Wounds War of v e r m o n t

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University of Vermont College of Medicine
Wounds
War
of
Bruce Leavitt, M.D.’81 treats the aftermath
of the Sri Lankan conflict
ALSO FEATURED:
❯ Women in medicine
❯
A
history of Vermont surgeons
❯
S
tudents research, learn, and advocate
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the place where your medical career began.
Recall the good times. Renew old friendships.
Reconnect with faculty. Revisit
June 11–13
s pring
2010
2 From the Dean
35 Hall A
3 College News
36 President’s Corner
Vermonters respond to Haiti’s
needs; a faculty member becomes
American College of Physicians
president-elect; the Class of 2010
makes its match, and more.
14
14
Attention Classes of
The UVM Medical Alumni Association invites you and your family to plan now
20
26
to join your classmates for Reunion 2010 — June 11–13, 2010. Come back to
Burlington and the UVM campus, your home during medical school. You may
have lost contact with your classmates and former teachers, but Reunion will
first-hand the growth and evolution of your medical alma mater.
Paying it Forward
Fifty years ago, few women rose
to leadership positions in medicine.
Today, women who’ve made the
long, hard climb mentor the
next generation of physicians
and scientists.
By Lynda Majarian
give you the chance to reconnect, rekindle old friendships, check out favorite
places, talk with faculty, meet the medical students of today, and experience
Beyond the Borders
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
37 Class Notes
41 Development News
48 Obituaries
26
After a quarter-century of war,
hundreds of thousands of the
Tamil people of Sri Lanka sat in
Internal Displacement Camps in
the island nation. Bruce Leavitt,
M.D.’81 shares photos and
diary entries from his month-long
experience working in a Doctors
Without Borders clinic serving
thousands of patients still nursing
the wounds of war.
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1940, ’45, ’50, ’55, ’60,
’65, ’70, ’75, ’80, ’85, ’90, ’95, ’00 & ’05!
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Two Centuries of
Vermont Surgeons
Seven years after his retirement, an
emeritus professor of surgery draws
on fifty years of memories, plus
mountains of research, to produce
a history of the practice of surgery
in Vermont. Vermont Medicine
presents a sampling of Catamount
Surgeons, the new book by David
Pilcher, M.D., and co-author
Michael Curran, M.D.
32
Research, Advocate,
Change
Perhaps only in Vermont can
medical students help to effect
change so rapidly: this winter,
a group produced new public
health knowledge, and quickly
propelled their findings into
the public forum.
By Jennifer Nachbur
On the cover: A n X-ray shows a bullet still in the knee of one of
32
the patients of Bruce Leavitt, M.D.’81 in Sri Lanka.
FROM T H E DE A N
v
This spring has certainly been a time of renewal and
change in the world of health care. As the season began,
we witnessed the enactment of the biggest change in the
federal government’s approach to health care insurance
in nearly fifty years. After a vigorous and passionate
national debate, there could be no doubt about the
importance to our society of the work that we health care
providers and researchers are engaged in every day.
It seemed very fitting that, right in the midst of
this debate, the Class of 2010 learned of their residency
matches. We are immensely proud of the prestigious
programs our seniors will join. As you’ll see from the
map in the “Hall A” section of this issue, the College has
alumni practicing in nearly every state, with a particular
emphasis, not surprisingly, on meeting the health care needs of the New
England region. And, as you’ll see throughout this issue, there really are
no borders for our doctors when disaster strikes and necessity calls.
The importance of our medical school for both Vermont and the nation was
also brought home for me by recent visits to our academic medical center from
both of Vermont’s U.S. senators. Senator Patrick Leahy and his wife, Marcelle,
came to see our capabilities for simulator use in medical training — which
benefit not only students, residents, and attending physicians, but also many
members of the Vermont National Guard. Senator Bernie Sanders visited twice,
once in February to congratulate the first-year students at their White Coat
Ceremony, and again in March, when he and his guest, Friis Arne Petersen, the
Ambassador to the U.S. from Denmark, led a spirited discussion of health care
reform in a Sullivan Classroom packed with members of our campus community.
The intensity of interest that charged the discussion with Senator Sanders
and Ambassador Petersen was not at all surprising. This campus is peopled
with faculty, staff, and students who share a deep interest in taking the lessons
and knowledge developed here and working with the community to see them
develop into real improvements in the world around us. I doubt that there is
another state where medical students, such as those portrayed in this issue, could
do public health research as a part of their curriculum, and then, soon thereafter,
bring those findings to their legislators to help effect positive change. We can be
proud that the work performed on our campus is so clearly and simultaneously
work that improves our community too.
Frederick C. Morin III, M.D.
Dean, University of Vermont College of Medicine
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College News
SPRING 2010
Editor
Edward Neuert
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
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
Vermonters Respond
to Haiti Earthquake
Late in the afternoon of January 12, 2010, a magnitude
7.0 earthquake struck the island nation of Haiti. The
quake killed up to 230,000 people, injured 300,000 and
displaced at least a million Haitians.
In the hours and days immediately following the
disaster, health care professionals from across the world
descended on Haiti to assist in caring for the injured, and
Vermonters were there as part of that effort. At Vermont’s
academic medical center, a team of nurses, doctors, and
other medical personnel began forming within hours.
Associate Professor of Surgery William Charash, M.D.,
was among that first group. “The earthquake happened
on a Tuesday, and by the following weekend we were
organized,” says Charash. The nature of the disaster had
created a particular need for trauma surgeons such as
Charash. In addition to Charash, the team consisted of
five nurses, a respiratory therapist, two paramedics, an
emergency medicine technician, and a third-year surgery
resident, David Greenhouse, M.D.
The team eventually found their way into Haiti’s
neighboring country, the Dominican Republic, which was
largely unaffected by the quake. “There weren’t the usual
agencies on the ground directing things,” Charash says, “so a
large part of our initial effort was spent just finding the place
where we could help the most.” That led eventually to work
at a makeshift clinic in Jimani, a Dominican border town
that received large numbers of injured Haitian refugees.
After the initial team’s two-week stay was over, more
teams from Vermont continued the effort in the following
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
Magazine Honors
Send Us Your Stories!
If you have an idea for something that should
be covered in Vermont Medicine, please email:
[email protected].
Virginia Hood, M.B.B.S., M.P.H.
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Raj Chawla, UVM Med Photo
weeks. “The need there will be
long term, for years,” says Charash.
HAITI
DOMINICAN
“And the needs have already
REPUBLIC
shifted, from trauma care
JIMANI
initially to people who can
deal with the recovery and
rehabilitation of patients.”
A College of Medicine alumna,
Eva Lathrop, M.D.’99, who has worked with the Portland,
Maine-based Haitian service group Konbit Sante since
2001, travelled to Haiti in the days following the quake and
worked in Haiti’s second-largest city, Cap-Haitien. In a letter
printed in the Portland Herald in February, Lathrop told
of the struggle of her coworkers and patients as the disaster
drew all vital resources to the Haitian capital. “Somehow
they still manage to smile,” she wrote. “[They] share small
moments of hope, and find strength to persevere. It is
remarkably humbling. It is a privilege to be among them.”
Hood Becomes President-Elect of ACP
Letters specifically to the editor may be
e-mailed to: [email protected]
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 top, the Vermont state flag flies above the Good Samaritan clinic in
Jimani, on the Dominican Republic–Haiti border; Associate Professor
of Surgery William Charash, M.D., above right, spent two weeks in the
area treating victims of trauma and other conditions arising from the
January 12 earthquake.
Top: courtesy William Charash; above, UVM Med Photo
Professor of Medicine Virginia L. Hood, M.B.B.S., M.P.H., took office April 24,
2010, as president-elect of the American College of Physicians (ACP), the nation’s
second-largest physician organization. Hood will become ACP President in April
2011. Hood has been a member of the College of Medicine faculty since 1977. She
teaches medical students in the Genetics, Epidemiology & Ethics course (she is the
Epidemiology section co-director) and in the Cardiac, Respiratory & Renal course,
where she is Renal section co-director. Hood sees patients with kidney disease and
hypertension problems as an attending physician at Fletcher Allen Health Care,
where she is chair of the Residents’ Research and Scholarly Activity Committee. She
is also a consulting physician for Central Vermont Health Center. Hood was elected
to the ACP Board of Regents in 2005 and re-elected in 2008.
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VCHIP Model Earns Vermont and Maine
a New Children’s Health Improvement Grant
The Vermont Child Health Improvement Program
(VCHIP) at the College of Medicine is a partner in a
five-year, $11.3 million federal grant jointly received by
Vermont and Maine to help establish a national quality
system for children’s health care through the Medicaid and
Children’s Health Insurance Programs. U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
announced the grant awards, which are funded by the
Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act
(CHIPRA) of 2009, on February 22. Vermont was one of
18 states to win the award.
“We all have a stake in the health of our nation’s
children,” said Secretary Sebelius. “Exploring new
technologies and initiatives will help ensure our kids
get the high quality care they need and deserve.”
The grant, which will be used to help states implement
and evaluate provider performance measures,
health information technologies such as
pediatric electronic health records and
other quality improvement initiatives,
was submitted jointly by Vermont and
Maine, with Maine as the lead state.
The funding will allow both states
to build upon existing strengths to
improve health outcomes for children
served by their Medicaid program and
inform best practices for the nation.
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AROUND CAMPUS
In Vermont, funds from the grant will be used to
expand the nationally recognized Blueprint for Health by
extending the Blueprint to children and to expand and
study the Improvement Partnership model as a promising
innovation for improving the quality of health care
provided to children.
An Improvement Partnership is a statewide
collaboration of multi-disciplinary public and private
partners that uses quality improvement science to improve
child health care systems, practice, and child health
outcomes. VCHIP — the first Improvement Partnership
in the nation — founded and provides leadership to the
National Improvement Partnership Network, a rapidly
growing network of over 15 active and developing
Improvement Partnership states. Utah and New Mexico,
two members of the National Network, were also awarded
a CHIPRA Demonstration Grant. All the states serve as
forerunners in the Improvement Partnership effort.
“Improvement Partnerships are taking off around
the country,” said Judith Shaw, Ed.D., M.P.H., R.N.,
F.A.A.P., executive director
of VCHIP and research
associate professor of
pediatrics and nursing at
UVM. “This funding will
allow us to take the practicebased improvement model
that has achieved great success
in improving child health care
quality in Vermont and continue to
extend it to a national level.”
Specific goals of grant activities
in Vermont include enhancing the
state’s health information technology
infrastructures to support improved
communication between providers and
strengthen pediatric patient-centered
medical home models; automating
Bright Futures, the guidelines for
health supervision co-edited by Shaw,
in primary care practices; and using
Vermont’s leadership role in the National
Improvement Partnership Network to
increase the number of participating
states and to evaluate the impact of
Improvement Partnerships in improving
child health care quality.
LaCoppola-Meier, Getty Images
Research Milestones
Carney
Co-Authors
Academic
Medicine Article
Better Training Through Simulation
U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy and his wife, Marcelle,
visited Fletcher Allen Health Care on March 8
to experience first-hand the Simulator Training
Program, where Leahy announced a $750,000
appropriation from the Health Resources and
Services Administration that will enable the
program to expand its training in the coming
year. Previously, Leahy had secured $1 million
for the program, which prepares a wide range
of medical caregivers, as well as more than
80 members of the Vermont National Guard.
Demonstrating the simulator is Michael Ricci,
M.D., professor of surgery and director of
clinical simulation at UVM/Fletcher Allen.
Ricci is a flight surgeon in the Vermont Air
National Guard.
In 1910, a time
devoid of medical
licensing laws and
trust in science,
Jan Carney, M.D.,
education expert
M.P.H.
Abraham Flexner
published a Carnegie Foundationcommissioned study on physician training
that promoted serious reform in the medical
education process. To commemorate the
Flexner Report’s centennial anniversary, a
collaborative group of U.S. and Canadian
community health experts, including
Associate Dean for Public Health Jan
Carney, M.D., M.P.H., conducted a review
of the progress American medical schools
have achieved in addressing needed
reforms in public health-related education
over the past 100 years. Their findings and
recommendations were featured in an
article in Academic Medicine in February.
Study Finds Less TV Equals
More Calories Burned
Health Care at Home and Abroad
Dean Rick Morin, M.D., welcomed U.S. Senator
Bernie Sanders and Friis Arne Petersen,
Ambassador of Denmark to the United States,
to the College’s Sullivan Classroom on March
22 for a noontime presentation and discussion
on the health care system in Denmark. The
event, which drew a standing-roomonly crowd of nearly 200 students
and faculty, was particularly relevant,
coming only hours after the U.S. House
of Representatives passed landmark
health care reform legislation and the
day before that bill was signed into
law. In his remarks before introducing
the ambassador, Senator Sanders
underscored the need for students
in the audience to consider a career
in primary care medicine.
Reducing your time in front of the television
could reap weight loss benefits with little
effort, according to a UVM study reported
in the Archives of Internal Medicine in
December. The researchers found that adults
who reduced their television time by half,
using an electronic lock-out system, did not
change their calorie intake but did expend
more energy over a three-week period.
The average adult watches almost
five hours of television per day, according
to the article’s authors. Some efforts to
prevent and reduce obesity have focused
on modifying diet and physical activity, but
newer strategies have involved reducing
sedentary behaviors such as TV watching.
Not only may
reducing TV
time allow
time for
more active
endeavors,
it may also
help alleviate
chronic sleep
Top left: David Seaver; top right: Sally McCay; all others: UVM Med Photo
deprivation, potentially
linked to obesity.
Jennifer J. Otten, Ph.D.,
R.D., a former UVM doctoral
student now at Stanford
University School of Medicine,
and colleagues Jean HarveyBerino, Ph.D., UVM professor
and chair of nutrition, and
Benjamin Littenberg, M.D.,
UVM professor of medicine,
conducted the randomized
controlled trial of 36 adults
who had a body mass index
between 25 and 50 and
reported watching at least
three hours of TV per day.
UVM Holds
Neuroscience
Research Forum
Jean HarveyBerino, Ph.D.
Benjamin
Littenberg, M.D.
The UVM Neuroscience
Graduate Program, with support
from the Vermont Chapter of
the Society for Neuroscience
(SfN), began its 5th Annual
Neuroscience Research Forum
on January 29 with a keynote
lecture by Johns Hopkins
University neurosurgeon Alfredo
Rae Nishi, Ph.D.
Quinones-Hinojosa, M.D. at
UVM’s Davis Center, titled “Brain
Cancer: Current Paradigms.” The Forum,
which was organized by Rae Nishi, Ph.D.,
president of the Vermont SfN and UVM
professor of anatomy and neurobiology
and director of the Neuroscience Graduate
Program, attracted more than 100 scientists
from across the nation.
UVM ARRA Funding
Surpasses $15 Million
To date, the University of Vermont College
of Medicine has received National Institutes
of Health (NIH) funding for more than
40 projects, bringing in more than $15
million through the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009. A front-page
December 14 Burlington Free Press article
highlighted the College’s success. To view
an updated list of NIH grants funded by the
ARRA, go to: report.nih.gov/recovery.
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Notables
College’s Community Connection
Brings First “Brain Bee”
A traumatic brain injury incurred 24 years ago piqued
Middlebury, Vt., resident Lisa Bernardin’s fascination
with the brain. “I feel fortunate to be alive and functioning
with my brain intact,” says Bernardin, who initiated the
concept of a Vermont Brain Bee after reading about the
2009 International Brain Bee winner in the Brain Injury
Association of America’s quarterly magazine The Challenge.
She contacted the Vermont Chapter of the Society for
Neuroscience outreach coordinator Rachael Hannah, a
doctoral candidate in UVM’s Neuroscience Graduate
Program, and the event became a reality.
Thanks to Bernardin’s and Hannah’s efforts, as well
as the support of UVM neuroscience faculty, graduate
Participants in the First Annual Vermont Brain Bee, which was held
at the College of Medicine in February, included high school students
from across the state.
students, the Vermont
Chapter of the Society for
Neuroscience and several
contributors, the University
of Vermont hosted the First
Annual Vermont Brain Bee
on February 13. Nineteen
high school students
from Champlain Valley
Union, Middlebury, Mount
Abraham, Harwood and Vermont
Academy participated in the competition at the College
of Medicine’s Medical Education Center. Contestants
took a written test, participated in brain anatomy tours,
listened to a presentation on stem cell treatment for
stroke and a panel discussion on working in the field of
neuroscience, followed by the live competition and an
awards presentation.
Middlebury High School senior Sarah Longchamp
was the winner of the Vermont Brain Bee. She went on to
participate in the National Brain Bee, held in Baltimore,
Md., on March 19 and 20 in conjunction with national
Brain Awareness Week.
In addition to Hannah, other UVM members of
the Vermont Brain Bee organizing team include Diane
Jaworski, Ph.D., associate professor of anatomy and
neurobiology, and Holly Stradecki, research technician
in anatomy and neurobiology.
Community Leaders Gain a First-Hand Look
For more than a decade the Community Rounds program
at the College of Medicine and Fletcher Allen Health Care has
helped educate over 300 legislators, community and civic
leaders, and other policy makers about the workings and
accomplishments of Vermont’s academic medical center.
Community Rounds is one of 21 Association of American
Medical Colleges (AAMC) “Project Medical Education”
programs held at 15 AAMC member institutions during 2009.
The UVM/Fletcher Allen program was featured prominently
in the AAMC’s Project Medical Education 2009 Year in Review
publication. This past February, Michael Townsend, Jonathan
Bloom, and Jay Fayette (at right) were part of a group of twelve
people who donned white coats to participate in the two-day
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program. Here they learn about a research project from
Kelly Carstens, research assistant in the Department of
Anatomy and Neurobiology.
UVM Med Photo
New Vermont Cancer
Center Leadership
As of April 1, two new
co-directors are leading
the Vermont Cancer Center,
as Interim Director Richard
Branda, M.D., steps down.
David McFadden, M.D.,
Stanley S. Fieber professor and
chair of surgery at the College
David McFadden, M.D.
of Medicine and physician
leader of surgery at Fletcher
Allen, has expanded his role to
serve as the Interim Director
for Clinical Cancer Care and
Research, with oversight for
multi-disciplinary clinical cancer
care and clinical cancer research
initiatives. Nicholas Heintz,
Ph.D., professor of pathology,
was named Interim Director for
Basic Science Cancer Research,
Nicholas Heintz, Ph.D.
with oversight for basic science
cancer programs, initiatives and
resources. Heintz is a long-time VCC member scientist whose
research is focused on assessing the role of specific genes,
structural elements, and gene products in the control of cell
growth, and he will be directing the research efforts around
Environmental Carcinogenesis.
Courtyard
Wins Efficiency
Vermont Award
The Courtyard
at Given project
and architect
Black River Design
were recognized
with a Best of the
Best Award for
Commercial Building Design & Construction award at the
Efficiency Vermont’s Better Buildings by Design Conference
that was held February 10 at the Sheraton Burlington Hotel &
Conference Center.
Efficiency Vermont is an organization created by the
Vermont Legislature and the Vermont Public Service Board
to help all Vermonters reduce energy costs, strengthen
the economy, and protect the state’s environment. In its
announcement of the awards, the organization noted the
Courtyard project’s unique use of the existing building
infrastructure, its energy recovery ventilation unit, and the
building’s energy-efficient lighting design.
PHOTOGRAPHER
UVM
Med Photo NAME, PHOTOGRAPHER NAME
Forehand and Bates
Accept Leadership
Roles at UVM
Two senior members of the
University of Vermont College
of Medicine faculty recently
accepted leadership roles at
the University. In February,
Jason Bates, Ph.D., D.Sc.,
professor of medicine and
molecular physiology and
biophysics, was appointed
Jason Bates, Ph.D., D.Sc.
interim director of the School
of Engineering in the College
of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences.
Bates, a world-class researcher with
significant scientific publications and an
excellent record of external funding, will
split his time between his continuing
research activities in the College of Medicine’s
Vermont Lung Center and his new role as
the interim director.
Cynthia Forehand, Ph.D., professor of
anatomy and neurobiology and director of the
Foundations course in the Vermont Integrated
Cynthia Forehand, Ph.D.
Curriculum, has been appointed associate
dean of the Graduate College, effective July 1,
2010. In her new role, Forehand will work with the graduate
faculty and staff on recruitment and retention of a highly
diverse, world-class graduate student population — with new
emphases on UVM leadership in emerging transdisciplinary
research areas.
Ricci Named Director of
Clinical Simulation
In February, Michael Ricci, M.D., professor
of surgery at the UVM and director of clinical
simulation at Fletcher Allen Health Care,
was named director of clinical simulation at
UVM/Fletcher Allen. Dr. Ricci has provided
leadership for the development of clinical
simulation programs and other innovative
educational initiatives at Vermont’s academic
medical center for the last several years. He
Michael Ricci, M.D.
joined UVM/Fletcher Allen in 1989, and held
the first Roger H. Allbee M.D.’31 Professorship
in Surgery from 1999 to 2005. Dr. Ricci serves as a flight
surgeon in the Vermont Air National Guard and currently holds
a rank of Colonel. He is now serving his third tour in Iraq, as
both a flight surgeon and a trauma surgeon.
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3 Questions
for William Hopkins, M.D.
Thanks for a
Strong Foundation
“Foundations” is the name of the first of three levels in
the Vermont Integrated Curriculum (VIC), the course of
study followed by every aspiring physician at the College
of Medicine. The Class of 2012 held an awards ceremony
and reception on January 29 in honor of their completion
of Foundations, which the class began in August 2008.
The awards, which were presented by class representatives
Tristram Arscott, Andrew Erb, Martha Choate Monson,
and Auna Otts, included:
Outstanding Foundations Course:
Cardiovascular, Respiratory and
Renal Systems
Foundations Teaching Award:
William Hopkins, M.D., associate
professor of medicine. As the recipient
of this award, Dr. Hopkins will hood
the Class of 2012 at their graduation
and will be recognized with previous
Teachers of the Year.
Dr. Hopkins also accepted the
Foundations Course Director
Award, as director of the course
titled: “Cardiovascular, Respiratory
and Renal Systems.”
The Dean Warshaw Integration
Award:
Richard Salerno, M.D.,
assistant professor of pediatrics. This
award recognizes the faculty member
whose teaching best captured the
spirit of the VIC.
Professor and Chair of Pathology Edwin Bovill, M.D., accepts the
Outstanding Department Award from the Class of 2012.
The Silver Stethoscope Award:
Lewis First, M.D., professor and chair
of pediatrics. This award recognizes
the faculty member who had few
lecture hours, but made a substantial
contribution to students’ education.
Above and Beyond Award: Ellen
Cornbrooks, Ph.D., lecturer in
anatomy and neurobiology. This award
recognizes the faculty member (not
necessarily a lecturer) who went above
and beyond the call of duty to help the
students in their learning objectives.
Best Support Staff (Non-teaching):
Mike Cross, custodial maintenance
worker. This award recognizes the
staff member who best supported
students in areas besides teaching.
Outstanding Department Award:
Department of Pathology
Outstanding Teaching Assistant
Award:
Michael Goedde, M.D.,
Class of 2009, clinical instructor and
resident in psychiatry at Fletcher Allen
Health Care.
In addition, student representatives of
the American Medical Student Association
(AMSA), American Medical Women’s
Association (AMWA) Student Chapter and
Class of 2012 Wellness Committee presented
the following awards:
AMSA Golden Apple Award for
Excellence in Teaching:
William Hopkins, M.D.
AMWA Gender Equity Award:
Jean Szilva, M.D., lecturer in
anatomy and neurobiology. This
award honors a male or female faculty
member who promotes a gender-fair
environment for the education and
training of physicians.
Wellness Award:
Melissa Marotta,
Class of 2012. This award recognizes
a student who demonstrates
sincere dedication to helping his/
her classmates. Marotta “embodies
wellness and caring for others,”
stated her classmates.
AROUND CAMPUS
They Look Wonderful in White
Universally considered a symbol of the medical profession,
the white coat represents an individual’s responsibility and
commitment to providing care for others. On February 19, 112
students in the College of Medicine’s Class of 2013 received their
first doctors’ coats in a ceremony held at Ira Allen Chapel on
the UVM campus. Robert C. Macauley, M.D., medical director
of clinical ethics at Fletcher Allen and UVM clinical associate
professor of pediatrics, delivered the main address at the ceremony.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders also addressed the class and noted
the importance of UVM’s role in producing new physicians.
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UVM Med Photo
Cardiologist William Hopkins, M.D. is an associate professor of medicine
at the College of Medicine, where he joined the faculty in 1995. For
the past four years he has been course director of the Cardiovascular,
Respiratory & Renal (CRR) course in the Vermont Integrated Curriculum.
Hopkins received the Foundations Course Director Award from the Class
of 2011 in January, and the CRR course was honored as Outstanding
Foundations Course for the fourth year in a row. He was chosen as the
main speaker at the 2009 medical commencement ceremony.
William Hopkins, M.D.
Q: You
have a deserved reputation
Q: Your
CRR course certainly
Q: You’re a very active clinician,
A: Most importantly, I really love
A: As a course, we always try to
1
as an outstanding teacher.
What’s your approach to
effective teaching?
to teach, and I take it very seriously.
I’m very interested in the tripartite
mission of our academic medical
center — great clinical care, great
research and excellence in teaching,
not only for medical students, but
for residents and fellows as well. I
don’t know exactly what my teaching
style is, but what I do try to do is
make what I teach real and relevant.
I also try to figure out my audience.
I’ve taught preschool, grade school,
and high school classes, and the
very accomplished elderly at Wake
Robin. So I always try to figure out
my audience and gear whatever I’m
teaching to them. I feel like I can
look into the faces of the students and
determine when they’re lost, when
they understand something, when
they’re interested in something, and
when they’re starting to lose focus.
PHOTOGRAPHER
Ed
Neuert
NAME, PHOTOGRAPHER NAME
2
seems to have resonated with
students. Why do you think
that’s so?
keep CRR real and relevant. Also,
we have a dedicated and interested
faculty that also loves to teach and do
it very well. One of the advantages
we have in the CRR course is that we
have three very interesting organs to
teach the students about. I think that
people have always been fascinated
with the heart, so the heart’s an easy
one. The heart ties in directly with
the lungs and if either one of those
organs quits, you die. The kidney
is such a complicated organ, and it
is fascinating from the physiologic
perspective. If it’s taught properly,
it always pulls the students in, but
it’s very difficult to teach it properly.
Fortunately, we have excellent
nephrologists who are interested in
renal physiology and who are very
good at teaching the fundamentals
of the kidney. The original CRR
course director, the late Joe Patlak,
had a very good concept for how he
wanted to organize the class, and he
was a great teacher. I was able to sit
in lectures those first couple years and
watch and learn from him.
3
as well as a course director.
Does seeing patients all the
time continue to hone your
skills as an educator?
A: Definitely. I constantly learn
from patients as I teach them about
their disease. Sometimes we have to
convey some very serious information
to patients. Patients come to us
with tremendous variations in their
backgrounds and their ability to
understand medical information.
I think it’s very important that we
try to gauge each and every patient
and their families, and try as best we
can to figure out if they understand
what’s being talked about. We have
to determine if they understand the
severity of what we are talking about,
and in some cases, that they don’t
over-interpret what’s being talked
about. I utilize a lot of the same
techniques I use in the classroom
with patients to try to get a sense of
whether they really understand what
I’m trying to explain. Whether we
have lived up to our educational role
with patients is another question
that we, as physicians, need to ask
ourselves all the time.
S P R I N G
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9
Match Day, established as a national event in 1952, was
created in an effort to provide an impartial venue for
matching senior medical students’ preferences for clinical
training positions with residency program directors’
preferences for applicants. On Thursday, March 18, at
exactly noon Eastern time, 16,000 graduating students at
traditional U.S. medical schools — including 102 seniors
at the University of Vermont College of Medicine — as
well as 15,000 graduates of osteopathic, Canadian or
foreign medical schools — learned where they will be
training for the next three or more years, depending on
their specialty field.
During the hour before the match, medical students
gathered with friends and family at the College. As noon
drew near, the anticipation heightened when Associate
Dean for Student Affairs G. Scott Waterman, M.D.,
carried the match envelopes down the hall to the College
of Medicine’s mailroom in the Given Building. Some
students were poised at their mailboxes to rip open their
letters, while others took their time to complete this
milestone activity.
A n e s t h e si o l o gy
N e u r o l o gi c al S u r g e r y
Rebecca Evans
Lyle Gerety
Elise Heath
Chih-Ta Chris Lin
Univ. of Utah Medical Center
UVM/Fletcher Allen
Univ. of Utah Medical Center
D iag n o s t i c Radi o l o gy
M. Jake Carlson Daniel Goold
Jeffrey Kaye
Michael Salmela
Eastern Virginia Medical School
Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital
Hartford Hospital
Univ. of Minnesota Medical School
E m e r g e n c y M e di c i n e
Caleb Bailey
K. Grant Christian
David Curley
Katherine Dolbec
John Fialkovich
Kara Gaston
Anna Liberatore
Sarah Logan
Joseph Pare
Trevor Pour
Joseph Ravera
Sarah Schlein
Nicholas Weinberg
it’s a
match!
Loma Linda Univ. Medical Center
Baystate Medical Center
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Maine Medical Center
Baystate Medical Center
UMDNJ/Cooper Hospital
Orlando Health
Stanford Hospital and Clinics
Boston Univ. Medical Center
Mount Sinai Medical Center
Harbor-UCLA Medical Center
Univ. of Utah Medical Center
Albany Medical Center
San Joaquin General Hospital
Montefiore Medical Center (N.Y.)
National Naval Med Center Bethesda
UVM/Fletcher Allen
I n t e r n al M e di c i n e
Dilip Babu
Gladys Balderama
Jessica Bordley
Jennifer Sisemoore Borofsky
Michele Guignon Burke
Pei Chen
Lisa Chui
Ammon Fager
Matthew Greene
Jason Halperin
A. Shams Helminski
Hui-Shan Jenny Hsu
David Iberri
Neel Kapasi
Joseph Kaserman
Peter Lloyd
Joseph Lopreiato, Jr.
Elizabeth Lycett
Melinda Myzak
Alia Rehwinkel
Justin Stinnett-Donnelly
St Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital (N.Y.)
Santa Clara Valley Medical Center
Oregon Health & Science Univ.
UVM/Fletcher Allen
UVM/Fletcher Allen
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
California Pacific Medcal Center
Duke Univ. Medical Center
Vanderbilt Univ. Medical Center
Tulane Univ. Health Science Center
Univ. of Hawaii Burns School of Medicine
Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (Calif.)
Stanford Hospital and Clinics
Univ. of Washington Affiliated Hospitals
Rhode Island Hospital
Univ. of Chicago/North Shore
National Naval Med Center Bethesda
Univ. of Rochester Medical Center
Oregon Health & Science Univ.
Yale-New Haven Med Center
UVM/Fletcher Allen
M e di c i n e — P r i m a r y
Cambridge Hospital-Cambridge Health (Mass.)
UVM/Fletcher Allen
M e di c i n e — P e dia t r i c s
Sarah Mulligan
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
UVM Med Photo
W. Benjamin Kunz
Omar Ozgur
Maine Medical Center
Note: For two-part residencies, the final location is listed here.
Ross Eye Institute (N.Y)
New York Eye and Ear Infirmary
O r t h o pa e di c S u r g e r y
Nicholas Antell
Jessie Janowski
Jeffrey MacLean
Andrew Old
Juli-Anne Gardner
Isabella Martin
Liza Quintana
Akeesha Shah
Mimansa Sharma
Kirsten Threlkeld
Elizabeth Williams
Shahin Foroutan
Vanessa Hui
Ines Stromberg
Alia Whitehead
Yale Univ. School of Medicine
Carolinas Medical Center
Yale Univ. School of Medicine
Lehigh Valley Hospital (Penna.)
Christiana Hospital (Del.)
Maine Medical Center
Op h t h al m o l o gy
P a t h o l o gy
Gaurab Basu
E. Rosy Hill
10
Stephanie Bakaysa
Jessica Deane
Mai Hoang
Adetola Louis-Jacques
Audrey Merriam
Andrea Pelletier
Jillian Brennan
Michelle Cangiano
Cortney Haynes
Catherine Avener Johnson
David Longstroth
Bryan Mason
Amy Savoy
Elena Simon
Justin Smith
G e n e r al S u r g e r y
Washington Univ. Medical Center
Mayo Clinic College of Medicine
UCSF Medical Center
Obs t e t r i c s & G y n e c o l o gy
F a m ily M e di c i n e
Ventura County Medical Center
UVM/Fletcher Allen
Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island
Natividad Medical Center (Calif.)
Contra Costa Health Services (Calif.)
Memorial Hospital South Bend (Ind.)
UVM/Fletcher Allen
UVM/Fletcher Allen
Memorial Hospital South Bend (Ind.)
UVM/Fletcher Allen
N e u r o l o gy
Joseph Cheung
Shamir Haji
Joanna Hellmuth
matchday
C OLLEGE NE W S
Residency Matches for the College of Medicine Class of 2010
Med Students Ready for
Post-Graduate Training
Univ. of Minnesota Medical Center
UVM/Fletcher Allen
UCSF Medical Center
Drexel Univ. College of Medicine
UVM/Fletcher Allen
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Univ. of Virginia
UCSF Medical Center
UVM/Fletcher Allen
Oregon Health & Science Univ.
P e dia t r i c s
Britton Keeshan
Whittney Barkhuff
Alyssa Bennett
Kristen Connolly
Rosamund Davis
Joanna Gell
Mellory Giberson
Meghan Gunn
Kelsey Walton
Heidi Schumacher
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Mass General Hospital for Children
Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
UVM/Fletcher Allen
Maine Medical Center
Med Univ. of South Carolina
Rhode Island Hospital
Univ. of Massachusetts Medical School
Maine Medical Center
Children’s National Medical Center (D.C.)
P h ysi c al M e di c i n e & R e h abili t a t i o n
Annice Mason
Univ. of Virginia Health Sciences Center
P sy c h ia t r y
Noreen Flanagan
Sanchit Maruti
Kelly Mebust
Maine Medical Center
UVM/Fletcher Allen
Wright State Univ. School of Medicine
Radia t i o n O n c o l o gy
C. Matthew Bradbury
Washington Univ. Med Center/Barnes Jewish
S u r g e r y — P r e li m i n a r y
Christopher Randall
Oregon Health & Science Univ.
Thoracic Surgery
Walter DeNino
Med Univ. of South Carolina
U r o l o gy Michael Alavian
Yana Wirengard
Uni Wong
Abigail Woodhead
Richard Zinke
Hijab Zubairi
Rhode Island Hospital
Maine Medical Center
Univ of Maryland Hospital
Mass General Hospital for Children
Univ. of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics
Baystate Medical Center
S P R I N G
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11
C OLLEGE NE W S
Mario Trabulsy, M.D.’91 Earns Kroepsch-Maurice Award
A mid-February sky looms outside the window of
the brightly lit small-group classroom on the Medical
Education Center’s second floor. Eight first-year medical
students surround a table, their scheduled discussion on
professionalism in full swing. The group’s faculty leader,
associate professor of surgery Mario Trabulsy, animatedly
quizzes the students on their respective interpretations of
the white coat, an item of clothing they will each add to
their wardrobe at a ceremony the next day. “What does
the white coat mean and how do you want to use that
symbol?” asks Trabulsy, who looks like she could be a
student herself and yet, is clearly their educational —
and possibly spiritual — guide in this exercise.
“She was always real with us and held nothing
back. She let us go at it when we discussed
controversial topics, called us out when we
were being indecisive, embraced our naïveté
and encouraged us to discover our potential,
not only as medical students training to
become competent physicians, but also to
become compassionate and respectful
members of society.”
12
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
“The coat is a symbol, maybe not as a statement of
‘I’m so powerful,’ but ‘I’m here to help you, be of service
to you, hear your story,’” offers Trabulsy, looking intensely
at the students in the room. An emergency medicine
specialist, she often draws on compelling, yet not always
flattering, personal stories to encourage students to more
thoughtfully consider challenging topics. This technique
helps her highlight the bare truths of medicine, that
doctors are human, have human emotions, and might not
always like their patients. “You must still treat patients
humanely and with respect,” she counsels, “because of what
you have chosen to do professionally.”
Serving as a Medical Student Leadership Group
mentor for first-year students at the College of Medicine is
only one of three vastly different types of teaching Trabulsy,
a 2009–2010 Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching
Award, provides. A 1991 graduate of the UVM College of
Medicine and faculty member since 1996, she also delivers
didactic lectures and teaches medical students “on the job”
during clinical rotations in the emergency department
(E.D.). Her willingness to share, challenge and motivate
students makes her popular, as well as an important
mentor, to students often struggling with the weight of the
medical school workload.
Class of 2011 student Kanayo Tatsumi considers
Trabulsy, who led her MSLG 1 group in 2006–2007, a
mentor and much more. “She was always real with us
and held nothing back,” says Tatsumi. “She let us go at
it when we discussed controversial topics, called us out
when we were being indecisive, embraced our naïveté
and encouraged us to discover our potential, not only as
medical students training to become competent physicians,
but also to become compassionate and respectful members
of society.” A current student fellow in pathology, Tatsumi
credits Trabulsy for carrying her through a number of
personal and academic challenges she encountered. Annice
Mason, a fourth-year medical student, agrees: “In school or
out, she is always there for us!”
Another of Trabulsy’s strengths, as cited in her
students’ course evaluations and touted by one of her
teaching award nominators, is her ability to teach critical
thinking and reasoning, one of the primary objectives of
the MSLG 1 course.
“She is one of the few attendings who provide
the immediate feedback that is so crucial to clinical
education,” says Mason, whose training in the clinical
setting allowed her to both observe and interact with
Trabulsy. “She listened to each presentation, challenged
me to formulate a work-up and/or treatment plan on my
own and consistently invited me to see the patient with her
— demonstrating appropriate interviewing, breaking bad
news, and physical exam skills — and would then work
through her reasoning for accepting or altering my initial
plan,” Mason explains.
Trabulsy’s dedication to teaching extends to
curriculum development as well. As a 2005–2006
Frymoyer Scholar, she developed a standardized program
of study and supplemental online module that is delivered
on the College of Medicine’s electronic platform COMET
for students’ required Emergency Medicine rotation. A
colleague who nominated her for the Kroepsch-Maurice
award noted that “this program has standardized and
greatly improved the curriculum for the medical students
and the module is an outstanding example of the power of
COMET and is a model for other curriculums.”
Lauded for her ten-plus years of service as an advisor
for senior medical students, Trabulsy has an impact that
continues to reverberate with alumni like Jonathan Hall,
M.D.’08. “She cares about each of her students and takes
the time to get to know them and their motivations,” says
Hall, an orthopaedic resident at Fletcher Allen who works
with her frequently.
Trabulsy’s honest, straightforward communication
style, like her teaching approach, is another of her
gifts. “She possesses a unique ability to relay complex
information in a manner that is understandable by both
medical students and patients,” says Class of 2012 medical
student Susan Varga, who completed MLSG 1 and an
E.D. preceptorship with Trabulsy. Varga is also a fan of
what she calls Trabulsy’s “selfless disclosures,” those
examples of the less-glorified medical experiences that
Raj Chawla, UVM Med Photo
help hit home a point, like the importance of what the
white coat represents.
Back in the small-group classroom, Trabulsy tells her
Class of 2013 MSLG group one of the main reasons why
she wears a white coat in the E.D. — to show she’s the
supervising doctor to patients and family members who are
expecting a man. “It differentiates you and you’ve earned
that differentiation,” she says, adding, “it’s part of the
profession — the coat symbolizes that honor and that trust
that you are doing what is right for them.”
Not surprisingly, Varga has been inspired by Trabulsy
to pursue the field of emergency medicine. “Through
example, Dr. Trabulsy created an open space for us to
freely share our ideas without reservations, challenged
us, consistently showed interest in our thoughts and
demonstrated respect for our input in all facets of the
course,” says Varga, offering proof that an excellent teacher
also makes an outstanding role model.
The Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Awards
at the University of Vermont recognize faculty for excellent instruction.
They memorialize Robert H. and Ruth M. Kroepsch and her parents,
Walter C. and Mary L. Maurice. Robert H. Kroepsch served as Registrar
and Dean of Administration at UVM from 1946–56. His wife, Ruth,
graduated from UVM in 1938 and her father, Walter Maurice, graduated
from UVM in 1909. All four of them were teachers.
Areas considered for selection include:
■ Excellence in instruction
■ Innovation in teaching methods
(including learning experiences
outside the traditional
classroom)
■ Capacity to animate students
and engage them in the
pursuit of knowledge and
understanding
and/or curriculum development
■ Demonstrated commitment to
cultural diversity
■
Ability to motivate and
challenge students
■ Evidence of excellent advising
S P R I N G
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13
M onda y , J une 2 2 , 2 0 0 9
Awoke at 5:30 AM to roosters, dogs and all sorts of noises. 79
degrees at wake up. Slept outside with a mosquito net. Very
comfortable. Quick breakfast — eggs, pineapple jam on bread.
Traveled one hour to IDP camp and hospital. Saw the camp
with barbed wire that holds upwards of 300,000 people. It is
a concentration camp of our generation. Every 100–300 yards
there was a soldier with a big gun. Even on the rural roads.
Arrived at hospital at 0800. Made rounds. 8 tents holding
15 or so people in each tent. Most have injuries from the war:
burns, fractures, fragments, etc. All patients wait patiently for
the doctor to come by and see them.
I was the first to operate. 3 cases. First case a 9 month old
female with a inner thigh abscess. Drained it with an incision
and a penrose drain.
Second case was a 25 year old male with a left infected
5th toe. Did an amputation and debrided the foot.
Third case was a woman in her mid 20s with a shrapnel
wound in her left palm.
At 5 PM a bus with 32 injured people showed up from
zone 5. All had injuries. It was truly unbelievable. They all
unloaded from the bus. It was very busy for 2 hours. I admitted
a 24 year old female with a previous left BKA [below-knee
amputation] from a land mine and with new wounds of her
right arm and leg. I saw a boy of 15 with an infected wound
that was apparent through a hole in his cast. Probable
pseudomonas. Placed on an oral cipro, sent back with a
recheck in one week. Saw another man with shrapnel in his left
BKA stump and pain. Admitted for surgery on 6/23 to remove
the F.B. Debrided many other wounds. Nurses and doctors
were great.
Took the 7 PM bus back to the new house. No room for me
in the house or roof. Slept on a cot on the lawn.
Sri Lanka
BORDERS
The diary of a month-long Médecins Sans Frontières experience
F
or cardiothoracic surgeon Bruce Leavitt, M.D.’81, most days are busy rounds of caring for
J une 2 3
patients and teaching residents and medical students at the UVM College of Medicine and Fletcher
Today I was wound dressing king. 50 wounds cleaned and
dressed. Burns, bullets injuries, infected surgeries. Debrided
stumps from amputations. Debrided an eye socket — the man
lost his eye and arm in an explosion. Very busy day. Worked
until 6 PM. Lunch is tepid water, coke or 7 UP with a plastic bag
delivery of “Triangles”. These triangles are stuffed sandwiches
with egg and vegetable stuffing lightly fried/grilled with a spicy
coating. I think I will have enough of these in 5 weeks.
Allen Health Care. But for one month last summer, Leavitt traveled to the island nation of Sri Lanka,
in the Indian Ocean, to help staff a clinic run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), known to many people in
English-speaking countries as Doctors Without Borders. The camp was located next to a huge Internally
Displaced Person (IDP) camp run by the Sri Lankan government. In May of 2009, a quarter-century-long
civil war in Sri Lanka finally ended. Hundreds of thousands of Tamil people who had been displaced by the
war continued to be held in vast camps. Many of these people had serious war-related medical problems,
including gunshot wounds, that had received cursory treatment, or none at all.
With the enthusiastic support of his family and academic medical center colleagues,
Leavitt set out from New York in late June to Sri Lanka via Dubai. Following are
excerpts from his diary from this time, illustrated by his own photographs.
(At top) Dr. Leavitt with several of the patients he treated at the MSF clinic in northern Sri Lanka. (At left) The bullet removed by Leavitt from
the knee of the patient whose X-ray appears on the front cover of this magazine.
14
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
J une 2 4
Today I was OPD doctor. Made rounds from 7–10 AM. Saw lots
of patients in the day. Admitted one woman who lost her left
leg to a land mine and had a recent war injury to her right arm
and leg. Her husband carries her around. He really loves her.
In tent 8 there is the cutest girl. Her mother is a patient.
She walks around with me during rounds in the tent.
The nearly 250,000 mostly Tamil occupants of the camps were allowed out
only to receive medical care at the MSF clinic on the other side of the wire.
The young girl above became attached to Dr. Leavitt’s Boston Red Sox mascot,
Wally. Wally eventually stayed in Sri Lanka with her.
S P R I N G
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15
J une 2 5
Problem with obtaining x-rays. We have no x-ray machine. We
can send a few patients a day to the India Hospital, which is
close to our hospital and in the IDP camp. X-rays often denied
or sent back without taking the x-ray.
I was surgeon of the day. Lots of cases. Two skin grafts,
one bullet removal. One 4 year old girl with a foreign body
(nut) in her left nose. Put her to sleep. I could not pull the bullet
out. While trying to push or pull the nut out. While trying to
push the nut the with kocher clamp, I accidentally pushed it
in!!! Thought I may have really hurt the kid — she did well.
Performed 2 skin grafts. I used an old fashioned hand operative
knife. Pie crusted the graft and sutured it with 3-0 prolene.
Also did an ORIF [open reduction] of a humerus — no
electric drill or x-ray — very difficult. Tried to relocate a
dislocated shoulder after external fixation. Could not reduce
it, but I wondered if the humerus was not repaired correctly.
Removed a bullet from a woman’s thigh. Did a plastic surgical
revision of wound to a calf. Also debrided 2 bullet holes.
Came home at 7 PM. Tired. Checked by the military
guards daily.
J une 2 7
Planning to work the night shift. Had the day off. I went to
Vanuviya. Took the bus with the local staff from Vavunyia. The
bus did not start, we had to push the large bus to start it. Drove
one hour to Vanuvyia — spare tire fell off the bus and the tire
became a passenger. Took many back roads. Dropped off the
local staff. Made it to Vanuviya MSF house. Took a tuk-tuk to
Vanuviya, 200 rupees. The military had closed the main road.
Took back road to town. Bought a phone, SIM card and necklaces
and clothes. The clothes were bought at a store ran by a family. I
showed pictures of my daughters to get an idea of the size. Took
tuk-tuk back to MSF-Vanuviya. Got a ride back to camp.
J une 2 7 – J ul y 7
(At top) The MSF tent clinic had two tent operating theaters and (opposite page) a 125
bed hospital ward; (center) most patients had never been treated for their wounds or,
like this person with a wrist injury, had been improperly cared for; (bottom) a sign is
a reminder that the Sri Lankan civil war had ended only weeks before.
16
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
The worthy scribe was not diligent in his duties. Worked very
hard this week. I operated every other day, sharing the surgery.
The OT days are the best. Surgery starts when you want
it. You start around 9 AM and finish in the early afternoon.
Often times you switch between OT 1 and 2. The OT tents are
air conditioned, a bit small. The floor is rubberized canvas.
The lighting is pretty good. There is electric cautery. No
mechanical ventilation, if the patient requires ventilation,
the anesthesiologist hand bags the patient. I helped out
ventilating the patients while the anesthesiologist charted,
drew up meds, etc.
The days I was the ward surgeon were very busy. Forty to
fifty dressings a day. Nurse, translator, and Sri Lankan nurses
were great. Patients were very patient and understanding.
Now all patients are out of tents and into wards.
A couple of patients: one is a 30-year-old male who lost
his left arm and eye in an explosion. First MSF surgeon cleaned
up the wounds and skin grafted his medial canthal area. I did
the dressing daily and took him to the OT for a non-healing
Most have injuries
from the war:
burns, fractures,
fragments, etc.
— Bruce Leavitt, M.D.’81
S P R I N G
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17
J ul y 1 4
Best day yet. Today I felt like a real MSF surgeon. Worked from
7–4:50 PM. I was the OPD surgeon. That means the ER surgeon.
I changed ½ dozen of my patients’ dressings. All skin grafts
had made it; some better than others. Said goodbye to my 15
year old male who lost his mother in a shell blast. Lost ½ his
foot. Treated with sugardine. Went back to the camp without
shoes. I gave him my card and told him to write me a letter in a
year telling me what he was doing.
The best was the OPD tent. Saw 20+ patients. Admitted
eight. Four for surgery the next day. Saw a 16 year old female with
a huge bullet in her knee. No treatment or x-ray for 2 ½ months.
Saw a 14 year old male with a severe colle’s fracture of the wrist.
Untreated, now has malunion with osteomyelitis. Saw an 8
month old girl with scalp abscesses. An 8 year old girl with a shell
piece in her neck (posterior). Her arm had a clavicular fracture
with a chronic anterior shoulder dislocation. She cannot lift her
arm to her shoulder. I was kneeling on the ground examining
patients from the camp who got off an ambulance. I was the first
doctor they saw in 3 months with war wounds.
Took the 4:50 bus back. Got off in Cheddikulam. Had a
haircut at a little Asian hair salon. 250 rupees ($2) for a haircut
and head and neck massage. Not one word was understood by
either party. They thought I was from Japan. That was a first!
Took some photos. Had a shirt made; should be ready tomorrow.
Walked home to find out the barbed wire was put back up on our
shortcut to our home.
I should comment about the New York Times article
[“Tamils Now Languish in Sri Lankan Camps,” published July 12,
2009 in the Times]. The town listed was Cheddikulam, the town
we live in. Very accurate article. The world pays the money for the
IDP camps thinking they are a “transition” village. In reality they
are supporting our generation’s concentration camps. No change
in the security so far.
J ul y 1 8 — l A S T D A Y
J ul y 1 2
One day shy of one month. Woke up to a beautiful morning.
Took my last bucket shower. Quick breakfast. Took my suitcase
to work, started rounds at 7:30. Then 2 ½ hours solid of
dressing changes. I did all of my patients’ dressings. My last
dressing was the largest burn that I did. I was also the OPD
surgeon doctor today. Saw quite a few patients. Wrote several
letters. Attended the 2 PM meeting. After the meeting I said
goodbye to 2 of my favorite patients. Young man with bilateral
amputee (both legs, I revised the L AKA) and a mid 20s man
with a loss of left eye and arm. I was quite emotionally upset. I
gave each of them a picture of me from my album. I signed the
back of each photo.
Took my last ride to Cheddikulam house, then the one
hour ride to Vanuviya. VM
At 1 PM 8 of us went to the lake, 20–30 minutes outside of
Vanuviya. This is a man-made lake. The stumps of the flooded
trees are still present. Locals came down to the lake to wash
their bodies, clothes and motorcycle! While swimming a
peacock strolled the shore. That was a first.
Dr. Leavitt arrived home in Vermont on July 28. He has given presentations based on his diary and photos to audiences
throughout the state, including this spring’s Community Medical School at the College of Medicine, and is making plans
for another MSF experience in the near future. As of April, roughly 100,000 Tamils remained in the IDP camps.
Staff for the MSF clinic came from countries all over the world. Thirty MSF volunteers shared a three-bedroom house (that also had twelve rooftop
beds), six tents, two latrines, and three bucket showers.
area. I thought I felt a bone floating in that area. I was correct.
I removed the biggest piece of bone (infected). I think it was
a frontal bone (under eyebrow). It was huge. Follow up skull
films showed possible air in skull. Today (July 8) there was some
CSF leakage. I asked to transfer the pt to Vanuviya or Colombo.
He asked to stay here and have me be his doctor. I will email
my neurosurgery colleague back home for advice.
A second is a man in his late 20s that I revised a calf scar
and debrided two wound tracts from bullets. He has a huge
smile on his face when I change his dressings.
A third is a 55-year-old man with a heel defect (12 years)
from chronic calcaneal osteomyelitis. I took him to the OR
and debrided the heel. He had a golf ball sized defect. I used
sugardine (2 parts sugar, one part betadine) on his wound
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with great results. The sugardine recipe came from an email
that my plastic surgical colleagues back at the University of
Vermont informed me of.
Another is a 20 year old male shot in the abdomen and
pelvis. His left iliac crest was fractured and protruding. I took
him to the OT and resected the bone and did a plastics repair.
Made bolsters from IV tubing. He did well.
(At top) This boy lost his mother and half his right foot to a shell blast. (Above) On
some difficult cases Dr. Leavitt also conferred via email with his Vermont colleagues
Chris Grace, M.D., Rob Nesbit, M.D., David Leitner, M.D., and Bruce Tranmer, M.D.
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Paying it
Forward
by Lynda Majarian
Women w ho helped forge career paths lend a hand
to the next generation of scientists and physicians.
P
erseverance has always been key. Back in the 1920s, the first generation of women at the
UVM College of Medicine persevered to be the first of their gender to be admitted to the
school. The late Harriet Dustan, M.D.’44 overcame challenges to build an outstanding career
in hypertension research at the Cleveland Clinic. And two decades later, Medical Alumni Association
President Ruth Seeler, M.D. graduated as, in her words, “100 percent of the women in the Class of 1962.”
Thanks to these women and their colleagues, perseverance and immeasurable hard work brought
about important change in the field of medicine and biomedical science, both long dominated by
men. According to the National Science Foundation, in 1978 only 23 percent of doctorates in the life
sciences were awarded to women. By 2008, that number had grown to 53 percent. In 1970, just over 11
percent of the nation’s matriculating medical students were female. Today the Association of American
Medical Colleges reports that nearly 48 percent of first-year medical students are women. In addition,
women comprised 71.5 percent of first-year college students nationwide in 2008, as reported by the U.S.
Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. That means tomorrow’s doctors and scientists are just as
likely to be female as male — a significant gender shift that has been growing slowly but steadily over time.
Here at UVM, women comprised about a quarter of College of Medicine students by the ’70s,
growing over the years to 62 percent of the Class of 2010. Three departments are chaired by women
(Polly Parsons, M.D., in Medicine, Paula Tracy, Ph.D., in Biochemistry, and Susan Wallace, Ph.D., in
Microbiology & Molecular Genetics) and Melinda Estes, M.D., serves as president and CEO of Fletcher
Allen Health Care, the College’s academic medical center partner. While ninety years of effort have
changed the landscape for women in the biomedical sciences, the work of these pioneers is far from done.
Continuing to balance priorities while forging ahead in their own successful careers, today’s role models
are also lending a helping hand to the women (and men) who choose to follow in their footsteps.
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Randy Faris, Corbis
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21
Get What You Need
“There’s definitely still a glass ceiling,” says Polly Parsons, M.D.,
E.L. Amidon Professor and Chair of Medicine. “Even
today only 13 percent of med school department chairs are
women.” According to the AAMC, in 2009, 20 percent
of women in the basic sciences were full professors; in the
clinical sciences, that figure was 17 percent.
As a college student at Radcliffe, she and her female
colleagues didn’t think twice about pursuing both a career
and a family. “It was the ’70s, the ‘we can do it all era,’ and
many of us went to medical school, where it didn’t seem
foreign to be in a male environment,” she says.
Parsons forged a reputation as an outstanding
investigator, a leader, and scholar in pulmonary and critical
care medicine, and an exceptional clinician and teacher. She
joined the College of Medicine faculty in 2000 as professor
of medicine, director of pulmonary and critical care
medicine, and chief of critical care services at Fletcher Allen.
In 2005 she was named interim chair and physician leader
of medicine, after a national search in 2007.
Since her student days, Parsons says, there’s been a
modification among women “from the idea of ‘we can have
it all’ to ‘we can make it work.’”
Parsons’ typical day begins by answering emails from
home at about 6:30 a.m. She gets to work between 7:30
and 8:30. Most of her work as chair is administrative but
she often does morning report, where she teaches residents,
goes on grand rounds, and reviews budgets and grant
proposals. Her work on national committees and advisory
boards adds to her busy schedule, she says, but also “keeps
me involved with a collaborative group of female colleagues,
many of whom I’ve known for years.”
“I have an incredibly supportive husband,” says
Parsons [she is married to Associate Professor of Psychiatry
James L. Jacobson, M.D.] Whoever gets home first gets
dinner started. I’ve had phenomenal childcare and my kids
are more independent than they would have been if I had
been home full time. My job is very important, but my
family knows they are more important.”
Mesothelioma Interest Group for her contribution to
mesothelioma research. A funded investigator since the 1970s,
she also recently authored a paper on Asbestos, Lung Cancers
and Mesotheliomas in the American Journal of Respiratory
Cell and Molecular Biology, or “Red Journal,” that has elicited
interest from all over the world.
That paper “is really a tribute to the work in my lab,”
attests Mossman, as it was a follow up to a paper by a former
student, Yvonne Janssen-Heininger, Ph.D., who is now a
professor of pathology in the College. “Yvonne’s article was
one of the most highly regarded articles ever published in that
journal,” Mossman says with pride.
Sherrill Lathrop, a third-year doctoral student in Cell
and Molecular Biology, is a member of Mossman’s lab
team. “She is capable of handling it all, and taking it all in
stride,” Lathrop says of Mossman, with whom she has weekly
meetings and nearly daily email exchanges. “I enjoy her
approach to mentoring, and I feel comfortable sharing my
ideas with her. I really feel I’ve found a home in this lab.”
Mossman earned her undergraduate degree in zoology,
her M.S. in physiology and biophysics, and her Ph.D. in cell
biology at UVM, where her mentor was Mary Jane Gray, M.D.,
D.M.Sc. As an undergraduate, Mossman did an honors
thesis with Gray, a prominent researcher on cervical cancer.
“Out of one hundred grad students, four of us were
women. It was the era of mini-skirts and we found men, even
some of the faculty, were very biased,” says Mossman.
At conferences, she says, “I didn’t go to the bar with male
colleagues at night, which is too bad, because a lot of science
is discussed there. Yet a lot of women, even today, won’t go
into that situation. I think in the field of science, politics
are still dictated by men, but women are becoming more
powerful. We’re organizing events, we’re picking women to
head meetings. I see more women going on to higher levels.”
Like Parsons, Mossman admits it can be hard to balance
a career and family. She says, “It helps to have a supportive
husband who will give a little and realizes it’s not a nine-tofive job. I’ve been lucky.”
Throughout her career, Parsons has made it a priority
to mentor other women — and men — who wanted to
pursue medical careers. “I have always mentored men and
women the same,” she says. “And I give the same advice
to everyone: Have an idea about what you want to do.
Get resources, get what you need to be successful. Be in a
collaborative, nurturing environment. Don’t fly solo. Asking
for help is the best way to go forward. The key is to assume
you can do anything. If there’s a bump in the road make
sure to find someone to bounce things off of. Make sure
you have a mentor.”
Since becoming Chair of Medicine, she has hired 35
faculty members, about half of them women. “We pick
the best candidates for the job,” she says. “A number of
outstanding women have risen to the top, with a vast range
of job descriptions from clinicians to research scientists.
They are showing today’s medical students what’s possible.”
“Polly is always there when I need her,” says Renee
Stapleton, M.D., an assistant professor in the Division
of Pulmonary and Critical Care who joined the UVM/
Fletcher Allen in September 2007. She has a ton of
experience, she’s very supportive and encouraging, but more
than that — she’s fun, kind, and a great role model.”
Be Seen and Heard
“Mentoring for me starts with a personal connection to an
individual,” says Brooke Mossman, Ph.D. ’77. “I tell them
to pay attention to their grades and courses, but also to pay
attention to research, and to get their names as first author
on as many papers as possible. Because that’s what it takes
to be successful.”
Mossman, professor emerita of pathology and director
of the Environmental Pathology Program, is internationally
known for her work studying the effects of asbestos on cells
in the lungs. She received the Alumni Achievement Award
from the UVM College of Medicine in 2004. In 2008, she
received the Wagner Medal Award from the International
Make Opportunities
7% Men
Instructor
U.S. Medical School
Faculty Distribution:
7% Women
Instructor
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Assistant
24% Men
Professor
17% Women
Assistant Professor
(by Gender and Rank)
M E D I C I N E
Full
20% Men
Professor
Associate
15% Men
Professor
Full
4% Women
Professor
Associate
6% Women
Professor
(From top) E.L. Amidon Professor and Chair of
Medicine Polly Parsons, M.D.; Professor Emerita
and Director of the Environmental Pathology
Program Brooke Mossman, Ph.D.’77; Professor and
Interim Chair of Biochemistry Paula Tracy, Ph.D.
After a quarter century at the UVM College of Medicine,
Professor and Interim Chair of Biochemistry Paula Tracy, Ph.D.,
also considers herself lucky. She and her husband, Russell
Tracy, Ph.D., professor of medicine and former senior
associate dean for research and academic affairs, were both
able to find positions at the same institution. “And we were
able to make those positions into things we really enjoy,”
she says. “Having a supportive spouse is critical,” she says.
“Women want to be able to do it all, and to do that as a couple
calls for communication and teamwork. I always tell students
Raj Chawla, UVM Med Photo
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balance
finding
“W
hen I’m eighty, I’m not going to remember the best thing in
my life being getting a grant — it will be my family, says
Renee Stapleton, M.D., (seen above, foreground) whose mentor for
nearly three years has been Polly Parsons, M.D.
An assistant professor in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical
Care, Stapleton attended the University of Washington College of
Medicine, and is just completing her Ph.D. from the same institution.
She is married with two children ages 6 and 4.
Stapleton’s research interests lie in acute lung injury and nutrition
for critical care patients. “Only small studies have been done in this area,”
she notes. “It’s not something we know a lot about, and we need to know
“which vitamins and minerals are most important to critically ill patients.”
Of her mentor, Stapleton says enthusiastically, “I have a huge
amount of respect for her. Polly has a great deal of experience in
pulmonary care, and somehow she manages not only to excel at a
demanding job but even finds the time to have those of us in her
division over for dinner.”
W
ith her doctoral degree in Cell and Molecular Biology freshly
printed, and only one year of medical school to go before being
an M.D.-Ph.D., Wendy Neveu is looking forward to both practicing
medicine and continuing her work as a research scientist. “Right now
I’m leaning toward pathology,” she says, “And I’m deeply indebted to
my mentor, Mercedes Rincon, Ph.D., for the amount of time that she
invested in my education. I look forward to being her colleague in the
future.” Rincon is an associate professor in the Immunobiology program
at the UVM College of Medicine.
Of her work so far, she says, “It’s been a fantastic ride, but I welcome
challenge and see success at the end of my studies. I’ve been inspired by
the women here who hold powerful positions in science, and I feel that
a career and a family are achievable for me, too,” she says. “Eventually
I’d like to be a physician and also run my own lab and be a mentor to
graduate students.”
S
herrill Lathrop, a third year student in Cell and Molecular Biology
who works in Brooke Mossman’s lab, got her bachelor’s degree in
Biology at St. Michael’s College but choose the College of Medicine for
its “strong, diverse program” in environmental pathology, where her
research is mesothelioma-related.
A U.S. veteran who served in Kuwait and Iraq, she is planning a
wedding next year and is in the planning stages of building a home
with her fiancé in Chelsea, Vt. Right now, she plans on pursuing a
postdoctoral fellowship but is “torn between research and industry,”
for her future career. No matter where the future takes her, though,
she says she “feels confident in what I’m doing, and Brooke is an
outstanding example of how you can balance career and family.” And
in the end, as these women see it, balance may be what it’s all about.
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to move a plane ride away from their families and learn to
make things work as a two-person team.”
Tracy received her Ph.D. in biology, with an emphasis
in biochemistry, from Syracuse University in 1977. She was
one of fifteen graduate students, only five of whom were
women. Only two of those women finished the program.
“I never felt I was any different than the men at that
time,” she says. “I had a fabulous study committee, all
male, who knew I could do the job well, and I relied on
them to guide me. I was also influenced by the senior
people in my mentor’s lab.”
Her current interests in how platelets regulate
blood clotting reactions and how the blood clotting
system contributes to cardiovascular disease developed
as a result of five years of postdoctoral training in the
Special Coagulation Laboratory at the Mayo Clinic in
Rochester, Minn. In 1985, she joined the College as a
research assistant professor of medicine and biochemistry
and member of the Thrombosis Research Center. She
became a tenured professor of biochemistry in 1995. She
received the UVM Chapter of the American Medical
Women’s Association Gender Equity Award in 2005, the
same year she accepted the position of interim chair of the
Department of Biochemistry. Recently, Tracy became the
University’s representative to a new group in the AAMC
dedicated to women in science and medicine.
Tracy mentors graduate students, medical students
and postdoctoral students, and can’t recall ever turning
down anyone in need of a mentor. One of those graduate
students was Beth Bouchard, Ph.D.’96. “While I was
a graduate student in her laboratory, Paula provided a
supportive learning environment during my development
into an independent research scientist,” says Bouchard.
Today, Bouchard is a research assistant professor of
Women Representation in U.S. Medical Schools
1998 vs. 2008
1998–99
2008–09
% Change
Medical School Applicants
43%
48%
12%
Accepted Applicants
44%
48%
9%
Residents
36%
45%
25%
Assistant Professors
34%
41%
21%
Associate Professors
23%
30%
30%
Full Professors
11%
18%
64%
Division Chiefs/Section Chiefs
16%
21%
31%
Department Chairs
8%
13%
63%
Deans
5%
12%
140%
Raj Chawla, UVM Med Photo
(At far left) Professor and Chair
of Microbiology and Molecular
Genetics Susan Wallace, Ph.D.,
works with postdoctoral fellow
Stephanie Duclos, Ph.D., in the
Wallace lab; (at left) after four
decades work to improve the
health of Vermonters, Mimi
Reardon, M.D.’67, continues to
mentor students today.
Women as a Percent of U.S. Medical Students
1965–2008
50%
48.5% 47.9%
44.3%
41.7%
40%
37.3%
32.5%
30%
26.5%
20.5%
20%
10%
7.9%
1965
9.6%
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2008
biochemistry at UVM, where she returned to join
the faculty in 2000. “As her colleague, I’ve seen Paula
continuing to provide this level of support for her current
students, and I look forward to carrying on the tradition,”
says Bouchard.
“It’s so important that people have someone to listen
to them and understand what they see as important,” says
Tracy. “I try to offer advice regarding the priorities students
need to succeed, and I try to give them an opportunity to
understand who they are. I tell all of them, though, that a
strong work ethic is extremely important to be successful,
so they must know how to work effectively and well.”
“Communication skills — oral and written — are
important. You have to be a little bit of a showman to grab
your audience, and make them realize you have the greatest
data. But the best thing is to be good at your job and to
take advantage of opportunities to be recognized. And that
can mean making your own opportunities.”
Mario Morgado
Leave a Legacy
Not many people have earned the label “local legend.”
One of the College of Medicine’s local legends was actually
named so by the National Library of Medicine. She is Mimi
Reardon, M.D.’67, who served the College for thirteen years
as associate dean for primary care prior to her retirement
in 2006. Her founding work in Vermont’s Area Health
Education Centers (AHEC) has helped to earn more than $15
million in grants to integrate and improve health care services
across professional disciplines.
When Reardon enrolled at the College of Medicine in
1963, only four of her fellow students out of a class of fifty
were women. But she found Vermont to be a friendly place.
“I felt extremely welcome as an individual and a female
applicant,” she recalls. “The faculty was very supportive of us.”
She notes that “occasionally a male classmate would express
negativity or a lack of acceptance, the idea that ‘you’re taking
a place a man could have,’ but that didn’t bother me.” In fact,
the male colleague who made that particular comment became
one of Reardon’s good friends. “As he realized a woman’s
abilities, his thoughts changed,” she says.
“There’s no difference in mentoring men or women,”
she says. “I find out where their interests and abilities lie, and
help them stretch. I tell them to find a good balance in their
lives — to find time for exercise, friends, and family as well as
their careers.” She also connects those she mentors with the
right schools, people, and places they should know of and sets
up shadowing experiences for them.
Like all her fellow pioneers in the biomedical professions,
Reardon emphasizes the importance for the students she
mentors to periodically pause, recognize and celebrate their
successes along the path to their profession. “I reflect with them
on what they have accomplished already, and we celebrate what
they’ve done and what they have already given to society.”
That assessment of their careers, and the careers of those
who’ve gone before, shows how much perseverance and
support can, in time, change the landscape. VM
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Emeritus Professor of Surgery
David Pilcher, M.D., writes the
definitive history of his profession
in the Green Mountain State.
Two Centuries
of Vermont Surgery
ince his retirement in 2003, David Pilcher, M.D., along with co-author
Michael Curran, M.D., has worked to compile a comprehensive look at
the practice of surgery in Vermont, from the earliest crude procedures
performed on farmhouse tables to the development of modern microsurgical
techniques. On the following pages, Vermont Medicine presents just a few excerpts
of the key experiences to be found in the new book, Catamount Surgeons.
John Pomeroy — Apprenticeship Makes a Surgeon
Revolutionary War surgeons, more often than not, were
self-proclaimed “doctors” trained under the time-honored
but inconsistent apprenticeship method. They were assisted
in their treatments by a “surgeon’s mate.” The mate was
usually an industrious soldier with a steady hand, a calm
stomach, and an interest in medicine. John Pomeroy of
Middleboro, Massachusetts, was one such soldier turned
mate. He had left the family farm at age 15 in 1779 to join
the 9th Massachusetts Regiment. Within three months,
he had become the regiment’s mate beneath surgeon John
Thomas. Pomeroy resumed farming following his military
service, but devoted all of his spare time to the acquisition
of knowledge. In 1784, he apprenticed himself to one of
Thomas’ surgical colleagues from the Siege of Boston, James
Bradish of Cummington, Massachusetts.
After completing his apprenticeship in 1787, Pomeroy
moved to the recently chartered town of Cambridge,
Vermont. There he started what soon became a large and
lucrative practice. But the remote setting presented many
logistical challenges. During one spring thaw, Pomeroy was
Emeritus Professor of Surgery
David Pilcher, M.D., seen here at
left performing surgery in 1998,
assisted by his son Jonathan
Pilcher, M.D.’00, drew on his
personal knowledge of five
decades of Vermont surgeons,
bolstered by seven years of
painstaking research, to write
Catamount Surgeons.
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Douglas Halporn, M.D.’00
summoned to help with a difficult pregnancy. The patient
lived deep in the woods near a stream, three miles from her
nearest neighbor. By the time Pomeroy reached the brook,
it had risen so high that his horse could barely cross it. The
patient’s house, in the meantime, had been engulfed by the
torrent and was filling with water. With the help of the woman’s
husband and a nurse already on the scene, the industrious
physician built a temporary shelter on higher ground where
he conducted the delivery.
Burlington Beckons
Although Cambridge was no smaller than any other Vermont
town of the time, relative isolation and poor soil limited its
potential for future growth. Perhaps sensing this, Pomeroy
decided it was time to make another move. He relocated
to Burlington, a town of 332 residents, in 1792. Access by
stagecoach was limited and the arrival of the railroad was still
56 years away! But as a lumber port on the Lake Champlain
inland waterway, the city soon benefited from increased trade
and travel. Pomeroy’s business immediately flourished. In
1797 he built the town’s first brick house on Water Street.
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Pomeroy Helps Establish UVM and Becomes
Its Second Faculty Member
In John Pomeroy’s library was the 1796 edition of Benjamin Bell’s
A System of Surgery. During his practice, Pomeroy performed this
“hare lip reconstruction” illustrated by Bell.
Shortly thereafter, he began to attract students who knew
of his scholarly approach and teaching excellence. His
home, the site of his medical lectures, had an extensive
library of medical texts. Apprentices came from all over
the state to study with him. “University degrees were not
necessary for the practice of medicine and were indeed
looked upon as a pleasant but not indispensable part of
a physician’s equipment.”
Pomeroy was described as “a man of robust
constitution and great energy of character.” The following
[excerpt is] illustrative:
“On one occasion he was summoned to attend a case of
laryngitis and found the patient asphyxiated, on a rude bed
in the hold of a vessel anchored at the dock. Comprehending
the gravity of the situation and in opposition to violent
resistance on the part of friends of the patient, he performed
laryngotomy, inserting a quill into the opening, through which
the patient peacefully breathed and life was restored. It was
the first operation of this nature he had ever seen and had the
patient died, lynch law would doubtless have been employed to
prevent in the future surgical interference in such cases.”
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Burlington was in need of both a minister and a church
when, in 1799, the Unitarian church in nearby Vergennes
relieved its pastor, the Reverend Daniel Clarke Sanders,
of his duties. Upon hearing the news, Pomeroy and an
associate rode south and persuaded the reverend to come
to town. The two agreed to pay his wages for the next year.
They also suggested that he take an academic appointment
at the new school.
Although Sanders, a Harvard graduate, started
preaching in the county courthouse the next year, his real
interest lay in the establishment of the University. He was
elected its president and sole professor within months of
his arrival. Meanwhile, Pomeroy helped conduct a public
campaign that raised $2,300 for the purchase of building
materials, books, and other supplies. In addition, he
supported an endowment to cover the president’s salary
for the next three years. Reverend Sanders pitched in by
clearing trees from the site of the future College Building
(completed in 1804) and by holding Burlington’s first
classes in his house in1800.
Pomeroy was conducting classes of a sort at the same
time. Having been in practice for more than a dozen years,
he had started teaching pupils the basics of medical and
surgical care. Some stayed only a few days or weeks, but
others completed months of training. Pomeroy took pleasure
in giving lessons and his students appreciated his efforts.
His actions were not undertaken for financial gain, as “it
was considered extravagant on the part of the students to
pay and undignified on the part of the professors to receive.”
Pomeroy’s next step was to bring some legitimacy to
his medical instruction. He approached the University’s
board of trustees in 1804 and presented his case. His
argument must have been persuasive, since the trustees
unanimously voted to make Pomeroy the school’s second
faculty member.
The Journal of Erastus Root
One of Pomeroy’s students during the fall of 1815 was
Erastus Root. He had obtained his bachelor’s degree from
UVM in 1811 and then apprenticed with Willard Arms
of Brattleboro. He returned several years later to study
with Pomeroy on Arms’ recommendation. Root kept a
detailed diary from October 10, 1815 to February 10, 1816
that chronicled his time in northern Vermont. Excerpts
from 1815 give an insight into the nature of Pomeroy’s
instruction at UVM:
Thursday, October 19, 1815
Attended the reduction of a fractured thigh bone by Dr.
Pomeroy. The subject was a boy about 12 years of age who
UVM Special Collections
had fallen from a horse and fractured his thigh. It was very
handsomely reduced according to Benjamin Bell’s principles.
Five splints and the nine tailed bandage were used.
Wednesday, November 8, 1815
Dr. Pomeroy returned from a patient in Westford who had
fallen from her horse and fractured badly both the tibia and
fibula ... it is both compound and comminuted, and several
ulcers have formed. Dr. Pomeroy says he shall amputate the
leg tomorrow or the next day.
Friday, November 10, 1815
The medical students with Dr. Pomeroy started by 6 o’clock...
our journey [one way, was] 18 miles...though we had paid a
dollar each, we had to walk half the way...we did not arrive
until 2 o’clock.
All things were ready for the operation in a few minutes.
Dr. Pomeroy then performed it in less than three minutes.
The limb was off, and neatly dressed in five minutes more.
We returned to Burlington the same evening, we arrived
about half past eleven.”
William Beaumont — Vermont’s First Famous
Research Surgeon
In 1811, Truman Powell, UVM’s first medical graduate,
moved thirty miles north to take a job with Benjamin
Chandler of St. Albans. A distinguished physician in
his own right, Chandler had been the recipient of the
University of Vermont’s second honorary M.D. in 1810.
Powell arrived to find an apprentice in his new partner’s
charge named William Beaumont. The former grade school
teacher had been preparing himself for a career in medicine
since 1806 by reading books he had borrowed from
Pomeroy. Beaumont worked under Chandler and Powell’s
supervision until June 1812. Upon satisfactorily completing
his studies, he received a license from the Third Medical
Society signed by Pomeroy, its president.
Beaumont left his preceptor, moved across the lake to
New York, and joined the army. He served as a surgeon’s
mate in the 6th infantry at the Battles of Little York and
Plattsburgh during the War of 1812. After resigning his
commission in January 1813, he opened an office in
Plattsburgh. His license to practice was still that of the
Third Medical Society of Vermont.Beaumont re-enlisted
in 1819 and was sent to Fort Mackinac in Michigan. It
was there, in 1822, that French-Canadian voyageur Alexis
St. Martin (in Beaumont’s words) “was most dangerously
wounded by the accidental discharge of a heavily loaded
musket. The wound was received just under the left breast,
and supposed at the time to have been mortal. A large
portion of the side was blown off, the ribs fractured, and
openings made into the cavities of the chest and abdomen,
Stan Malcolm
through which protruded portions of the lungs and
stomach, much lacerated and burnt, exhibiting altogether
an appalling and hopeless case. The diaphragm was
lacerated, and a perforation made directly into the cavity of
the stomach, through which food was escaping at the time.”
During an era when abdominal wounds were usually
lethal, St. Martin’s survival was unexpected. Beaumont
studied the workings of the human stomach through his
patient’s gastrocutaneous fistula over the next decade. In
1833, he published his findings and conclusions in the
book Experiments and observations on the gastric juice
and the physiology of digestion. The work was a landmark
in experimental physiology that contributed greatly to
the science of gastric digestion. Although his research was
conducted a decade after he left the state, his roots were
from Vermont. Perhaps he can be considered Vermont’s first
surgical researcher.
James L. Little, the Big Surgeon
James Lawrence Little, the College’s professor of surgery
from 1875 to 1885, was a giant in both size and vision.
Standing well over six feet tall and weighing at least 250
pounds, he made major contributions to both UVM and
the practice of surgery. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on
February 19, 1836, he became a bookseller at age twenty,
but was fired after spending too much time reading the
store’s medical books. Interested in learning anatomy, he
purchased a pauper’s skull from a gravedigger for twentyfive cents. Upon unwrapping the package, however, he
found that it contained a
decomposing head. Horrified,
he threw the entire lot into
the East River and chose
another course of study.
Little attended the
Columbia College of
Physicians and Surgeons,
graduating in 1860. He
became a junior assistant
surgeon at the New York
Hospital the same year.
Little was Surgeonin-Chief to New York
City’s 14,000-bed Parks
Barracks Hospital during
the Civil War, even
though he did not serve
in the military.
It was during this
Among the innovations of Benjamin Little,
time that Little came up with
M.D., who taught both in Vermont and
his first major breakthrough — New York during the 1870s and 1880s, is
the plaster-of-Paris splint still in use today.
the invention of the plaster-
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29
of-Paris splint. Beforehand, splints had been made from
a troublesome starchy material. Although plaster-of-Paris
had been used as a surgical dressing without success, Little
was able to adapt the compound to orthopaedic practice.
He devised an ingredient mixture and application method
that provided an immovable yet porous splint that would
conform to any shape desired. His basic technique is still
used today.
…Little spearheaded the drive to increase the number of UVM
lectures delivered by specialists. Using his personal connections, he
recruited speakers from New York in the fields of ophthalmology,
otolaryngology, and urology, among others. He also convinced his
colleagues to give clinical instruction in each of these subjects.
Little was the first surgeon to place a suprapubic catheter for
the relief of urinary retention. An early adapter, he was also
among the first users of the newly invented laryngoscope
and ophthalmoscope during the 1860s. His interests in these
instruments led to his next major surgical legacy. In 1879,
during the middle of his tenure at UVM, he published
the first succinct description of the location in which the
majority of all nosebleeds originate. Recognition of this
discovery in the United States, ironically, has since fallen to
a German laryngologist who reported similar findings in
1884. Thus, the region still known as Little’s area in Great
Britain is called Kiesselbach’s plexus in the United States.
John Brooks Wheeler Becomes Professor of Surgery
UVM’s trustees rearranged the College of Medicine’s entire
faculty in July of 1900. Former assistant John Brooks
Wheeler took Abel Mix Phelps’ place as professor of
surgery. Another native Vermonter, he was born in Stowe
on August 13, 1853. He was the son of a prominent lawyer
and the grandson of the University’s former president.
Wheeler made the most of his background by pursuing an
extensive education. He graduated from UVM in 1875
then attended medical school at Harvard. After receiving
his M.D. in 1878, he completed a one-year internship at
the Massachusetts General Hospital — a relatively novel
accomplishment at the time.
Wheeler set sail for Europe in July of 1879. Over
the next two years, he studied under some of the most
important physicians and surgeons of the era. He learned
operative surgery from Theodor Billroth, surgical anatomy
from Emil Zuckerhandl in Vienna, pathological anatomy
from Friedrich von Recklinghausen, microscopic anatomy
from Wilhelm von Waldeyer in Strasbourg, and operative
surgery from Bernhard von Langenbeck in Berlin. Wheeler
studied alongside William S. Halsted while in Vienna,
but his most notable brush with fame came during his
30
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
time in Edinburgh. While there, he not only met Joseph
Bell, the real life inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s
Sherlock Holmes, but also had the opportunity to watch
him operate. Bell was the grandson of Scottish surgeon
Benjamin Bell whose text was used by John Pomeroy at
the start of his Burlington teaching saga.
Wheeler’s greatest exposure to Listerism occurred
in Austria and Germany (rather than in Lister’s home of
Scotland) due to widespread European acceptance
of antisepsis.
At the completion of his studies, Wheeler was as well
trained as any of UVM’s previous professors of surgery.
Unlike his predecessors, though, he decided to return to
Vermont rather than settle in a large metropolitan city.
In the fall of 1881, he opened an office on Main Street in
Burlington. Within two years, he was an instructor at the
College and an attending surgeon at the Mary Fletcher
Hospital. Despite lecturing before classes of more than 200
students a year, Wheeler did not enjoy the substantial salary
of a full professor. In order to make ends meet, he initially
practiced both general medicine and surgery since his
patients were poor and surgical cases were few.
Even though Mary Fletcher’s hospital had been open
for several years, operations were still carried out in patient’s
homes. Wheeler recalled, “There was a feeling that nobody
but paupers were treated at hospitals.” The populace was
“filled with the idea that hospitals existed for the sole
purpose of ‘experimenting’ on people.” As a result of this
mindset, Wheeler was often obliged to travel up to thirty
miles or more by horseback, carriage, or even sleigh to make
a “house” call.
The general public had about as much regard for
physicians’ advice during this time as they had for hospitals.
An incident involving one of Wheeler’s first patients (an
elderly woman with burns over her lower abdomen and
thighs from an overturned lantern) was typical. Wheeler
applied gauze soaked with linseed oil and lime water to the
burned skin, covered it with a thick layer of cotton, and
then changed the entire dressing every day for the next ten
days. Just as the surface began to heal, the patient’s sister
informed him that his services were no longer needed. She
felt that the “young doctor” had done his best, but that it
was time to switch to a better remedy — a hen manure
poultice. Appalled, Wheeler pleaded his case to no avail.
“In about a week more this treatment by fertilizer bore the
fruit which I had expected, in the shape of a funeral.”
Wheeler continued his association with the Department of
Surgery for decades afterward, till his death in 1942. Later
that year A.G. Mackay became the chair.
Julius Jacobson Brings Surgical Research to UVM
Upon completing his fellowship in 1959, [Julius] Jacobson
was recruited by A.G. Mackay to start a research program
at UVM. He accepted the offer, and was soon appointed
Associate Professor of Surgery and Director of Surgical
Research. Not bad for someone only a few months out
of training! He was generously funded by the College of
Medicine, the Department of Surgery’s clinicians, and the
United States Public Health Service, which “was pouring
money in to upgrade the smaller schools.”
Jacobson drew upon his interest in thoracic surgery
and his prior experience with the operating microscope.
The Department of Pharmacology asked him to help with a
study that involved denervation of the canine carotid artery.
“It became clear that the only sure way to achieve this was
to divide and reanastamose the artery.” After working on
the 3 mm arteries, however, “It became obvious, that the
problem was the eye not being able to see well enough to
guide the hand properly.” Experimentation with magnifying
loupes was undertaken in short order. “Suddenly the
epiphany occurred. I remembered wandering into an ear,
nose, and throat operating room at Presbyterian Hospital
and peering through the microscope during a stapes
mobilization.” The rest unfolded as follows:
“I immediately went to the Mary Fletcher Hospital to
borrow an operating microscope.The resistance to moving
an expensive piece of equipment and contaminating it in
the animal laboratory was monumental, even as it might be
today. However, that same day we did the first canine carotid
anastomosis with the microscope.”
John Brooks Wheeler, at center leaning over patient, is shown here
in the Mary Fletcher amphitheatre in 1900. His relationship with the
Department of Surgery lasted nearly 60 years.
UVM College of Medicine Archives
Jacobson was given a wing in the basement of the new
Medical Alumni Building. It contained an office for himself,
an office for a fellow, an office with several divided carousels
for students, and three rooms that could function as animal
UVM College of Medicine Archives
Dr. Jacobson in the surgical research laboratory in 1960.
R.M.P. Donaghy, M.D., pioneered microneurosurgery in the same lab.
laboratory operating rooms. There was enough cage space
for 160 dogs, a luxury unheard of today.
Jacobson hired Clement Comeau, a Mary Fletcher
O.R. assistant, and Rodney Larrow, who had been working
for a local veterinarian, as his laboratory technicians. He
recruited Ernesto L. Suarez, a gifted young physician from
Argentina, to be a research associate. Suarez, like Jacobson
before him, eventually developed superb skills operating
under the microscope.
During the summer months, medical students were
paid $300 apiece to work in the new lab. The 1960 crew
included two students from UVM, Robert Guiduli (who
later became a South Burlington-based ophthalmologist)
and Charles Pitman; and one from the University of
Rochester, myself [David B. Pilcher], thanks to my family’s
summer connections in the greater Burlington area. Guiduli
and I worked with the operating microscope
under Jacobson and Suarez’s tutelage. VM
Get Your Copy
Drs. Pilcher and Curran contributed years
of work on their labor of love, Catamount
Surgeons, and a generous gift from Joan and
Julius Jacobson, M.D., helped defray costs of
printing. For information about how to obtain
a copy of the book, please contact Ben Fuller in
the Medical Development & Alumni Relations Office —
(802) 656-4009 or email [email protected].
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31
research,
advocate,
change.
|
by Jennifer Nachbur photography by Raj Chawla
t
Students at the College of Medicine learn
that it’s not enough to just uncover new
knowledge about public health. Here, they
need to take the findings to a public forum
that will help bring about needed reforms.
he State of Vermont is unique in many ways; but from the perspective of a
medical student, one of the key aspects of that uniqueness must be the ability to
effect change so early in one’s medical career. This situation was demonstrated
this winter by one group of second-year UVM medical students who completed
their collective research on an important topic of environmental health, and within days
presented their findings in testimony before the Vermont House of Representatives’
Committee on Natural Resources and Energy.
College of Medicine Class of 2012 members Melissa Marotta and Brett Porter spoke
to the committee at the State House in Montpelier on January 22 in support of Bill H.97,
which proposes to prohibit a heavyweight vehicle from idling while stopped for more than
five consecutive minutes in any 60-minute period.
Marotta and Porter are two of seven members of a Medical Student Leadership Group
that conducted a survey last fall to determine whether Vermont diesel vehicle operators were
aware of the health effects of diesel exhaust and whether or not they were concerned about it.
The group’s public health project, titled “Assessing Health Concerns and Obstacles to Diesel
Exposure Reduction in Vermont Diesel Vehicle Operators,” was completed in conjunction
with the American Lung Association of Vermont. Additional group members include Renee
Bratspis, Maria Furman, Joseph Yared, Will Timbers, and Quillan Huang. Gerald Davis,
M.D., UVM professor of medicine and Vermont Lung Center member, and Jan Carney,
M.D., M.P.H., associate dean for public health, served as the group’s faculty co-mentors.
32
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
%
75
Seventy-five percent of drivers
reported that they have not
been educated about the health
effects of diesel exposure.
(At left) Vermont state representatives William Canfield, left, and
Mark Mitchell examine research data presented by College of Medicine
students in January before the House Committee on Natural Resources and
Energy on “Assessing Health Concerns and Obstacles to Diesel Exposure
Reduction in Vermont Diesel Vehicle Operators.” (Above) Melissa Marotta ’12
testifies before the committee.
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Department
of Transportation
Employers
25%
8%
Environmental
Agencies
17%
Physicians
42%
3%
Second-year medical students’ research showed the Vermont state legislators
that information on the negative effects of breathing diesel exhaust fumes is most
likely to be deemed credible by diesel rig drivers if it comes to them via the driver’s
physician or employer.
34
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
36
Class Notes
37
Development News
41
2010 MAA Awards
42
Obituaries
48
Slightly more than two-thirds of drivers reported
extensive idling in order “to keep myself warm or cool.”
Only 5 percent reported idling their rigs in order to keep
their truck’s contents warm or cool.
“While our sample does not report an overwhelming
concern about health effects of diesel exposure,” say the
project’s authors, “this may be a function of limited
education, so driver education may be an effective target
for idling reduction.” The students also believe that
physician advocacy could assist in improving drivers’
education as well as reducing idling, as drivers by a wide
margin report their doctors are their prime trusted source
of health information.
The legislative committee members complemented
the medical students on their informative testimony. Bill
H.97 was later forwarded to the House Transportation
Committee for further action this spring. VM
Vermont Drivers on Most Credible
Sources of Health Information
Other
President’s Corner
Renee Bratspis ’12 joined Brett Porter ’12 and Melissa Marotta ’12
as they visited Representatives Hall in the State House after the
students’ January 22 testimony before the House Committee on
Natural Resources and Energy.
Government
8%
H A LL A
With a long-term goal of identifying the best
methods for reducing diesel idling in Vermont, the
students’ study sought to determine several things: whether
or not Vermont diesel vehicle drivers have been educated
about exhaust exposure; if these drivers are concerned
about potential health effects of diesel; the level of the
drivers’ satisfaction with their understanding of the health
impact of diesel fuel; and what these drivers found to be
obstacles to idling reduction.
The group targeted Vermont businesses that employed
a diesel fleet of more than ten drivers and lacked a no-idling
policy. During November and December of 2009, surveys
were administered to drivers who worked at seven diesel
fleets in the Burlington and Rutland areas. Drivers surveyed
ranged in age from 24 to 67 years.
The students found that two-thirds of the drivers who
completed surveys reported that they would “almost always”
or “always” follow employer-set policies if they were in
place and 75 percent of drivers reported that they had
not been educated about the potential health effects of
diesel exposure. Only 15 percent indicated that they were
“very satisfied” with their understanding of this issue.
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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P RESIDENT ’ S C ORNER
H A LL A
University of Vermont
College of Medicine
development &
alumni relations office
Assistant Dean
Rick Blount
After two years as president of the Medical Alumni
Association, I now prepare to hand over the reigns of this
organization to Jim Hebert, class of 1977. Of course, the
image of being the driver is not really accurate. One of the
wonderful things about the Medical Alumni Association is
the way its members have a common feeling for the goals
of the organization, resulting from our common experience learning both the art
and science of medicine in Vermont.
Jim Hebert has his own roots in that tradition, and I know that the MAA
will be well served during his presidency. Jim has been a member of the executive
committee of the MAA for years, and has participated directly in the education
of hundreds of students and residents during his three decades as a UVM faculty
member. He is the MacKay-Page Professor of Surgery (named in part after our old
teacher H. Gordon Page). Jim is also something of a historian, and has researched
many topics on the development of medicine in the Green Mountain State.
I know he has a deep understanding of where we’ve come from, and a great
ability to help chart where we’re going.
That same feeling of relating past and present can be found in this issue of
Vermont Medicine, which describes the growth of women as a part of the faculty,
administration, and student body. I’ve long been proud to note that I was 100
percent of the women in the graduating class in 1962. I’m even prouder of my
alma matter now, where women make up over 50 percent or more of the student
body, and have done so for more than a decade.
One of those women is a prime example of why we need to always keep
giving back to our College of Medicine in the forefront of our plans. You may
have seen mention in the last issue of this magazine of Chantell Hemsley from
the Class of 2013. Chantell wrote me a wonderful thank-you note expressing her
gratitude for the scholarship assistance from the Medical Alumni Association that
has enabled her, the first person in her family to finish college, to go on to a career
as a physician. That letter was addressed to me in my capacity as president of the
MAA, but it was really a thank-you to all of you for your generosity. I have been
proud to help lead one of the top alumni associations in the nation for percentage
of philanthropic participation, and I encourage all of you to keep this most
important tradition going.
Ruth Andrea Seeler, M.D.’62
Medical Alumni Association President
Director, Administration & Planning
Ginger Lubkowitz
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) through FY2010:
President
Ruth A. Seeler, M.D.’62 (2009–2011)
President-Elect
James C. Hebert, M.D.’77 (2009–2011)
Treasurer
Paul B. Stanilonis, M.D.’65 (2009–2011)
Secretary
Mark Pasanen, M.D.’92 (2009–2011)
Executive Secretary
John Tampas, M.D.’54 (ongoing)
Members-At-Large (6-Year Terms):
Mark Allegretta, Ph.D.’90 (2003–2010)
Naomi R. Leeds, M.D.’00, M.P.H. (2004–2010)
H. James Wallace III, M.D.’88 (2004–2010)
Suzanne R. Parker, M.D.’73 (2008–2010)
Carleton R. Haines, M.D.’43 (2006–2012)
Jacqueline A. Noonan, M.D.’54 (2006–2012)
Betsy Sussman, M.D.’81 (2007–2012)
Don P. Chan, M.D.’76 (2009–2014)
Leslie S. Kerzner, M.D.’95 (2009–2014)
Frederick Mandell, M.D.’64 (2009–2014)
M.D. Class Notes
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].
May 23, 2010
UVM Commencement Weekend 2010
College of Medicine Commencement at 2:30 p.m.
in Ira Allen Chapel
1943
1946
June 10, 2010
Medical Alumni Association Award Dinner
Burlington Country Club
Francis Arnold Caccavo
(M.D. Dec. 1943)
51 Thibault Parkway
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-3841
[email protected]
Howard MacDougall reports: “Along
with my apparent inheritance of genes
for old age I’ve also inherited those for
obstinateness. Even though I know
the outcome I’m still fighting old age.
Dorothy and I occasionally see Pat Izzo’s
widow.”
Carleton R. Haines
(M.D. Dec. 1943)
88 Mountain View Road
Williston, VT 05495
(802) 878-3115
Harry M. Rowe
(M.D. March 1943)
65 Main Street
P.O. Box 755
Wells River, VT 05081
(802) 757-2325
[email protected]
1947
George H. Bray
110 Brookside Road
New Britain, CT 06052
Tom Holcomb says that he is “Still
ambulatory and reasonably sound of mind.”
1948
Wilton W. Covey
357 Weybridge Street
Middlebury, VT 05753
(802) 388-1555
S. James Baum
1790 Fairfield Beach Road
Fairfield, CT 06430
(203) 255-1013
[email protected]
r e u n i o n
’1 0
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
John C. Robinson writes: “Megs and
I have been living in Avery Heights in
Hartford, Conn., for three-and-a-half
years. It is a retirement home. We have
a nice apartment. I am in my second
year as president of the Residents
Association. Thank goodness my term
is up next April.”
June 12, 2010
Ira Allen Society & Wilbur Society Members Reception
Englesby House 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
August 9–14, 2010
Class of 2014 Medical Student Orientation
October 2, 2010
Vermont Reception at the American Academy
of Pediatrics National Conference
San Francisco, Calif.
1944
1945
June 11–13, 2010
Medical Reunion Weekend 2010
1949
October 4, 2010
Vermont Reception at the American College
of Surgeons/Annual Clinical Congress
Washington, D.C.
October, 2010
Fall Alumni Executive Committee Meeting
UVM Campus (date TBA)
November 30, 2010
Vermont Reception at the Radiological Society
of North American Annual Meeting
Chicago, Ill.
Joseph C. Foley
32 Fairmount Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-0040
[email protected]
Edward S. Sherwood
24 Worthley Road
Topsham, VT 05076
(802) 439-5816
[email protected]
1950
r e u n i o n
Simon Dorfman
8256 Nice Way
Sarasota, FL 34238
(941) 926-8126
’1 0
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
Send Us Your Stories!
36
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
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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M . D . C L A SS NOTES
H A LL A
1951
Edward W. Jenkins
7460 South Pittsburg Ave.
Tulsa, OK 74136
(918) 492-7960
[email protected]
Edward W. Jenkins reports: “The
nephew of a classmate, Louis Bartlett,
was recently elected mayor of Tulsa,
Okla. Class members were contacted
concerning the late Dr. Bartlett. Fran
Phillips Conklin remembers him as
the son of a European ambassador and
probably the most affluent member of
the class. He was a little older than other
classmates and lived in South Burlington
in a house with his wife. They had a maid.
When the maid told Louis she was being
evicted from her home Louis bought
the house she lived in and gave it to her.
When Fran and her husband, Jack, were
in Chicago, where she took her board
exam in radiology, Louis invited them to
a reunion in New York City. She let him
know they wouldn’t be able to afford the
trip, and Dr. B. sent them airline tickets
and hotel reservations! Fran continues to
work with a Women in Medicine group
at Brown University. Ed Kamens recalls
Louis as amiable, intelligent, and wily.
He was often ready to play a joke on
someone. I remember him for his smile,
big white teeth, and happy demeanor.
After I settled in Tulsa as a cardiothoracic surgeon he called me and asked
if I would visit his uncle, ex-Governor
Dewey Barlett, who was afflicted with
cancer of the lung. I complied and met
a very gracious man. Unfortunately, his
disease was advanced and I could offer
nothing to his management. I must
pass on the disturbing news that Murdo
Glenn MacDonald, ex-UVM footballer
and outstanding medical student, passed
away in October. We will all miss his
quiet wit, brilliance, and leadership. Larry
Ahrens (a high school classmate of my
wife Mary Jane nee Durfee) came east to
New York recently and was to meet with
Ed Kamens. Ed recommends chicken pox
vaccine as he has had a lengthy painful
bout of shingles. I am asking the rest of
you survivors to contact me and let us all
know how you are getting along.
1952
1953
1959
Richard N. Fabricius
17 Fairview Road
Old Bennington, VT 05201
(802) 442-4224
Jay E. Selcow
27 Reservoir Road
Bloomfield, CT 06002
(860) 243-1359
[email protected]
1954
Jay Selcow writes: “I was delighted with
John E. Mazuzan Jr.
366 South Cove Road
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 864-5039
[email protected]
1955
r e u n i o n
William A. Eddy is still working
(diagnostic radiology) at St. Vincent’s
Hospital (Worcester, Mass.) part-time
and teaching. Had both hips replaced
in the summer of ’09. Nancy Eddy ’52,
is painting and now taking classes in
watercolor at deCordova Museum
(Lincoln, Mass.)
VT: 604
1960
r e u n i o n
’1 0
Marshall G. London
102 Summit Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 864-4927
[email protected]
Eugene D. Jacobson writes: “Our first
Please email [email protected]
if you’d like to serve as 1952 class agent.
the turnout at our 50th reunion in June.
It was wonderful reconnecting with my
classmates and I think everyone who
returned really had a great time.”
grandchild graduated from Cornell
University this year. My wife and I moved
into a retirement facility two years ago,
and we are still enjoying the change.
Our health is still holding up.”
1956
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
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]
Richard Narkewicz reports: “Got a
stiff shoulder and went for a cortisone
shot here in Fort Myers, Fla., and to my
surprise, I saw John Fenning, M.D.’60!
I had not seen him for 50 years! We had
a great reunion and are looking forward
to our formal 50th reunion this year.”
Email: [email protected]
Rudy Keimowitz writes: “I passed
my certification exam for hospice and
palliative medicine in November and
continue to work full-time as a palliative
medicine consultant at the University of
Minnesota Medical Center. I am also on
the staff of the Department of Internal
Medicine and Hematology/Oncology/
Transplantation.”
1961
Wilfrid L. Fortin
17 Chapman Street
Nashua, NH 03060
(603) 882-6202
[email protected]
1962
Oh, the Places We’ve Gone!
0
300 +
UVM MD Alumni Population Density
NUMBER BY STATE
38
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
The nearly 4,000 medical alumni of the College of
Medicine alive today have spread out across the country,
and are serving patients in nearly every state of the
union. Concentrations are heavy on both coasts and, not
surprisingly, in New England. Not represented here are
graduates practicing outside the U.S.
’1 0
Ruth Andrea Seeler
2431 North Orchard
Chicago, IL 60614
(773) 472-3432
[email protected]
Ed Neuert
Melvyn Wolk, M.D.’60 Honored
The non-profit youth organization Junior Achievement of Northeastern
Pennsylvania recently recognized Melvyn Wolk, M.D. from the class of 1960
by inducting him into the organization’s Business Hall of Fame. Wolk has
served the northeastern Pennsylvania area since 1965, when he and his wife,
Marilyn, settled there to start his pediatric practice after Dr. Wolk completed
his residency and a two-year stint in the U.S. Air Force. In honoring Dr. Wolk,
Junior Achievement noted his founding of the Asthma Ski Day Program in
Pennsylvania, which engages asthmatic children and their parents in active
winter sports.
Melvyn Wolk, M.D.’60
Robert G. Mondou is “Completely
retired and spending most of my time
on the Cape. I have nine grandchildren,
ages 7 to 17.”
but became obsolete with advances
in technology. Have new career in
aquaculture on the coast of Maine.”
Email: [email protected]
1963
1965
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
Arnold and Joan Kerzner write: “We
continue to live a full life trying to keep
just ahead of our two granddaughters,
Elana and Adriana. Still practicing child/
family psychiatry with whatever energies
remain.”
1964
Anthony P. Belmont
211 Youngs Point Road
Wiscasset, ME 04578
(207) 882-6228
[email protected]
Lester Wurtele “Finally retired this June
30 after nearly 39 years of practice in
radiology. Irma and I went to China in
October, and enjoyed seeing classmates
at the 45th reunion in June.” Email:
[email protected]
Mel Feldman is “Still working — affiliated
with Children’s National Medical Center,
Washington, D.C. Taking more vacations.
We (Linda and I) will be celebrating our
45th anniversary next May. We have seven
wonderful grandchildren and three great
kids.” Email: [email protected]
Prescott Cheney reports: “I have been
retired from practicing orthopedic
surgery for nine years. I miss medicine
r e u n i o n
’1 0
George A. Little
97 Quechee Road
Hartland, VT 05048
(802) 436-2138
[email protected]
Joseph H. Vargas III
574 US Route 4 East
Rutland, VT 05701
(802) 775-4671
[email protected]
Jamie Jacobs is “Wishing the best of
everything to my classmates in 2010
and beyond. At a live auction fundraiser
for the Red Cross this past summer we
purchased use of a vacation home in
the western Virginia mountains for ten
days. We spent our time there fly fishing,
hiking, playing golf and just relaxing with
our two sons and their families (three
grandchildren ranging in age from 12 to
20). For Jean and I, unfortunately, these
ten days encompassed Reunion. We are
both well and I am fully retired from my
cardiology practice. Best regards to all.”
Email: [email protected]
Fred Lippert writes: “Working two days
a week doing foot and ankle orthopedics.
Involved in the integration of Walter Reed
into the Naval Hospital Command. New
Title: ‘Walter Reed National Military
Medical Center.’”
Wooly Doane reports: “Pat and I
continue to enjoy good health. Wooly
retired fully on December 31, 2009. We
spend half our time in Maine and half
in Florida. Can’t take the northern New
England winter anymore.”
S P R I N G
2 0 1 0
39
H A LL A
1966
Robert George Sellig
31 Overlook Drive
Queensbury, NY 12804
(518) 793-7914
[email protected]
G. Millard Simmons
3165 Grass Marsh Drive
Mount Pleasant, SC 29466
[email protected]
M . D . C L A SS NOTES
1967
John F. Dick II
P.O. Box 60
Salisbury, VT 05769
(802) 352-6625
Anthony Wasilkowski writes “I thought
I was a late bloomer, but I finally have a
son-in-law! Our daughter was married in
October. Who knows, maybe a daughterin-law is next? Best wishes to all my
classmates and significant others.” Email:
[email protected]
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
with a former resident three days a week.
Life is good in the mountains.” Email:
[email protected]
1969
Susan Pitman Lowenthal
200 Kennedy Drive
Torrington, CT 06790
(860) 597-8996
[email protected]
Thomas Grady reports that he is
“still working in private practice
general surgery and enjoying it. Four
grandchildren, ages 1½, 1½, 2 and 3.
Enjoying them even more.”
Dan Sullivan writes: “Last May I
received the Gold Medal award from the
Association of University Radiologists.
I was very surprised and honored to be
selected. My work at Duke and with the
RSNA keeps me busier than ever, but it’s
very satisfying. Living within easy walking
distance of our daughter, son-in-law and
three grandsons also helps me to keep
things in perspective!”
Robert McCready writes: “I hope that
all of my classmates are well. I will always
have fond memories of our time together
at UVM.” Email: [email protected]
1971
Wayne E. Pasanen
117 Osgood Street
North Andover, MA 01845
(978) 681-9393
[email protected]
1972
F. Farrell Collins Jr.
205 Page Road
Pinehurst, NC 28374
(910) 295-2429
1973
James M. Betts
715 Harbor Road
Alameda, CA 94502
(510) 523-1920
[email protected]
Philip L. Cohen
483 Lakewood Drive
Winter Park, FL 32789
(407) 628-0221
[email protected]
1974
1970
r e u n i o n
John F. Beamis Jr.
1288 Kapiolani Blvd., Apt. 1605
Honolulu, HI 96814
’1 0
Raymond Joseph Anton
1521 General Knox Road
Russell, MA 01071
(413) 568-8659
[email protected]
Douglas M. Eddy
5 Tanbark Road
Windham, NH 03087
(603) 434-2164
[email protected]
Cajsa Schumacher
78 Euclid Avenue
Albany, NY 12203
[email protected]
Development News
Richard L. Gamelli, who became dean
Larner Endowment
Challenge Doubles
Effect of “Giving Back”
of the Loyola University Chicago Stritch
School of Medicine last year, was recently
appointed to the additional position of
senior vice president of Loyola University
Health System in the Chicago area.
1975
r e u n i o n
’1 0
Ellen Andrews
195 Midland Road
Pinehurst, NC 28374
(910) 295-6464
[email protected]
1976
Don P. Chan
Cardiac Associates of New Hampshire
Suite 103
246 Pleasant Street
Concord, NH 03301
(603) 224-6070
[email protected]
Bonita Palmer reports: “I continue to
do Jungian psychotherapy and spiritual
direction. After a two to three year fight
to keep Sutter from closing St. Lukes
Hospital, I am able to keep providing
Reiki Touch therapy and guided Imagery.”
Email: [email protected]
Eric Reines was recently “elected a fellow
of ACP. Thank you, UVM!”
Email: [email protected]
Mark Yearby continues work in clinical
research in epilepsy and advocates for
change in health policy as member of
board of directors of American Academy
of Neurology.
Robert Parke remains busily retired
(from Air Force medicine) on Cape Cod.
One to two days weekly he commutes to
Boston to do Military Entrance Physicals.
“Episcopal Church activities, choral
singing, travel, doing the newsletter
for the local community theatre, and
gardening (bumper crop of parsnips
this year!) keep cobwebs from forming.”
Email: [email protected]
Giving back has been a key focus
of Helen and Robert Larner,
M.D.’42 for decades. In 1985
the Larners established the
Larner Endowment Fund at the
College of Medicine. They were
guided by some very clear goals: Helen & Robert Larner, M.D.’42
to provide significant support
for financially needy and meritorious students at Dr. Larner’s
medical alma mater, to help as many students as possible,
and to create a culture of “giving back” that would continue
to develop the Fund as its recipients moved on into their
professional life.
The Larners have continued to give to their fund
annually, providing matching dollars for alumni donations
to the Larner Endowment. Now, the Larners have generously
provided a new matching challenge: the Larner Endowment
Challenge, a program that will match gifts made by students
and their families. “We’re very excited and grateful to the
Larners for this additional effort,” says Sarah Keblin, Director
of Annual Giving. “We hope this will engage students even
more in the culture of giving back that is so strong at the
College of Medicine.”
Starr Foundation Funds Endowed Scholarships
For more than 50 years the C.V. Starr Foundation has
financially supported worthy causes. This fall, the foundation
established the Starr Foundation Endowed Scholarship Funds
to assist students studying medicine and nursing at UVM.
The $100,000 C.V. Starr Medical Scholarship Fund will provide
assistance to one or more medical students each year in
perpetuity. The $50,000 C.V. Starr Nursing Scholarship Fund
will assist nursing students in need in perpetuity.
UVM Basketball,
Hockey, Lacrosse
Score Big for VCC
The UVM Women’s and
Men’s Basketball teams
participated for the fourth
consecutive year in the
national WBCA (Women’s
Basketball Coaches
Association) Pink Zone
breast cancer awareness
UVM women’s basketball
team member Courtnay
Pilypaitis controls the ball
during the Feb. 10 Pink
Zone game.
40
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
initiative on February 10 and 14, respectively, raising nearly
$10,000 for the Vermont Cancer Center’s Breast Cancer Research & Education Fund. The UVM Women Catamounts, clad
in pink uniforms, recorded their third straight 20-win season
in front of a season-high crowd at UVM’s Patrick Gymnasium,
overtaking Boston University, 77–59. Four days later, the UVM
Men’s team took the University of New Hampshire Wildcats
to overtime before a sold-out crowd to win 85–76.
The events, which were sponsored by Green Mountain
Coffee Roasters, included an auction of the women’s
game-worn pink jerseys, pink t-shirt and accessories sales,
and a halftime 50/50 raffle, the proceeds of which were
donated to the VCC. One month earlier, the UVM Men’s and
Women’s Hockey East Association charity events, “Skating
Strides for Breast Cancer,” sponsored by Green Mountain
Coffee Roasters, took place on January 15 and January 22,
respectively. The UVM Men’s Catamounts fell to the
Northeastern Huskies 3–1, while the Catamount Women
scored a power-play goal in overtime to win over Boston
University 2–1. The UVM Skating Strides hockey games
raised more than $1,500.
Additionally, the UVM Women’s Lacrosse team
participated in a breast cancer fundraising walk late in 2009,
raising $5,000 for VCC breast cancer research and education
programs, and bringing the total amount raised for VCC by
the Catamounts to more than $16,000.
Xxxxxxxx
Top:
Courtesy
xxxxxxxx
Robert
xxxxxx
Larner; above left: UVM Athletics; above right: Raj Chawla, UVM Med Photo.
Members of the 2010 College of Medicine Marathon Team gathered
before a training run in March.
Marathon Team Begins Third Year of Fundraising
Last year, the College of Medicine Marathon Team raised more
than $30,000 for medical research. This year, for the third
year in a row, students at the College have fielded a growing
slate of runners who will ultimately compete in the KeyBank
Vermont City Marathon this May, and by doing so also raise
money from supporters for the Penelope & Sam Fund for
Neuroblastoma Research at the Vermont Cancer Center. To
learn more visit: www.med.uvm.edu/marathonteam.
S P R I N G
2 0 1 0
41
MAA
H A LL A
2010 Medical Alumni Association Awards
Since the 1980s, the College’s Medical Alumni Association has honored members for their achievements in the clinic, in
the laboratory, and in their personal lives. The 2010 awardees will be honored this June at Reunion 2010, and will take their
place on the award display in the Given Building.
A. Bradley Soule Award:
Service to Medicine and Community Award:
Presented to an alumnus/a whose loyalty and dedication
to the College of Medicine most emulate those qualities
as found in its first recipient, A. Bradley Soule, M.D.’28.
Presented to alumni who have maintained a high standard
of medical service and who have achieved an outstanding
record of community service or assumed other significant
responsibilities not directly related to medical practice.
2 0 1 0 M A A A W A RDS
Distinguished Academic Achievement Award:
Presented to alumni in recognition of outstanding
scientific or academic achievement.
Early Achievement Award:
Presented to alumni who have graduated within the past
15 years in recognition of their outstanding community or
College service and/or scientific or academic achievement.
A . B r adl e y S o ul e Awa r d
Marvin A. Nierenberg, M.D.’60
Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine
Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Psychiatrist, NYU Psychoanalytic Institute
Dr. Nierenberg, a psychiatrist in New York City, has served the College tirelessly for more than 50 years,
including 14 years as a member of the Medical Alumni Executive Committee, culminating in a term as
President from 2006 to 2008. He is a longtime class agent for the medical class of 1960, and he and
his wife, Judith, an alumna of the undergraduate class of 1960, are members of UVM’s Wilbur Society.
Following Dr. Nierenberg’s undergraduate (1957) and medical educations at UVM, service in the U.S. Army medical corps, and
residencies in New York City, he established his psychiatric practice in New York, where he continues to practice today. In
addition to his standard patient care responsibilities and his activities as a teacher of medical students and psychiatry residents,
Dr. Nierenberg serves as a board member and volunteer for the Project for Psychiatric Outreach to the Homeless, through which
he has provided free psychiatric care to the homeless on a weekly basis since 1990.
Dr. Cooney is a surgeon in Syracuse,
New York, whose academic work,
which has produced nearly 60
peer-reviewd papers, focuses on
bariatric surgery. Prior to accepting
his current position in November 2009, he was a faculty
member at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center,
where he served as the Charlene J. Smith Professor of Surgery
and Cellular & Molecular Physiology, chief of the Division of
Surgery, vice-chair for research, and co-director of the Penn
State Institute for Diabetes and Obesity.
42
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Richard G. Caldwell, M.D.’60
Associate Emeritus Professor of
Surgery, Rush Medical College
Stephen J. Haines, M.D.’75
Lyle H. French Chair and Professor
in Neurosurgery, University of
Minnesota
Dr. Haines is a neurosurgeon in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, where his
research, which has resulted in more
than 100 publications in academic
journals, focuses on the application of evidence-based medicine
to neurosurgery. He is a past president of the Congress of
Neurological Surgeons and past vice-president of the
Neurosurgical Society of America, and has served as Chair of the
FDA Advisory Council on Neurologic Devices and the Institute of
Medicine Committee on Safe Medical Devices for Children.
Kerry W. Crowley, M.D.’80
Medical Director, Eleanor Widener
Dixon Memorial Clinic
Dr. Caldwell is a surgeon in Chicago.
In support of medical students at his
alma mater, Dr. Caldwell established
the Richard G. Caldwell, M.D. Family
Scholarship at the UVM College of
Medicine in 2007. Dr. Caldwell and his wife, Carol, also
contributed generously to the facility now known as the Dr.
Richard G. and Carol Caldwell Breast Center at Advocate
Lutheran General Hospital in Chicago. Dr. Caldwell is an active
leader in The Village Presbyterian Church, having served as a
Trustee, Elder, and Stephen Minister.
Dr. Crowley is a family and geriatric
physician in Gouldsboro, Maine.
A native of rural Hancock County,
he served as the Town Health Officer
of Gouldsboro, Maine, from 1990
to 2008, and in 2000 was recognized as the “Family Physician
of the Year” by the Maine chapter of the Academy of Family
Physicians. Dr. Crowley serves as a trustee of Maine Coast
Memorial Hospital, and is also known locally as an assistant
soccer coach and a scorekeeper and referee for YMCA
basketball games.
James G. Gallagher, Ph.D., M.D.’75
Medical Director, Columbia County
Volunteers in Medicine Clinic
Ronald R. Striar, M.D.’55
Pediatrician (retired), Eastern Maine
Medical Center
Dr. Gallagher is an oncologist and
internal medicine physician in
Mifflinville, Pennsylvania. As
volunteer medical director of a free
clinic, his activities have ranged
beyond administration to include making house calls,
recruiting volunteer providers, and personally applying
13 buckets of sealant to the clinic parking lot. In June 2009,
Dr. Gallagher received the “Rural Health Hero of the Year”
award at the Pennsylvania Rural Health Conference. Dr.
Gallagher also serves as President of the local chapter of
Kiwanis International.
Dr. Striar is a retired pediatrician in
Bangor, Maine. In 1958, with the
mother of a child with cerebral palsy
and other health care professionals,
he co-founded a day school for
children with cerebral palsy. For more than 25 years he served
as pediatric consultant to the State of Maine’s crippled children’s
clinic and to the Maine Cardio Clinic, activities for which he
earned an award of appreciation from the State of Maine.
Over the last four years, he and Posie, a registered pet therapy
Shelti dog, have been twice-weekly visitors to the pediatric
and palliative care wards of Eastern Maine Medical Center.
e a r ly ac h i e v e m e n t awa r d
William K. Chin, M.D.’00
Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy
Medical Corps
dist i n guis h e d ac ad e m i c ac h i e v e m e n t awa r d
Robert N. Cooney, M.D.’85
Chair and Professor of Surgery,
Upstate Medical University
S e r v i c e to M e di c i n e & Co m m u n i t y Awa r d
Dr. Chin is an internal medicine
physician in the U.S. Navy, and is
currently completing an allergy
fellowship at the Scripps Clinic in
San Diego, CA. From Sept 2007–
Sept 2008, Dr. Chin deployed with the U.S. Army to Western
Afghanistan, where he was in charge of logistical planning
and medical training to help build a health care system for the
Afghan police. He started a vaccination program for the Afghan
National Police and their beneficiaries, and served as a staff
internist and mentor to the Afghan Army Hospital. For his
contributions and service in Afghanistan, the U.S. Army awarded
Dr. Chin the Bronze Star Medal. For medical care and leadership in other military initiatives, Dr. Chin has received both an
Army Achievement Medal and a Navy Achievement Medal.
Melanie C. Lawrence, M.D.’00
Family Medicine Physician,
Little Rivers Healthcare
Dr. Lawrence practices family medicine
in Bradford, Vt. She helped establish
Little Rivers Health Care, a Federally
Qualified Health Center that
incorporates three local practices,
to better meet the needs of the medically underserved in her
rural Orange County community. In 2005 she cofounded the
Mentoring Project of the Upper Valley, and since 2005 has served
on the Community Board of Valley Vista Substance Abuse
Treatment Center. In 2009, she established the Toothy Tiger
initiative, a local dental-health program in which fourth grade
students act as dental coaches to kindergarteners. Since 2000, Dr.
Lawrence has made annual medical service trips to locations such
as Kosovo, Honduras, and Burkina Faso. She is also Medical Director
and a board member of the Dartmouth Research Coop Project.
S P R I N G
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43
M . D . C L A SS NOTES
H A LL A
1977
Mark A. Popovsky
22 Nauset Road
Sharon, MA 02067
(781) 784-8824
[email protected]
Michael Galica writes: “I realized it
is time to say hello to old friends. I
remember fondly my UVM Med School
experience. We had so many great role
models, I’m still in Worcester, Mass.,
practicing general internal medicine and
still loving it. I work with several of our
classmates — Mary Maloney, Ken Stevens
and Kirk Johnson, who are all doing
well.” Email: [email protected]
John Kennerson & Lisbeet Hanson ’82
report: “Another busy year for all of us.
Son Michael graduated from UVA and
is working as a scribe in the ED while
applying to med school. Daughter Rose
worked at NYU Law School during the
summer and is off to Europe for semester
abroad. John was voted “Physician of the
year” by our local medical society and we
were both recognized by the VA Medical
society for our outreach in Haiti. Wishing
everyone the very best in 2010!” Email:
[email protected], [email protected]
Mossman
Receives
Graduate
Alumni Award
The Medical Alumni
Association’s Graduate
Alumni Awards Committee
has selected Brooke
Mossman, Ph.D.’77 to receive
the 2010 Medical Alumni
Association Graduate
Brooke Mossman, Ph.D.’77
Alumni Award. This award
is presented to an alumnus/a from the College
of Medicine’s Ph.D. or M.S. programs who has
demonstrated outstanding achievement in basic,
clinical or applied research; education; industry;
public service / humanitarianism; and/or outstanding
commitment to the College of Medicine community.
An awards presentation and reception will take
place in the fall. More information about that event
will appear in the next issue of Vermont Medicine.
To read more about Dr. Mossman, see the feature
article in this issue on page 20.
44
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Scott Macdonald writes: “We are still
here in Las Vegas (23 years now). Still
with a 20 person cardiology group and
working a lot. However, we do enjoy
extended RV trips to all the great places
out West. Will try to make our 35th in
2012.” Email: [email protected]
1982
1987
David and Sally Murdock
[email protected]
Please email [email protected]
if you’d like to serve as 1987 class agent.
1983
1988
1978
Diane M. Georgeson
H. James Wallace III
416 Martel Lane
St. George, VT 05495
(802) 872-8533
[email protected]
Paul McLane Costello
Essex Pediatrics, Ltd.
89 Main Street
Essex Junction, VT 05452
(802) 879-6556
1979
Sarah Ann McCarty
[email protected]
Judith Holmgren is “Doing anesthesia
half at North Adams Regional Hospital
with my son, who is a great oral surgeon,
and half-time at Mercy Hospital in
Springfield, Mass.”
Jim Jarvis writes: “Sorry I missed the
reunion fun. Would have loved to see
everyone. Was in New England for a
family wedding in early July and got to
enjoy the rain...lots of it. Hope you all had
a good time despite the delay of summer
in northern Vermont. It’s back to blazing
hot here in Oklahoma but all is otherwise
well.” Email: [email protected]
Anne Marie Massucco
Lawrence I. Wolk
5724 South Nome Street
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
(303) 771-1289
[email protected]
15 Cedar Ledge Road
West Hartford, CT 06107
(860) 521-6120
[email protected]
Patrick O’Connell writes: “Orthopaedics
continues to be very busy. Still coaching
youth sports in my spare time. Our
daughter is away at school studying
engineering at Princeton. Boys are still in
high school. We miss Burlington but not
the cold!” Email: [email protected]
Ronald D. Blatt reports: “Enjoying
living in Connecticut and working in
NYC. Have three wonderful kids now
— Brandon (7), Gregory (3), and Ariella
(19 months). Hope all my classmates
are doing well and having fun.” Email:
[email protected]
1984
1989
Richard C. Shumway
Peter M. Nalin
13216 Griffin Run
Carmel, IN 46033
(317) 962-6656
[email protected]
34 Coventry Lane
Avon, CT 06001
(860) 673-6629
[email protected]
’1 0
Vito Imbasciani
’1 0
Richard Nicholas Hubbell
80 Summit Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-5551
[email protected]
1981
Craig Wendell Gage
2415 Victoria Gardens
Tampa, FL 33609
[email protected]
Looking for a few class agent volunteers
as we prepare for our 30th reunion!
If you are interested, email
[email protected]
Thomas Frey reports: “I have undergone
complicated mitral valve repair and am
thankful to be alive, to have the love and
support of my wife and family and friends
who kept me thinking optimistically when
things were very difficult. I look forward
to a full recovery and a healthy 2010.”
[email protected]
Suzy Frisch
Dean Mastras writes: “It was really
great to see all who attended Reunion
in June. My practice here in the Pacific
Northwest keeps expanding. We added
hyperthermia, a new linear accelerator,
and an ambulatory surgery center.”
[email protected]
1986
Darrell Edward White
29123 Lincoln Road
Bay Village, OH 44140
(440) 892-4681
[email protected]
1990
Robert Harding writes: “Greetings from
Virginia. 2009 was a year of milestones
for the Hardings. Two of our daughters,
Julie and Phoebe, were married in the
spring. Our oldest daughter, Kate, who
also is also married and has a 4-year-old
daughter, graduated from VCU medical
school and has started a psychiatry
residency at Albert Einstein in NYC.
Nancy has retired from teaching. I’m
working as a hospitalist in Newport and
involved in the resident teaching program,
which keeps me on my toes.” Email:
[email protected]
UVM Med Photo
r e u n i o n
2010 Conference Schedule
Vermont Blueprint for Health —
Chronic Care Conference
April 26, 2010
Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center
Burlington, Vt.
8th Annual Northern New England
Critical Care Conference
September 29–October 2, 2010
Stoweflake Resort
Stowe, Vt.
Women’s Health Issues
May 5–7, 2010
Sheraton Hotel
Burlington, Vt.
Advanced Dermatology for the
Primary Care Physician
October 7–10, 2010
Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center
Burlington, Vt.
36th Annual Family Medicine
Review Course
June 8–11, 2010
Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center
Burlington, Vt.
Vermont Summer Pediatric Seminar
June 17–20, 2010
The Equinox
Manchester, Vt.
24th Annual Imaging Seminar
September 24–26, 2010
Stoweflake Resort
Stowe, Vt.
Suzanne Graves writes: “I continue to
practice pediatrics in Beverly, Mass. My
oldest son, Matt, is applying to colleges
this year. Nathan is 15, a freshman, and
Margaret (12) is in seventh grade. Soccer
and hockey games keep us busy.” Email:
[email protected]
1985
r e u n i o n
1980
r e u n i o n
2 Ravine Parkway
Oneonta, NY 13820
(607) 433-1620
[email protected]
Continuing Medical Education
’1 0
Barbara Angelika Dill
120 Hazel Court
Norwood, NJ 07648
(201) 767-7778
[email protected]
Hope to see everyone at reunion in June!
1991
John Dewey
15 Eagle Street
Cooperstown, NY 13326
[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.
1992
Mark Eliot Pasanen
1234 Spear Street
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 865-3281
[email protected]
1993
Joanne Taplin Romeyn
22 Patterson Lane
Durham, CT 06422
(860) 349-6941
Brad Watson
[email protected]
Kirsten Wolff reports: “We have recently
returned to Seattle, having spent the
last two years aboard our sailboat, S/V
Charlotte. We travelled 10,000 nautical
miles aboard along the east coast as far as
Maine and then down through the eastern
Caribbean, as far south to Columbia, and
then along east side of Central America,
to Mexico and up to Texas. The boat is
now out in Seattle, and we will try our
hand at live-aboards. Peter and Alden,
our seven-year-old son, are doing well.
Unfortunately, early in our travels, I was
diagnosed with breast cancer, so we had
to take nine months to work through that
but we are all well and hopefully stronger
for it! Please look us up if you are in the
Pacific Northwest. There is an extra berth
on the boat!”
1994
Holliday Kane Rayfield
P.O. Box 819
Waitsfield, VT 05673
(802) 496-5667
[email protected]
Seth Rafal writes that, after working in
community mental health agencies for
many years, he is now in private practice
in psychiatry full time in Newton, Mass.
He and his wife, Mimi, and 11-year-old
daughter, Lily, live in Newton. Email:
[email protected]
S P R I N G
2 0 1 0
45
1995
r e u n i o n
’1 0
H A LL A
Allyson Miller Bolduc
252 Autumn Hill Road
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 863-4902
[email protected]
Donna Gamache writes: “Can you
M . D . C L A SS NOTES
believe my son, Ray, who was born after
first year just graduated from high school?
I remember everyone doing the Babinski
to him when he was a new born (guess
that’s why his feet are not ticklish) He’s
going to be a chemistry major like his
mom...ahhhh. Time sure flies doesn’t it?”
Email: [email protected]
1996
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]
Lisa Belisle reports: “I am practicing
integrative medicine and acupuncture in
Yarmouth, Maine. I continue to write and
work as a medical advisor for the Maine
Health System. My husband and I have
three children: Campbell (16), Abby (14),
and Sophie (9).” Email: [email protected]
Mary Valvano writes: “John and I are
happily busy keeping up with our two
girls and three dogs. I am the chairperson
of the emergency department at Concord
Hospital in New Hampshire. We keep
tabs on Ann and Cliff Adams in Maine
and try to spend time on their boat.”
Eamil: [email protected]
1997
Julie Smail
390 Bridge St.
South Hamilton, MA 01982
(978) 468-1943
[email protected]
Steven Battaglia reports: “Steven Yerid
rode his mountain bike from Boston to
Key West on a journey of self discovery.
He battled blisters, fierce storms, flat tires
and road rage, but made it intact. His next
trip is going to be a cross-country ride on
a tandem bicycle with Michael Binette.”
Email: [email protected]
Laurie Montague is “In private practice
in New Hampshire! Stop by anytime!
Email: [email protected]
Amy & Jonathan Martin write: “We’re
settled in Avon, Conn. I am staff
neurosurgeon at Connecticut Children’s
Medical Center in Hartford, and Amy
is doing women’s imaging in a private
practice group in town. Life is good.”
Email: [email protected]
Wendy Gerstein reports: “Neal and I are
still living in Albuquerque, N.M., both
working at the university. We have twin
boys, Abe and Hugh, 19 months old. We
are taking them on their first climbing
trip this fall! Hope everyone is well and
happy.” Email: [email protected]
1998
Halleh Akbarnia
2011 Prairie Street
Glenview, IL 60025
(847) 998-0507
[email protected]
GI fellowship in Denver. My husband
and I are loving being in Colorado —
great skiing, amazing weather!” Email:
[email protected]
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
46
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
See Facebook: “UVMCOM Class of 2000
10th Reunion”
2001
Ladan Farhoomand
1481 Regatta Road
Carlsbad, CA 92009
(626) 201-1998
[email protected]
2000
’1 0
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]
Freeman Legacy Scholarship Announced
Doreen and Houghton “Buck” Freeman (second and fourth
from left), whose family foundation generously funded the
Freeman Medical Scholars program for the last eight years,
met with UVM President Daniel Mark Fogel (left), Professor
Emerita Mildred Reardon, M.D.’67 (center), and Dean Rick
Morin, M.D., in the Dean’s office in May, 2009.
Amy Roberts McGaraghan writes:
“We are enjoying the craziness of three
children and two careers. I am at Mount
Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass.,
with a busy Ob/Gyn practice.” Email:
[email protected]
Christine Hurtado is “finishing my Ped
1999
r e u n i o n
Naomi R. Leeds
305 Third St. #204
Cambridge, MA 02142
[email protected]
The College of Medicine is pleased to announce the first recipient of the Freeman Foundation
Legacy Medical Scholarship, who will be the first to benefit from this new program that
carries forward the legacy of the Freeman Foundation, generous supporters of scholarships
at the College of Medicine for more than a decade. Beginning with one recent gift, the
program seeks funding for scholarships to support students just as the Freeman Foundation
did with extraordinary gifts to provide scholarships for hundreds of UVM medical students
beginning in 2000.
While the original Freeman Medical Scholarships are ending and the final Freeman
Scholars will graduate in 2012, the College intends this new program to honor the Freeman
Foundation for the impact their generosity has had at the College of Medicine and throughout
the state of Vermont. Future gifts to this new program 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, funded by a personal gift
from program co-founder Mildred Reardon, M.D.’67, is being awarded to Kira Fiset, a third-year
medical student who has demonstrated a passion for, and commitment to, meeting the health
care needs of Vermonters, particularly in rural and underserved areas.
For information about supporting the Freeman Foundation Legacy Medical Scholarships,
contact Sarah Keblin, Director of Annual Giving, at 802-656-4104 or [email protected].
Raj Chawla, UVM Med Photo
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]
Emily Harrison reports: “I am in my
fourth year at women’s care, growing a
full spectrum family practice in a group of
Ob/Gyn’s. Jim and I are happy with our
very full life here in Rhode Island.”
2002
Jonathan Vinh Mai
15 Meadow Lane
Danville, PA 17821
(570) 275-4681
[email protected]
Kerry Lee Landry
(919) 732-9876
[email protected]
Mary O’Leary Ready
[email protected]
Maureen C. Sarle
[email protected]
Thuan Nguyen reports: “I am working at
several different emergency departments
in the Phoenix area as well as serving
as the medical director for the fire
departments in the cities of Tempe and
Guadalupe. My wife, Sarah Moesker,
and I celebrated our son Reece’s first
Raj Chawla, UVM Med Photo
birthday in November. We saw
Mariah and Grace in Boston this past
October during ACEP. Both look great!”
Email: [email protected]
Chris Staats writes that she is “still
enjoying family medicine at Winooski
Family Health. My daughter Ella is
already nine years old and amazes us
every day! Come visit us!”
2003
Omar Khan
33 Clearwater Circle
Shelburne, VT 05482
(802) 985-1131
[email protected]
Scott Goodrich
309 Barben Avenue
Watertown, NY 13601
[email protected]
2004
Jillian S. Sullivan
[email protected]
Steven D. Lefebvre
[email protected]
2005
r e u n i o n
’1 0
Julie A. Alosi
[email protected]
Richard J. Parent
[email protected]
See Facebook: “University of Vermont
class of 2005 5 Year Reunion”
At the talent show in January, Brendan Kelley ’12
displayed his unicycle skills.
2007
Allison Collen
[email protected]
Scot Millay
[email protected]
2006
2008
William C. Eward
101 Wood Valley Corner
Durham, NC 27713
[email protected]
Mark Hunter
21 Lindenwood Drive
South Burlington, VT 05403
[email protected]
Deborah Rabinowitz Abrams
58 Chelsea Place
Williston, VT 05495
[email protected]
Alyssa Wittenberg
7649 Briarcrest Lane
Orange, CA 92869
[email protected]
Jason Heiner is now finishing up an
Ashley Zucker
2209 Albany Street
Durham, NC 27705
[email protected]
emergency medicine residency in the
State of Washington at Madigan Army
Medical Center. It has been a fortunate
past few months for Jason, with three
national honors coming his way. He was
awarded first place in the U.S. Army 2009
Arts and Crafts Contest for a sculpture
he made, was selected nationally by the
Annals of Emergency Medicine as the
2009–2010 Resident Fellow, and had his
logo design accepted for the US Army
Western Regional Command Team coin.
2009
Rebecca Brakeley
[email protected]
Kate Murray Mitchell
[email protected]
Campbell Stewart
[email protected]
S P R I N G
2 0 1 0
47
Obituaries
O B IT U A RIES
H A LL A
Bernard Weiss, M.D.’39
Dr. Weiss died at his home in West
Orange, N.J., on January 15, 2010, at
age 90. He was born in New York City,
N.Y., and lived for most of his life in
Brooklyn, N.Y. before moving to West
Orange 15 years ago. He graduated
from the University of Vermont in 1939
and was a doctor in private practice in
Brooklyn for 50 years, retiring 20 years
ago. Dr. Weiss was a captain in the United
States Army, serving his country during
World War II. He was a member of the
American Medical Association, the New
York Medical Association, Kings County
Medical Association and the American
Academy of Family Practice.
Albert H. Fregosi, M.D.’43
Dr. Fregosi died December 24, 2009, at
Emory Hospital in Georgia following
complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
He was 91. He was the son of Italian
immigrants from Proctor, Vt. His father
and uncles were marble sculptors. After
earning his medical degree from the
College of Medicine, he enlisted in the
U.S. Army as a captain during World War
II. He served as an infantry physician in
the South Pacific. Dr. Fregosi received a
Purple Heart for injuries sustained after
a grenade exploded. He also survived
malaria that left him in a coma for two
months. After the war, he completed his
residency at Crawford W. Long Hospital
in Atlanta. Dr. Fregosi was a general
physician and surgeon in his hometown
of Proctor for six years. During that
time, he completed a second residency in
urology at Dartmouth Medical School.
He taught for two years at the Medical
College of Georgia, then practiced
medicine in Decatur from 1959 to
1976. He practiced at several hospitals in
Atlanta and for a time was chief of staff at
DeKalb General Hospital, now known as
DeKalb Medical.
Lawrence Janoff, M.D.’43
Dr. Janoff died peacefully on September
5, 2009 at the age of 89. He graduated
from the University of Vermont with both
undergraduate and medical degrees. He
proudly served as a physician and captain
in the U.S. Army during WWII and later
became a prominent physician in private
48
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
practice in Great Neck, N.Y., on the staff
of North Shore University Hospital in
Manhasset, and as a physician with
Lever Brothers.
Victor L. Karren, M.D.’45
Dr. Karren, of East Brunswick, N.J.,
passed away at his home on September
13, 2009. He was 90. He received his
Bachelor of Science and Doctor of
Medicine Degrees from the University
of Vermont, and interned at the United
Hospital in Port Chester, N.Y. Dr. Karren
was a captain in the Medical Corps of the
U.S. Army in World War II, stationed
at Oliver General Hospital in Augusta,
Ga. Following his service, he returned
to practice in New York City. For many
years he was the assistant medical director
of Home Life Insurance Company in
New York City. In May 1959, he left
New York and came to East Brunswick,
N.J., to devote himself full time to
general practice. He was on the staff of
Middlesex General, now Robert Wood
Johnson University Hospital and St.
Peter’s Medical Center, now St. Peter’s
University Hospital, for over 25 years. He
was employed as a part time physician in
Occupational Medicine in several Johnson
and Johnson Companies. Dr. Karren
was a Medical Consultant for the New
Jersey State Rehabilitation Program for
many years in Newark, New Brunswick,
Trenton and Somerville. In May 1995,
he received from the Medical Society
of New Jersey the Golden Merit Award
for 50 years of distinguished service as a
Practicing Physician. He was a Charter
Fellow and Life Member of the American
Academy of Family Physicians and in
1998 received recognition of 40 years
of membership.
James A. Bulen M.D.’49
Dr. Bulen died on January 29, 2010, at
the Citrus County Hospice House in
Lecanto, Florida. He was 85. He was born
in Long Beach, California, and was raised
in Glendale, California, and later on a
dairy ranch in Escondido. He attended
UC Berkeley and Harvard University
before earning his M.D. at the College of
Medicine. He was a flight surgeon in the
U.S. Air Force in the 1950s and became
an amateur pilot. In 1960 he returned to
Escondido, where he practiced general,
vascular, and trauma surgery until 1995,
when he retired. He was at one time Chief
of Staff at Palomar Memorial Hospital.
He served as his medical class agent for
many years.
Peter S. Czachor, M.D.’50
Dr. Czachor died January 8, 2010, at
his residence in Durham, N.H. He was
born May 2, 1920, in West Rutland, Vt.,
where he attended local schools. While
a student at the University of Vermont
and a member of ROTC, he was called to
duty during World War II and fought in
Italy, Germany, France and North Africa
from 1943 to 1945. He was awarded
the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star
Medal. After returning to Vermont and
earning his medical degree, he moved to
Portsmouth, N.H., in 1953. He practiced
there until his retirement in 1985. During
this time he delivered over 6,000 babies.
After retirement he moved to Kittery
Point, Maine.
Murdo Glenn MacDonald, M.D.’51
Dr. MacDonald died October 26,
2009, at the Vermont Respite House in
Williston. Once, when asked what he was
most proud of, he replied, “my family.”
He was described by his family as quiet,
gentle and patient; a sympathetic listener,
a prodigious reader, a magnificent skier
and sailor, a lover of music, a collector of
jokes and recipes and, on most occasions,
a great cook!
C. Keith Wilbur, M.D.’52
Dr. Wilbur died October 11, 2009, at
his Northampton, Mass., home. He
was 86. He attended Bates College and,
in 1943, entered Midshipman’s School
with the US Naval Reserve at Cornell
University. He was assigned to a sub
chaser and convoy duty in the English
Channel. He received his M.D. from the
University of Vermont in 1952. From
1953 until 1985, Dr. Wilbur practiced
medicine in Northampton. He had been
a staff member of Cooley Dickinson
Hospital. He established “The Doctors
Bag,” a medical, dental and apothecary
antiques business, in 1985. Dr. Wilbur
also authored many historical and
medical books. Among these were The
New England Indians, Antique Medical
Instruments, Revolutionary Medicine, and
Indian Handicrafts.
Edward C. Nash, M.D.’53
Dr. Nash died February 6, 2010, three
days before his 85th birthday, at his
home in Chatham, NJ. He grew up
and attended High School in North
Bennington, Vermont. He practiced
family medicine in Chatham for 20
years, working side by side with his
wife, Marian, and was also an associate
at Morristown Memorial Hospital.
Prior to that, he was a pathologist with
both Bayonne Hospital and Greenville
Hospital. He received his bachelor’s
degree from Princeton University before
coming to the College of Medicine.
During his early career, he practiced
family medicine in Woodbury, New
Jersey where he had privileges in medicine
and obstetrics at Underwood Memorial
Hospital. For many years he worked as
a pathologist in Southern New Jersey
and was employed by Salem County
Memorial Hospital, Elmer Community
Hospital, Camden County Hospital,
Cooper Hospital and Our Lady of
Raj Chawla, UVM Med Photo
Lourdes Hospital. He also served as the
medical examiner for Salem County and
Gloucester County in the 1970s. He was
also an associate professor at Jefferson
University Hospital in Philadelphia and
published several professional articles in
medical publications. Buzz served as a
medic in the 104th Infantry Division,
a unit from Vermont that was part of
the U.S. Army Ground Forces. He was
awarded the Order of the Purple Heart at
the Battle of the Bulge in 1944.
Joseph G. Pomponio, M.D.’53
Dr. Pomponio died on September 24,
2009, at St. Lukes Hospital in Bethlehem,
Penna., at age 82. He was born in
Compobasso, Italy, and came to the
United States in 1936. Dr. Pomponio
attended Mt. St. Joseph Academy in
Rutland, Vt., where he was valedictorian
of his class. He graduated from the
University of Vermont with a B.S. in
1950. From 1953–1954 Dr. Pomponio
served as an intern at St. Lukes Hospital.
He was last employed at the V.A. Medical
Clinic in Allentown from 1981–2005.
Previously he was an E.R. physician at St.
Lukes from 1968–1981. Dr. Pomponio
also worked for Pocono Medical Clinic
and Lehigh University Health Clinic
from 1956–1966. He proudly served his
country in the U.S. Navy during World
War II as a seaman aboard a destroyer.
He was also a Medical Officer during the
Korean War, stationed in Redbank, N.J.
and Patuxent River Naval Air Station.
Dr. Pomponio later served as a medical
officer in the Naval Reserve and retired as
a Commander after 20 years of service.
After a short time period he joined the
National Guard and became the colonel
in charge of the 103rd Medical Battalion
of the 28th Infantry Division, where he
served eight more years.
Thomas C. McBride, M.D.’57
Dr. McBride died January 4, 2010, at his
home in Camden, Maine, after a brief
illness. He was 77. Born in Chicago, he
was educated in Chicago schools and was
awarded the Daniel Webster scholarship
to attend Dartmouth College, graduating
in 1953. After medical school, Dr.
McBride did post-graduate training at the
University of Rochester Medical Center.
From 1959 to 1961 he served in the
United States Public Health Service on an
assignment in Hawaii. For the remainder
of his career, he worked at the University
S P R I N G
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49
H A LL A
O B IT U A RIES
of Massachusetts Health Services in
Amherst as staff physician and medical
director. Dr. McBride was also a professor
of family and community medicine at
the University of Massachusetts Medical
School. He retired and moved to
Camden in 1996.
David E. Doniger, M.D.’58
Dr. Doniger died December 24, 2009,
after a long illness. Originally from New
York City, he received three degrees from
the University of Vermont, including
his M.D. He completed his residency
at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New
York. He was Chief of Neurology at
United Hospital Medical Center in
Westchester, N.Y. He established a school
of E.E.G. there. Dr. Doniger was an
Emeritus Member of Sigma Xi.
Bernard Passman, M.D.’59 Dr. Passman died December 25, 2009,
after a brief illness. He was a prominent
physician in obstetrics and gynecology
in the greater Hartford area. Born in
Portland, Maine, he received his B.A. at
Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine
in 1955. After medical school, Dr.
Passman trained in both general surgery
and specialty training in obstetrics/
gynecology at Bellevue Medical Center in
New York City from 1959 to 1963. He
enrolled in the U.S. Air Force Berry Plan
for Physicians with the rank of Captain,
and was stationed in Alconbury, England,
and Izmir, Turkey. Upon his return to the
United States, Dr. Passman began private
practice in Hartford, Conn., in 1966 and
practiced Ob/Gyn there for 45 years.
Audrey Opulski, M.D.’60
Dr. Opulski died November 3, 2009, in
Tucson, Arizona, where she had made her
home since 1970. She received her B.S.
degree from the University of Connecticut
before attending the College of Medicine.
She completed her residency in pediatrics
at St. Francis Hospital, in Hartford.
Subsequently Dr. Opulski served with
Medical Missionary Sisters in Patna, India,
for four years. After returning to the
United States she attended the University
of Hawaii and received a Master’s degree
in public health. For a brief period Dr.
Opulski worked with Native Americans
on a reservation in Montana. She also
participated in a public health project in
American Samoa. In 1974 Dr. Opulski
joined the Pima County, Arizona,
50
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Department of Health Services. She
continued her work in public health until
her retirement in 1999.
Albert J. “Alby” Murphy Jr., M.D.’61 Dr. Murphy, of Bedford, N.H., died July
13, 2009, at Catholic Medical Center in
Manchester, after a brief illness. He was
born in Manchester, on August 12, 1935.
He received his undergraduate degree
from Manhattan College. Dr. Murphy
served with the United States Air Force,
and held the rank of captain. He was a
family medical doctor at his practice,
Medical Associates of Nashua, until
his retirement.
brought down his plane. He was born
in Lubeck, Germany, on May 5, 1953,
and his parents moved the family to the
United States in 1956. He grew up on
a dairy farm in West Chazy, New York,
and attended the State University of
New York at Plattsburgh before coming
to the College of Medicine. Dr. Kalweit
did his internship and residency at the
Medical Center Hospital of Vermont
in Burlington. In 1985, he moved to
Dayton for a Cardiology Fellowship at
Good Samaritan Hospital and Wright
State University College of Medicine. He
settled in Springfield in 1989, opening his
own cardiology practice and serving the
community since that time.
William T. Fagan Jr., M.D.’48
Andrew Stewart, M.D.’61
Dr. Stewart died November 7, 2009. He
was 80 years old. He grew up mostly in
Hanover, N.H. After graduating from
Dartmouth College in 1952, he was
commissioned as a Second Lieutenant
in the U.S. Marine Corps. He served
as a naval gunfire spotter for the 1st
Marine Division in Korea. After the war
he came to the College of Medicine,
and then did a pediatric residency
at the Mary Hitchcock Memorial
Hospital in Hanover, where his father
was the founding pediatrician at the
Hitchcock Clinic. In 1964 he and his
family relocated to Massachusetts,
where he established a pediatric practice
in Amherst. In June 1977, he sold his
practice and joined the U.S. Air Force to
follow his passion for adventure and to
experience European travel and skiing.
In 1983, after living in Germany, then
England, the Stewarts returned to New
Hampshire, where they made their home
in Rye for the next 26 years.
Donald M. Ford, MD,’62
Dr. Ford died July 29, 2009, at
Westchester Medical Center (N.Y.) after
a brief battle with cancer. He was 73.
Most of his professional career was with
St. Francis Hospital as a radiologist.
He retired in 2000. He then practiced
radiology with V.A.M.C. Castle Point
from 2005 to 2009. Dr. Ford served in
the U.S. Air Force from 1963 to 1966.
Wilhelm H. Kalweit, M.D.’81
Dr. Kalweit, who lived in Springfield,
Ohio, died unexpectedly on November
7, 2009. He was flying alone in his
“Air Cam” when undetermined causes
focusing on higher education, medical
education, hospitals and health care
planning, including the Charles A. Dana
Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation, Green Mountain College,
Maine Hospital Association, American
Hospital Association, the Vermont Higher
Education Council, and St. Joseph’s
College of Maine. He was very proud
to serve as a consultant to the U.S. State
Department, the Agency for International
Development, and the Pakistan
Government on medical education and
healthcare development. He also served
on the Council of Deans for the American
Medical Association.
Faculty
Edward C. Andrews
Jr., M.D.
Dr. Andrews, of
Yarmouth, Maine,
former president
of the Maine
Medical Center
and the University
of Vermont,
died February 19, 2010. He was born
in Rockland, Maine, in January 1925,
and grew up in Plainfield, Vt. He was
a veteran of the Navy V-12 program,
graduating from Middlebury College
in 1946, and Johns Hopkins School
of Medicine in 1951, specializing in
pathology. He also received honorary
doctoral degrees from Middlebury
College, Bowdoin College, the University
of Vermont and the University of
Dakar in Senegal. In 1951, he began
his career at Johns Hopkins Hospital
and Johns Hopkins University School
of Medicine as Chief Resident and
instructor in pathology. In 1958, he
moved with his family to Jericho, Vt.,
and continued his career at the College
of Medicine, where he served as professor
of pathology, associate dean from 1964
to 1966, and dean from 1966 to 1970.
He became president of the University
of Vermont in 1970. In 1975, he moved
to Maine to become president of the
Maine Medical Center in Portland and
served in that role until his retirement
in 1988. During his professional career
and retirement, Dr. Andrews served
on many boards and commissions
UVM Med Photo
Dr. Fagan died January 17, 2010, at
Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington.
He was born in Rutland in 1923. Dr.
Fagan had a long and distinguished
medical career of more than 40 years
in the Burlington area, including at the
Medical Center Hospital of Vermont in
Burlington and the Fanny Allen Hospital
in Colchester, as well as at hospitals in
Lancaster, Littleton and Woodsville,
N.H. He was appointed consultant in
urology at a number of other hospitals.
He was a founder of Urology Associates
in Burlington, Associate Professor of
Urology at the College of Medicine,
attending urologist and past president
of the medical staff at the Medical
Center Hospital of Vermont and Chief
of Urology and past president of the
medical staff at the Fanny Allen Hospital.
Dr. Fagan served for many years on
the Board of External Advisors for the
University of Vermont College of Arts
and Sciences and maintained an active
interest in The Center for Holocaust
Studies at the University. He and his wife
Joy established the Dr. William T. Fagan,
Jr., and Joy A. Lipman Fagan Endowment
Fund for Special Collections at the
University of Vermont. Dr. Fagan also had
a long and distinguished military career of
more than 40 years, serving in the United
States Navy, the United States Naval
Reserve and the Vermont Army National
Guard. He received numerous medical
and military awards including the Legion
of Merit. He was also awarded Vermont’s
highest military honor, the Vermont
Distinguished Service Medal.
Anne-Marie W. Littenberg
Charles S.
Houston, M.D.
Dr. Houston
died peacefully at
his Burlington,
Vt. home on
Sept. 27, 2009,
at the age of
96. Born in
1913 in New York, he was educated
at Harvard University and earned his
M.D. at Columbia University College
of Physicians and Surgeons. During his
college and medical school years he began
his lifelong interest in mountaineering
and climbed extensively in Alaska and the
Himalayas, making first ascents of Mt.
Foraker in 1934 and Nanda Devi in 1936.
In 1938, he made an exploratory trip to
K2, during which time his group came
close to reaching the summit. Following
medical school he was in the Navy, where
his studies of high altitude physiology
contributed to the ability of pilots to fly
at higher altitudes, giving the Air Corps
a tactical advantage. After World War II
he practiced internal medicine in Exeter,
N.H. where he also started his family and
continued his climbing. In 1950, he went
with his father on an exploratory trip to
the south side of Mt. Everest through the
kingdom of Nepal, then newly opened to
westerners. In 1953, in his most legendary
expedition, he returned to K2 and after
reaching over 25,000 feet, nearly died
in a heroic retreat to save the life of an
injured teammate. In 1956, he moved to
Colorado where he continued to practice
as a traditional country doctor while
also doing some pioneering work in the
development of an artificial heart. It was
here during a mountain rescue that he
recognized altitude-related pulmonary
edema. In 1962, he was recruited by
Sargent Shriver to become Director of
the Peace Corps in India on the basis
of his climbing and travels in India.
Following two and a half years in India,
he was invited to Washington, D.C., to
develop a Medical Peace Corps. In 1966,
he moved to Burlington and joined the
faculty of the University of Vermont as a
professor of medicine. During this time
he established a ten-year research effort
on Mt. Logan in Canada, which resulted
in numerous advances in understanding
high altitude physiology. Following
his retirement in 1979, he continued
his work in high altitude physiology
with a succession of publications and
the establishment of an international
forum on hypoxia. He was the author
of numerous articles and a number of
books including K2 the Savage Mountain
and Going Higher: Oxygen, Man, and
Mountains. In his 90s, with failing vision,
he worked with a local moviemaker to
digitize the historic footage from his 1938
and 1953 K2, expeditions, resulting in
the documentary film “Brotherhood of
the Rope,” subsequently the title of his
biography. Until a week before he died,
he remained actively concerned and
outspoken about public health issues,
scientific advances, and the state of
the world.
Edwin M. Paxson, M.D.
Dr. Paxson died on November 11, 2009,
at the Helen Porter Healthcare and
Rehabilitation Center in Middlebury.
He was 83. He was born in Philadelphia
and graduated from George School,
Bucks County, Pa., in 1944, after which
he immediately enlisted in the Navy,
where he served in the Pacific Theatre
during World War II as a radar man first
class on the U.S.S. Queens. Following the
surrender of Japan, he served as part of
the occupation force until his discharge
from the Navy. After the war he attended
Swarthmore College, graduating in 1950,
with a degree in zoology, and went on to
earn his medical degree from Jefferson
Medical College in 1954. He completed
his internship at the Mary Fletcher
Hospital and was one of the first pediatric
residents in Vermont under the direction
of Dr. James McKay. Dr. Paxson entered
private practice as a pediatrician in
1956, making house calls and providing
services to families and children in the
Chittenden County area for 25 years. He
was a clinical professor of pediatrics at the
College of Medicine. In 1978, Dr. Paxson
moved his pediatric practice to Morehead,
Kentucky, and he completed his medical
career in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He retired
from active medical practice in 1997.
S P R I N G
2 0 1 0
51
February 18, 2010
9:50 a.m.
Adrienne Pahl (left) from the class of 2011 checks out newborn Dustin Abbott
during pediatric clerkship nursery rounds in Fletcher Allen Health Care with
Clinical Instructor Elizabeth Hunt, M.D. (right).
photograph by Raj Chawla
The Giving Connection
Led by the College of Medicine’s Schweitzer fellows, medical students continue their community service on
COM Cares Day, supported by funding from alumni and friends. Burlington’s Committee on Temporary Shelter
(COTS) was one of the agencies to which students provided help.
Your annual donation to the UVM College of Medicine Fund makes many things possible for today’s students.
Every year, scholarship support, student research support, programming such as the White Coat Ceremony
and new student orientation, and community service activities such as
COM Cares Day are made possible because of support provided by the
UVM College of Medicine Fund. The need is constant and growing; thanks
to the continued generosity of alumni and friends, students will be supported
as they continue to pursue careers in service to medicine and community.
Make your annual fund gift online today at
www.med.uvm.edu/giving or call Sarah Keblin,
Director, Annual Giving at (802) 656-0802
52
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
Vermont Medicine
89 Beaumont Ave.
Burlington VT 05405
P ROFILES IN GIVING
Making an Impact
William Street, M.D.’59 dedicated his career to anesthesiology at medical centers in Vermont and in Massachusetts.
Now retired, Dr. Street and his wife, Lorraine Hassan-Street, gave great thought to decision to support medical student
scholarships at the College. “Although I have tremendous regard for my undergraduate school,” says Dr. Street, “it
generates ‘captains of industry’ who eventually tend to leave enormous gifts. A medical school, on the other hand,
has far fewer graduates in the first place, and as physicians they are not in a position to give like captains of industry.
I thought that donations I made to my medical alma mater would have a greater impact. And I have to say, I was also
attracted to the availability of matching funds.”
In fact, the Streets have now given two $100,000 scholarship endowment gifts , each matched dollar-fordollar to double the impact of the Street endowment. As a result, UVM medical students will forever benefit from
significant Street scholarships.
For more information about how you can
support the College of Medicine, please
contact the Medical Development and
Alumni Relations Office.
University of Vermont College of Medicine
Medical Development & Alumni Relations Office
(802) 656-4014 | [email protected]
www.med.uvm.edu/giving