943–
1945. Severely injured by a landmine in
Germany, he was left paralyzed and spent
nine months in an army hospital. He lived
with the remnants of painful shrapnel
for the rest of his life. He received many
awards for his marksmanship as well as a
Combat Infantry Badge, a Purple Heart,
and a Bronze Star. After graduating from
medical school, Dr. Bellucci entered the
Hartford Hospital Residency Training
program in internal medicine. Strongly
urged to apply for fellowship by the then
governor of the American College of
Physicians, Dr. Bellucci decided instead,
to enter private practice, primarily in
Glastonbury, Conn., from 1958 to
1969. In 1969, Dr. Bellucci was invited
to join Hartford Hospital as a full-time
physician. While there, he became
interested in the Residency Program
and became the Program Director.
From 1980 until his retirement in 1994
he was the Associate Director of the
Department of Medicine. During his
tenure at Hartford Hospital, he also
served as director of the Cardiovascular
Program. Other appointments included
physician consultant, Newington VA
Hospital, (1977–1994), consultant in
medicine, University of Connecticut
Hospitals, McCook Division (1970–
1975) and assistant professor of medicine,
University of Connecticut School of
Medicine, (1970–1994). During his
career, Dr. Bellucci was responsible for
recruiting interns and residents, and the
administrating of the teaching program in
Medicine--a program that was well known
nationally and attracted large numbers
of highly qualified applicants. After his
“official” retirement, he continued to be
a valued member of the teaching staff,
holding a Bedside Teaching Assignment
from 1995 to 1996, and was a consultant
in the Medical Outpatient Department
from 1995 to 2003. In 1999, he received
the Distinguished Service Award from
Hartford Hospital. In 2003, Dr. Bellucci
was honored with the Laureate Award,
given by the Connecticut Chapter of
the American College of Physicians.
The “Aldo L. Bellucci, M.D. Award”
is awarded by the graduating Internal
Medicine residents of the University of
Connecticut to the Harford Hospital
attending who is deemed to be
outstanding in unselfish dedication of
knowledge, ideals, and time toward the
education of the house staff.
before earning his medical degree at
the College of Medicine. He did his
surgical residency at the University of
Pennsylvania Graduate Hospital in
Philadelphia, Pa. Dr. Miccolo was an
associate professor of clinical surgery at
Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center,
a surgeon with Medical West Associates,
and also was the assistant medical director
for Cigna in Worcester, Mass. He was
the medical director for the Fallon
Community Health Plan in Worcester,
and iHealth Technologies in Atlanta,
Ga. He was a member of the American
College of Surgeons, a Fellow of the
American College of Surgeons, a Fellow
in the College of Physicians Executives
and USGA.
Norman F. Dennis, M.D.’54
Faculty
Dr. Dennis passed away unexpectedly on
March 25, 2010, at St. Peter’s Hospital
in Albany, N.Y. He was 82. A member
of the American Academy of Pediatrics,
he was the first fellow in Adolescent
Medicine at Children’s Medical Center
of Boston, Mass. He then practiced
pediatrics for 26 years in the Albany area
and later retired from S.U.N.Y. Albany as
the medical director in 1991.
Michael L. Miccolo, M.D.’81
Dr. Miccolo died May 15, 2010, at
home in West Springfield, Mass.. Born
in Burlington, Vt., he was a graduate
of Montpelier High School and did his
undergraduate work at UVM in biology
UVM Med Photo
Herbert Martin,
M.D.
Dr. Martin
died at his
home in South
Burlington,
Vt., on May
24, 2010, at
the age of 88,
following a long
battle with leukemia. Dr. Martin was a
renowned neurologist and received his
M.D. degree from Boston University
School of Medicine. He did his internship
and residency in neurology at Bellevue
Hospital in New York City, and was then
appointed to the staff of the Veterans
Administration in Manhattan. Dr.
Martin was a professor of neurology at
the College of Medicine from 1954 to his
retirement in 1991. He received his board
certification in neurology and psychiatry
in 1959. Dr. Martin and Dr. George
Schumacher developed the neurological
service at the Bishop DeGoesbriand
Hospital in Burlington. His work also
focused on new treatments for Parkinson
disease and stroke patients. Dr. Martin
was a consultant in neurology to a dozen
hospitals in Vermont and New York, and
retained a clinical practice for several
years following his retirement from
UVM. His honors included Phi Beta
Kappa, president of his medical school
class at B.U., and a member of the Beggs
Society (B.U.S.M.). Herb was actively
involved with an extraordinary number of
community and professional organizations
including the New Hampshire-Vermont
Neurological Society, Lake Placid Sports
Medicine Society, the Lake Placid Winter
Olympics as Chief of Neurology, Vermont
Health Care Review, and the Northeast
Medical Society. He also served the Baird
Children’s Center, United Community
Service, the South Burlington School
Board Advisory Committee, Friends of
the Lane Series, Vermont Symphony
Orchestra, the Board of the Stern Center
for Language and Learning, and the
Ethan Allen Club.
Lelon A. Weaver Jr., Ph.D.
Dr. Weaver died April 4, 2010 at his
home in Burlington, Vt., following a
long illness with Spontaneous Inclusion
Body Myositis. He was 88. He graduated
from the University of Vermont in 1943
and went on to receive his master’s in
psychology in 1947 from Columbia
University. In 1957, he received his
Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from
Purdue University. He was employed with
the Psychology Department of Wilson
College, Chambersburg, Pa. from 1948 to
1949. Following army service he was on
the faculty of the College of Medicine’s
Department of Psychiatry from 1957 to
1987, retiring as an associate professor.
While at UVM, he concentrated his
research efforts on setting the parameters
of electroconvulsive therapy. At the
time of his retirement, he had written
numerous scientific publications and
was recognized around the world as an
authority on this subject.
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2010
REUNION
Making connections
seemed to be the
dominant theme for
hundreds of alumni of
the College of Medicine
who converged on
the UVM campus over
the weekend of
June 11–13.
Graduates from decades past mingled
with today’s medical students 1 for a
session Friday morning in which class
mates Melanie Lawrence, M.D.’00 and
William K. Chin, M.D.’00 discussed their
specific experiences, and the process of
choosing specialties, with tomorrow’s
physicians. The weekend afforded
many opportunities for old friends to
meet up 2 and for some people to be
introduced to the campus for the first
time 3 8 . The “Legends and Leaders”
celebration was a time to hear Dean
Rick Morin’s update on the state of the
College, and an opportunity to honor
the members of the 50th reunion
class of 1960 and the recipients of the
Medical Alumni Association’s 2010
awards 4 . Nostalgia Hour drew
many alumni from across the years
who recalled old times 5 , including
class agent Melvyn Wolk, M.D.’60 6 .
Dr. Wolk also met up with some of his
classmates in the Atrium Cafeteria
during reunion 7 . Alumni from the
1980s through the early 21st Century
were happy to see the familiar face
of former staff member Collette
Ozarowski at reunion 9 .
Also on hand throughout the weekend
was Soule Award winner and former
Alumni Executive Committee president
Marvin Nierenberg, M.D.’60 10 . Other
events over the weekend included
breakfast with current medical
students 11 , a special reception for
Wilbur and Ira Allen Society members
12 , class dinners 13 , as well as plenty
of time to explore the campus and
recall old friends 14 .
1
2
3
6
10
4
7
5
8
9
11
13
12
14
Learn more about
next year’s reunion at:
www.med.uvm.edu/alumni
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M E D I C I N E
Xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx
Xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx
If your class year ends in a 6 or a 1,
mark your calendars now for Reunion ’11
June 10–12, 2011
UVM Med Photo
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39
P ROFILE IN GIVING
Return on Investment
August 13, 2010
1:19 p.m.
A member of the new Class of 2014 enjoys one of the last few hours before four
years of medical school classes begin, during the class picnic on campus.
photograph by Raj Chawla, UVM Med Photo
This year, while cleaning out the house that her late parents Bartlett H. Stone, M.D.’41 and Mable L. Stone had
shared for over 50 years, Pam Stone Kennedy, their daughter, found a yellowed envelope that fluttered out of an
old book of poetry. “It was from the UVM Admissions Office,” Kennedy explains. “Inside it I found a notice of a $100
scholarship given to my father for medical school in 1939.”
Dr. Stone received both his undergraduate and medical degrees from UVM. After graduation from the College
of Medicine he served his country in World War II, and then became an OB/Gyn surgeon in the Boston area. “His
years at UVM were extremely important to him, and he tried his best to attend every reunion,” his daughter recalls.
Both Kennedy and her daughter are also UVM graduates.
“Because my father held such affection for UVM,” says Kennedy, “It was important for him to find a way to
thank the school for the opportunities that it provided him, and to help others to experience the type of education
he felt so fortunate to have received. Throughout their lives my parents worked tirelessly to build my father’s
medical practice — a practice he truly loved, and which allowed him to leave a sizable endowment to the College
of Medicine to aid Vermont students in pursuing their dreams of becoming doctors. Looking back on it now, the
$100 scholarship my father received in 1939 may not look like much. But that money allowed him to pursue his
dream to become a physician. He saved the lives of soldiers in World War II, delivered thousands of babies and
provided surgeries to many women through his practice and missionary work in Puerto Rico, and inspired his
own children and grandchildren to pursue their dreams and educational goals.”
For more information about how you can
support the College of Medicine and its
students, please contact the Medical
Development and Alumni Relations Office.
40
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
University of Vermont College of Medicine
Medical Development & Alumni Relations Office
(802) 656-4014 | [email protected]
www.med.uvm.edu/giving
Non-Profit Org.
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
Burlington VT
Permit No. 143
Vermont Medicine
89 Beaumont Ave.
Burlington VT 05405
Your Generosity
Helps Shape Careers
Heather Provencher ’11 came to the College of Medicine
with the dream of one day practicing in a rural, underserved
area, a dream that stands a greater chance of becoming
reality thanks to the generosity of those who give to the
UVM College of Medicine Fund.
Heather’s own words of appreciation in a letter to the
Medical Alumni Association say it best: “Being accepted into
the UVM College of Medicine was one of the greatest moments
of my life. One of the greatest challenges that I will face will be
trying to figure out how to finance my medical education while
holding onto the hope of pursuing a career as a physician in a
rural area. Your generosity helps lessen this concern. As I am
faced with challenges each day and take on the task of learning
the intricacies of the human body, [because of this scholarship]
I do not have to be as concerned with the challenge of financing
this dream. The College of Medicine provides the opportunity
for me to obtain an excellent medical education while my
scholarship affords me the opportunity to enter into a field that
I could not pursue without financial assistance. Thank you for
your generosity and support.”
There are many reasons why alumni and friends
of the College of Medicine give annually to support
students. What is your reason? We’d love to hear.
Email us at [email protected] and we may
use your words to inspire others!
For more information on supporting scholarships through
the UVM College of Medicine Fund, contact Sarah Keblin:
University of Vermont College of Medicine
Medical Development & Alumni Relations Office
(802) 656-4014 | [email protected]
www.med.uvm.edu/giving