medicine Rowe v e r m o n t Harry

vermont
medicine
U N I V E R S I T Y
O F
V E R M O N T
C O L L E G E
Harry
Rowe
M.D.’43
Seven Decades of Service
S P R I N G
2008
O F
M E D I C I N E
vermont
medicine
U V M
C O L L E G E
O F
M E D I C I N E
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M A G A Z I N E
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S P R I N G
FROM THE DEAN
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COLLEGE NEWS
3
2 0 0 8
12
Hillel Panitch, M.D., and his colleagues
work to free the tie-ups caused by
multiple sclerosis.
The next chapter in the life of the Given
Courtyard; awards and honors for faculty,
students, and alumni; 111 white coats,
and more.
HALL A
PRESIDENT ’ S CORNER
CLASS NOTES
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
OBITUARIES
CLEARING THE
NEUROLOGIC TRAFFIC JAM
by jennifer nachbur
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35
43
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A PUBLIC LIFE
Harry Rowe, M.D. ’43m served his
country across the European theatre of
World War II, then spent the next seven
decades serving the people of the
Connecticut River Valley.
by edward neuert
24 CARING , SERVING , LEARNING
Second-year medical students at the
College find their vocations deepened by
in-depth service to their community.
by edward neuert
on the cover:
Photograph of Harry Rowe, M.D.’43m by Shayne Lynn
vermont
medicine
FROM THE DEAN
S P R I N G
COLLEGE NEWS
2 0 0 8
EDITOR
edward neuert
As spring slowly creeps into the north country,
our first-year students are putting on their new
white coats and venturing into examining rooms
across the state as part of “Doctoring in
Vermont,” as well as learning new skills at the
side of residents and faculty throughout the clinical facilities of our academic medical center partner, Fletcher Allen Health Care. My first White
Coat Ceremony here in Vermont was a truly joyful celebration, symbolizing for the Class of 2011 and their families and
friends who gathered in Ira Allen Chapel that they’d finally arrived at the
tangible beginning of the doctor-patient relationship, a relationship that
will be the focus of their professional lives for years to come.
A few weeks later, second-year students in the Class of 2010 began
clerkship rotations and their first formal in-patient encounters at Fletcher
Allen and the Maine Medical Center. As you may have heard, our relationship with MMC will be ending after the Class of 2012 completes their
clerkship rotations in 2011, and replaced with new clinical teaching collaborations now under development. More news will follow in the months
ahead. While not surprising, we have been pleased to learn that our
Vermont Integrated Curriculum, award-winning educational technology,
and high ranking from U.S. News & World Report for excellence in primary
care education have earned us an outstanding reputation.
As I said to our students as they mark these important transitions, great
personal growth comes about when physicians-in-training take responsibility for the life of another human being. Taking responsibility for our
patients grows from our willingness to take responsibility for ourselves, for
our colleagues, and for our community. Harry Rowe, M.D.’43m, who is
profiled in this issue, is one person who has taken that responsibility to
heart, demonstrated by his seven decades of service to the community of
the Connecticut River Valley and to his medical alma mater. I look forward
with pleasure to presenting Dr. Rowe with the A. Bradley Soule Award, the
highest honor of our alumni association, at this year’s reunion in June. It is
very fitting that we are also profiling second-year medical students who, in
addition to their studies on campus, have taken on projects that seek to
improve the health care of people throughout our community.
So although the White Coat is a visible symbol of the profession, it is
already clear to me that our students, our faculty, and our distinguished
alumni have great respect for the privilege and responsibilities that come
with wearing it. Thank you for welcoming me to this special place; it is
indeed an honor to be here.
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V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
RAJ CHAWLA
ASSISTANT DEAN
FOR COMMUNICATIONS & PLANNING
carole whitaker
WRITER
jennifer nachbur
ART DIRECTOR
elise whittemore-hill
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT
COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
DEAN
Courtyard’s Next Chapter
frederick c. morin iii, m.d.
EDITORIAL ADVISORS
rick blount
ASSISTANT DEAN FOR
DEVELOPMENT & ALUMNI RELATIONS
marilyn j. cipolla, ph.d.’ 97
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
OF NEUROLOGY
christopher s. francklyn,
ph.d.
PROFESSOR OF BIOCHEMISTRY
Forty years ago the final building
phase of the east, west, and south
wings of the Given Building created a central courtyard. Today, the
Given Courtyard is being readied
as the site of an innovative building
that will add much-needed office
space to the medical campus.
The Given Courtyard project
will begin construction in late May,
and the next year-and-a-half will
see two interconnected fourstory structures rise in the space.
Constructed largely of natural
light-conducting transparent and
translucent glass, the new structures will, on their ground floors,
house offices and services for students, alumni, and the College’s
development and communications
teams. The large floor-to-ceiling
plate-glass windows now found on
the courtyard’s east and west sides
will be removed as part of the project, creating a new walkway directly through the center of the building on the ground floor.
The UVM Board of Trustees
gave its final approval for the project in November. Construction is
estimated to run through the summer of 2009.
james c. hebert, m.d.’ 77
MACKAY- PAGE PROFESSOR OF SURGERY
russell tracy, ph.d.
SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR RESEARCH
& ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
vermont medicine is published three times a
year 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, Given Building, 89 Beaumont Ave., Burlington,
VT 05405. telephone: (802) 656-4014
Letters specifically to the editor may be e-mailed to:
[email protected]
ADAMS TAPPED TO HEAD GRADUATE MEDICAL
EDUCATION AT UVM AND FLETCHER ALLEN
Dean Frederick C. Morin III,
M.D., and Senior Associate
Dean for Clinical Affairs and
President of the Faculty
Practice Paul A. Taheri,
M.D., M.B.A., announced
the appointment of David
Adams, M.D., associate professor of anesthesiology, as associate dean for graduate
medical education at the College and designated institutional official at Fletcher Allen Health Care.
Since 2004, Adams has served as residency program
director in the Department of Anesthesiology and as
vice chair for education and research since 2006. He
replaces James Hebert, M.D.’77, Mackay-Page
Professor and vice chair for education in the
Department of Surgery, who announced in spring
TOP : MARIO MORGADO ; BOTTOM : RAJ CHAWLA
2007 that he would be stepping down after serving
since 1999.
Adams joined UVM and Fletcher Allen in 2000,
after serving as clinical associate professor of anesthesiology and director of the Neuroanesthesia Division
at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Mount Sinai
Hospital in New York City. Prior to his position at
Mount Sinai, he was assistant professor of anesthesiology at Columbia University.
Adams teaches general anesthetics in the neuroscience course for first-year medical students and has
been published in a wide variety of medical journals,
including the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular
Surgery, Neurosurgery, Critical Care Medicine and
Anesthesiology. He has also served on the Committee on
Human Research at UVM, and is active in many
national professional associations.
S P R I N G
2008
3
COLLEGE NEWS
PATLAK’S ESSAY WINS NATIONAL WRITING AWARD
3 Questions
about UVM’s
Newest Collaboration
In the year before his death in 2007
from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,
Professor Joe Patlak, Ph.D., shared his
insights into the daily effort of dealing
with the disease in a series of essays on
his web log. One of these pieces,
“Falling Down the Rabbit Hole,” (which
appeared in the Winter/ Spring 2007
Vermont Medicine) has earned a Robert
G. Fenley Writing Award from the
Association of American Medical Colleges/Group on Institutional Advance-
In December, President Daniel Mark Fogel joined other
UVM representatives, including Dean Frederick Morin,
M.D., and Provost John Hughes, to formally sign an affiliation agreement between UVM and Maastricht
University in the Netherlands. Vermont Medicine asked
Associate Professor of Pathology Yvonne JanssenHeininger, Ph.D., who initiated the agreement along
with Professor and Chair of Pathology Edwin Bovill,
M.D., to explain the Maastricht affiliation in more detail.
VM: This has been described as an ongoing collaboration;
how long has there been a relationship with Maastricht, and
what has the collaboration been like?
The interactions have been going on since the mid1990s, mostly in the pulmonary area. I got my Ph.D
from Maastricht, but through a contact an advisor of
mine had with Brooke Mossman [emeritus professor of
Pathology] I came here to do much of my work. At
Maastricht they are very clinically oriented, and do a
lot of translational research. They wanted to recruit
me back to spearhead their program in the area of
epithelial biology, an area of the lung where there is a
lot of signaling going on and a lot of opportunity to
control diseases if you know the biology. As I was really settled here in Vermont, they suggested doing something in a satellite setting. So they have sent us graduate students who come into the lab here from year one,
and do their entire graduate research here. At the end
of that time they’ve gone back to Maastricht and been
very successful, with very good quality work, a good
record of publications, and their work has led to new
diagnostics and patents. I’ve had two graduate students
so far. Those students have had great experience here
and have been set up well for funding afterward in
Europe. To compete for funds in Europe you really
need experience working in another country, so the
interaction with Vermont has been very beneficial and
important to them. The quality of the students we’ve
had from Maastricht has been very high, so it’s been a
win-win situation.
VM: So the next step was to formalize the relationship?
Yes. At Maastricht, the interaction has been very
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V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
UVM’s Yvonne Janssen-Heininger, Ph.D. (at left) and
Dean Morin (at right) share coffee with Piet Daemen, M.D.,
and Guy Peeters, M.D. from Maastricht University during
a break in the December meeting between the two
institutions.
productive for them, so they said let’s formalize this to
try to maximize our success.
VM: How will things change under this formalization that
was signed in December?
It’s going to expand the program, so initially there
will be four new Ph.D. positions that are going to be
filled, all in the area of pulmonary. Those four new
graduate students will be coming over here with their
budgets to work in my lab and in the labs of others. So
we’re trying to extend the program, and do it in a way
that doesn’t just benefit one department, and one individual within a department, but will make the effect
more widespread. Because of our success in the pulmonary realm we’re going to start there, but we hope
to extend into other areas. At the signing, Dwight
Matthews [chair of UVM’s Department of Chemistry]
was there, and Provost Hughes and Fran Carr, the
Dean of the Graduate College, because this is more
than just something for one department or even one
College. There are connections already being built
between researchers in Maastricht and UVM in the
area of muscle-wasting, for instance, and others are
being actively discussed. We are forming a steering
committee that will be involving many others on campus to see how we can grow this relationhip in a
responsible and productive way.
RAJ CHAWLA
ment (AAMC/GIA). The AAMC/GIA
judges writing submissions from all the
nation’s 125 medical schools for the
Fenley Awards.
Patlak’s eloquent essay chronicled
his first experience with loss of balance caused by the onset of ALS when,
as he wrote, an uneven threshold in
the doorway of a store caused him to
stumble: “I was falling, and in a split
second I was journeying out of the
world of the able.”
Foundations Awards
The Class of 2010 held an awards ceremony and reception on Feb. 1 in
the Hoehl Gallery in honor of their completion of the Foundations level
of the Vermont Integrated Curriculum (VIC). Foundations is the first of
three levels in the medical curriculum, which the class began in August
2007. The awards and recipients from the ceremony were as follows:
Outstanding Foundations Course:
Cardiovascular, Respiratory and
Renal Systems
Foundations Course Director
Award: William Hopkins, M.D.,
associate professor of medicine
and course director, Cardiovascular, Respiratory and Renal
Systems.
Foundations Teaching Award:
William Hopkins, M.D. The
recipient of this award will be
hooding the Class of 2010 at their
graduation and will be recognized
with other Teachers of the Year
from the past.
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 Vermont
Integrated Curriculum.
RAJ CHAWLA
The Silver Stethoscope Award :
James Hudziak, M.D., Achenbach
professor of psychiatry and medicine. 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 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.
The American Medical Student
Association Golden Apple Award:
Cynthia Forehand, Ph.D., profes-
William Hopkins, M.D., accepts an
award from Justin Stinnet-Donnelly ’10.
sor of anatomy and neurobiology,
and Jean Szilva, M.D., lecturer in
anatomy and neurobiology. This
award recognized the professor
who has had significant impact on
the educational value that the
medical student receives from
his/her coursework.
Outstanding Teaching Assistant
Award: Suezie Kim, M.D.’07,
resident in orthopaedic surgery at
the New York University Hospital
S P R I N G
2008
5
COLLEGE NEWS
PEDIATRICIAN NOMINATED FOR
HUMANISM IN MEDICINE AWARD
Community Medical School
Spring 2008 Session
Faculty members from the College and Fletcher
Allen Health Care will present seven lectures in the
next session of Community Medical School, the program of free public lectures that regularly fills
Carpenter Auditorium with those interested in
learning about the art and science of medicine. All
lectures begin at 6:00 p.m.
APRIL 1 Asthma Treatments:
The Past, Present and Crystal Ball-View of the Future
Charles Irvin, Ph.D., Professor of Medicine and
Director of the Vermont Lung Center
APRIL 8 Keeping It Off: The Myths & Realities of
Weight-Loss Maintenance
Jean Harvey-Berino, Ph.D., R.D., Professor and
Chair of Nutrition and Food Sciences and
Professor of Medicine
APRIL 15 Woe & Worry: Understanding
Depression and Anxiety
Robert Pierattini, M.D., Professor and Chair of
Psychiatry and Fletcher Allen Clinical Leader,
Psychiatry Services
APRIL 22 The Joint’s Not Jumping: Osteoarthritis
Sheldon Cooper, M.D., Professor of Medicine and
Fletcher Allen Director, Rheumatology and Clinical
Immunology
APRIL 29 Getting Hooked: How Addiction Occurs &
Innovative Recovery Strategies
Stephen Higgins, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry and
Psychology and Co-Director of the Human
Behavioral Pharmacology Lab and Substance Abuse
Treatment Center
MAY 6 From Guinea Pig to Vital Partner:
Exploring Today’s Clinical Research Process
Richard Galbraith, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of
Medicine, Associate Dean for Patient-Oriented
Research, and Director, General Clinical Research
Center
MAY 13 A Shot in the Arm: Understanding
Vaccines & Their Development
Beth Kirkpatrick, M.D., Associate Professor of
Medicine and Fletcher Allen Infectious Disease
Specialist
6
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Nilgun Tapucu Zimakas, M.D., clinical assistant professor of
pediatrics, was one of just 42 U.S. medical school faculty nominated for the 2007 Association of American Medical Colleges
(AAMC) Humanism in Medicine Award.
Annually presented by the AAMC through the support of the
Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative (PMHI), the award recognizes a medical school faculty member who embodies the finest
qualities in a teacher of healing, exemplifying humanism in medicine. The Organization of Student Representatives (OSR)
group at each U.S. medical school is asked to submit the name of
a nominee to the OSR Administrative Board’s national selection
committee.
After receiving the nominee names, the OSR Administrative
Board’s national selection committee, advised by the AAMC and
PMHI staff, selected one national recipient. The committee
considered five defining characterisitcs: positive mentoring
skills, compassion and sensitivity, collaboration, community
service activity and observance of professional ethics.
The students at UVM chose Zimakas as a positive and caring
role model and as a physician whom the students would like to
emulate. In celebration of Zimakas’s and the other 2007 award
nominees’ achievements and contributions, PMHI ran a fullpage ad in USA Today in November.
Zimakas received her medical degree from McGill University
in Montreal, Canada and joined the UVM faculty in 2003. She
is an attending physician at Vermont Children’s Hospital at
Fletcher Allen Health Care and led the establishment of a special clinic at University Pediatrics for refugees in the Burlington
area.
Nilgun Tapucu Zimakas, M.D., with a young patient.
RAJ CHAWLA
(3)
Pediatrics Team Leads
National Families-AsPartners Initiative
How does a pediatrician deal with all the details of a
well-child visit in a limited amount of time while still
maintaining a close, human contact with the child and
family? A new national effort led by three Vermonters
seeks to solve that puzzle. Pediatrics faculty members
Joseph Hagan, M.D., Judith Shaw, Ed.D., M.P.H.,
R.N., and Paula Duncan, M.D., presented the third
edition of Bright Futures: Guidelines for Health
Supervision of Infants, Children and Adolescents at the
National Conference and Exhibition of the American
Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in San Francisco.
Bright Futures is a comprehensive compendium of
the AAP’s recommendations for health promotion and
disease prevention used by primary care practitioners
and public health professionals, insurers and parents to
promote optimal health for infants, children and adolescents.
“Up until now, health care professionals caring for
children had more than three sets of guidelines to
choose from, often making it confusing for the parents,
children and those providing the care,” said Shaw.
“Bright Futures replaces all these with one set of guidelines to follow.”
“It took over five years to complete, but we wanted
to get it right,” said Duncan. “The collaborative group
that developed these guidelines included experts from
pediatrics, family medicine, nursing, oral health, nutrition, mental health, public health and parent groups.”
Shaw, a research associate professor of pediatrics,
and Hagan, a clinical professor of pediatrics, served as
co-chairs of the Bright Futures Steering Committee.
Duncan, a clinical professor of pediatrics and medical
director of the Area Health Education Centers program at UVM, served as co-chair of the Bright
Futures: Pediatric Implementation PAC. In addition,
Shaw serves as executive director and Duncan as youth
health director of the Vermont Child Health
Improvement Program (VCHIP), a nationallyacclaimed population-based health services research
and quality improvement program in the Department
of Pediatrics that works in partnership with a number
of agencies and organizations, including the Vermont
Agency of Human Services, the Vermont Department
of Health and the Office of Vermont Health Access.
Hagan, a Burlington-based pediatrician, chairs the
Judith Shaw, Ed.D., M.P.H., R.N., Joseph Hagan, M.D., and
Paula Duncan, M.D., with the third edition of Bright Futures.
Vermont Citizen’s Advisory Board for the Vermont
Agency of Human Services’ Department of Children
and Families and chaired the AAP’s Task Force on
Terrorism.
In the Bright Futures approach to preventive care,
families are partners with their health care providers.
Between AAP recommendations, parental concerns
and community health needs, there are so many topics
to address and screenings to conduct at well-child visits, that child health professionals may feel torn about
what to do in such a limited amount of time. “Doing a
well child visit in 18 minutes or less can be a challenge,” says Hagan. “These guidelines will help pediatric practices deliver the services that need to be delivered which will, in turn, free up time for things that are
individual and unique to developing relationships with
families.”
Bright Futures provides child health professionals
with priorities that need to be addressed for each of the
31 age-based health supervision visits from birth to age
21. More than 50 experts in pediatrics, family medicine, public health, dentistry and mental health contributed to the revised edition, and more than 1,000
experts reviewed the guidelines. Bright Futures is a
project of the AAP funded by the Health Resources
and Services Administration’s Maternal and Child
Health Bureau.
S P R I N G
2008
7
COLLEGE NEWS
UVM/Fletcher Allen Physicians
Recognized for Teaching Excellence
Omar A. Khan, M.D. ’03 and
Rebecca Winokur, M.D. ’00
Omar A. Khan, M.D. ’03, a clinical assistant
professor of family medicine, and Rebecca
Winokur, M.D. ’00, a clinical instructor of
family medicine, are among an exclusive group
of physicians who were recently honored by
the American Academy of Family Physicians
Foundation for their commitment to education in the field of family medicine. Khan and
Winokur were each selected to receive a 2007
Pfizer Teacher Development Award based on
scholastic achievement, leadership qualities
and dedication to family medicine.
The award, supported by the Pfizer Medical
Humanities Initiatives, recognizes communitybased physicians who have chosen to teach family medicine on a part-time basis. The award
provides funding for each recipient to attend a
seminar, workshop, or fellowship to further his
or her development and teaching skills.
Winokur completed a fellowship in sports
medicine at Maine Medical Center and is currently teaching primary care sports medicine
part-time while practicing in a local community orthopedic practice. Khan earned an
M.H.S. degree in public health from the
Johns Hopkins University and completed a
residency in family medicine at UVM/
Fletcher Allen Health Care in 2006.
Currently he is affiliated with UVM and the
Christiana Care Health System and A.I.
DuPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware.
ing public on the positive benefits
These days, if you’re still wearof ski helmet use.
ing a knit pom-pom hat when
Piloted at Smugglers’ Notch
you ski or ride, you might as well
Resort in Jeffersonville, Vt., and
be skiing on wooden boards. The
supported by a grant from the
latest craze is “PHAT” — an
Vermont Health Foundation at
innovative approach to changFletcher Allen, the program has
ing on-slope fashion that’s
been expanded to eight other
increasing helmet use at
Vermont ski resorts over the past
Vermont resorts at an astonishtwo years with assistance from
ing rate — and it’s spreading to
the Vermont Ski Areas Assoski resorts nationwide.
PHAT HATS MAKE SLOPES SAFER ciation.
An acronym for Protect your
According to a 2004 Consumer
Head at All Times and Protect
Your Head on All Terrain, PHAT is a dent when he sustained internal Product Safety Commission study,
youth-oriented campaign launched in injuries, but no head trauma due to his more than 17,000 head injuries a year
would be eliminated if every skier wore
2002 by Robert Williams, M.D., associ- helmet use.
Over the past five years, the Snow a helmet. “That’s a lot of heartache, not
ate professor of anesthesiology and
director of the Snow Sports Research Sports Research Team has conducted to mention millions of dollars spent on
Team at UVM and Fletcher Allen. A thousands of surveys and made more medical care and rehabilitation
pediatric anesthesiologist at Fletcher than 70,000 observations of helmet use expenses, that could be prevented by
Allen, Williams is an avid skier and by skiers and snowboarders. Based on the simple act of strapping on a helmet
snowboarder who concocted the PHAT this research, the team designed a pro- every time a skier or rider hits the
concept following a serious biking acci- motional program to educate the ski- slopes,” says Williams.
8
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
RESEARCH MILESTONES
Women’s Health Initiative Research Reveals
New Findings About Hormones and Blood Clot Risk
Preliminary data from two Women’s Health Initiative trials
assessed factors that indicate increased risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) with postmenopausal hormone therapy.
These findings were reported by Professor of Medicine Mary
Cushman, M.D., a blood clotting expert, at the 49th Annual
Meeting of the American Society of Hematology in December.
VTE refers to a blood clot that forms in the veins, usually in the
legs. To determine susceptibility factors for VTE in women taking these estrogen-based treatments, Cushman and colleagues examined data from the Women’s Health Initiative,
which included two placebo-controlled double-blind random-
Mary Cushman, M.D.
ized trials to evaluate two regimens. If the study’s findings are
confirmed, says Cushman, “Measurement of some of these
factors might assist women with decision-making about
whether or not to take estrogen or estrogen plus progestin for
treatment of postmenopausal symptoms. This becomes very
important since hormones remain a very effective treatment
for menopausal symptoms.”
Study Aims to Develop Effective Screening
for Pancreatic Cancer
By the time symptoms develop, pancreatic cancer has usually
progressed to an incurable stage. The fourth leading cause of
cancer death in the United States, the five-year survival rate
for this cancer is only about five percent. However, the disease can be cured if caught early and surgery is performed. In
CUSHMAN : FARREL DUNCAN
an effort to develop a viable
screening tool to identify
early pancreatic cancer,
Associate
Professor
of
Medicine Richard Zubarik,
M.D., has been conducting a
screening study at the
Vermont Cancer Center
(VCC). With support from the
VCC and the Lake Champlain
Cancer Research Organization, Zubarik is examining
patients at higher risk for
pancreatic cancer and test- Richard Zubarik, M.D.
ing a protocol for early
screening. Zubarik, who is director of endoscopy at Fletcher
Allen, and his team are using a blood test to identify the presence of a pancreatic cancer tumor marker called CA 19-9,
which is usually elevated in patients with pancreatic cancer.
The overall goal, according to Zubarik, is to identify the specific segment of the population that will most benefit from
screening.
Analysis Finds New Indications for Use
of Breast Cancer Drug Taxol
A re-analysis of a 1990s study on the effectiveness of the drug
Taxol in conjunction with traditional chemotherapy agents in
treating lymph node-positive breast cancer was found to be
less effective in the more common variety of this cancer.
Vermont Cancer Center member and Professor of Pathology
Donald Weaver, M.D., co-authored a New England Journal of
Medicine article in October, titled “HER2 and Response to
Paclitaxel in Node-Positive Breast Cancer.” Using formerly
unavailable genetic technology, the study’s authors re-analyzed results of a 1990s study. They found evidence that the
chemotherapy treatment paclitaxel (Taxol) had the most
effective results in women with overactive HER-2 genes, but
did not help those women with HER-2 negative tumors — the
most common form of the disease. When the original study’s
results were initially released, Taxol was shown to improve
survival and was subsequently added to traditional
chemotherapy agents Adriamycin and Cytoxan as a new standard of care. However, a number of patients experienced side
effects, including hand and foot numbness. The new analysis
indicates that patients with HER-2 positive breast cancer
tumors are the best target population for the addition of Taxol
therapy.
COLLEGE NEWS
Medical Society Honors
Faculty and Students
Three members of the College’s faculty received
awards at the 194th Annual Meeting of the Vermont
Medical Society (VMS) in October. John P. Fogarty,
M.D., associate dean for primary care and professor of
family medicine, received the 2007 Distinguished
Service Award. The Distinguished Service Award is the
highest honor that the Society can bestow on one of its
members.
Allan Ramsay, M.D., professor and vice chair of family medicine, received the Physician Award for
Community Service. Judith Shaw, Ed.D., M.P.H., R.N.,
research assistant professor and executive director of the
Vermont Child Health Improvement Program in the
Department of Pediatrics, received the Citizen of the
Year Award, which recognizes a non-physician resident
of Vermont who has made a significant contribution to
the health of the people of Vermont.
The VMS’s Education and Research Foundation
awarded $5,000 scholarships to two medical students,
Anna Carlson ’09 and Cynthia Swartz ’09. Each year
Mimi Reardon, M.D.’67 (center) congratulates
Anna Carlson ’09 and Cynthia Swartz ’09.
the VMS Foundation gives one or more scholarships
to medical students who are committed to practicing
medicine in Vermont and caring for Vermonters. The
scholarship program was created to encourage young
doctors to return to Vermont after completing their
residency training.
The scholarship is named in honor of Mildred
Reardon, M.D., an emeritus faculty member who was
instrumental in forming the VMS Foundation, and is
funded through contributions from Fletcher Allen
Health Care, members of the VMS, and the
Chittenden County Medical Society.
White Coats: the Winter Tradition
Like winter weather in Vermont, the College’s White Coat
Ceremony is a vision in white. This pivotal event, which
both honors the achievements of students and marks the
official beginning of their clinical experience, also reaffirms the responsibility associated with wearing the symbolic white coat.
At the February 15 ceremony, a procession of first-year
medical students climbed the stage steps at Ira Allen
Chapel one by one receive their first white coats from
members of the faculty. At the event’s end, the Class of
2011 — all 111 of them — stood and read the Declaration
of Geneva. Dean Frederick Morin, M.D. presented the
keynote address. Morin sympathized with the feelings
some of the students might be having: “I know that right
now, at the beginning of your medical education, you
might feel like you’re standing at the bottom of Niagara
Falls, trying to swallow the whole thing.” But, he predicted, time and experience would make becoming a knowledgeable, caring clinician an achievable goal.
New Toolkit Helps Physicians Promote Healthier Weight
Physician advice carries a lot of weight in Vermont.
Survey data from the Vermont Department of Health
reveals that when a health care professional counsels
a patient about their weight problem, 88
percent take active steps to shed
pounds. Unfortunately, only 41 percent
of obese adults in Vermont are actually
counseled by their health care provider
about their weight.
“More than half of all adults in
Vermont are overweight or obese, and
obesity is a big risk factor for many serious chronic diseases, including diabetes,” said Health Commissioner
Sharon Moffatt, R.N., M.S.N. “When we
measured how effective the advice of a
health professional really is in motivating
a patient to attempt behavior change to lose weight
for their health, we wanted to make it easier for clinicians to have that conversation with their patients.”
As a result, the “Promoting Healthier Weight in
Adult Primary Care” toolkit was recently developed by
10
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
the Vermont Department of Health, Vermont Area
Health Education Centers (AHEC) and the College of
Medicine.
The toolkit, mailed to all Vermont primary care and
family practice clinicians, includes recommendations
for prevention, identification, assessment and management of overweight and obese adult patients in
primary care — is also designed to aid the sometimes
uncomfortable conversation about weight and health
between clinician and patient. The toolkit was developed with advice from primary care practitioners who
responded to a survey on current practices and barriers to care. Practitioners from more than 60 percent
of all practices in Vermont responded to the survey.
“Based on the survey, we learned that many physicians were having these conversations about diet and
exercise, but there was not an easy way to document
that discussion and follow up on it,” said Professor of
Medicine Richard Pratley, M.D., who served as medical
advisor to the effort. “Our goal was to create a set of
steps that could easily and effectively be incorporated
into a short office visit.”
TOP : COURTESY OF VMS
(Counter-clockwise from above: The newly-cloaked Class of
2011 at cermony’s end; the stacks of white coats, donated by
the Dean’s Office and the Medical Alumni Association; a student
reads the Declaration of Geneva during the closing of the
ceremony; Dean Morin watches while Jessica Alsofrom looks
at a photo Steven Perrins has just shot.)
RAJ CHAWLA
S P R I N G
2008
11
CLEARING
THE
NEUROLOGIC
TRAFFIC
JAM
Hillel Panitch, M.D.,
and his colleagues work
to free the tie-ups
caused by multiple sclerosis
by jennifer nachbur
photography by raj
Hillel Panitch, M.D., professor of
neurology and director of the Multiple
Sclerosis Center, with Charlene Young,
his patient.
12
chawla
Like a busy tangle of highways, the
central nervous system transports messages from the brain to
points throughout the body, prompting a variety of physical
functions. When there are road blocks, however, a neurological
traffic jam develops, and the messages are stuck in place. Nerve
fibers in the brain, spinal cord and optic nerve are the key conduit for the electrical impulses of brain-body communication.
Surrounding these fibers is a thin layer of insulating protein and
fatty material called myelin. Scientists believe multiple sclerosis
may be an abnormal autoimmune reaction in which the
patient’s own immune cells, which normally patrol the body’s
systems seeking to repel outside infectious agents, initiate an
attack on the patient’s myelin. A destructive process called
demyelination ensues. Lesions — scarring and bare spots —
form along the nerves, inhibiting communication between the
brain and the body, and impairing physical function.
13
According to the National MS Society, onset of
the disease typically occurs between the ages of 20
and 50, and about 70 percent of MS patients are
women. Of the approximately 400,000 diagnosed
cases in the United States, roughly 1,500 are in
Vermont. In fact, Vermont has one of the highest
prevalence rates in the country with an MS rate of
one person per 500 people in the general population — twice the U.S. average. Hillel Panitch,
M.D., professor of neurology and director of the
Multiple Sclerosis Center, explains that several factors are believed to contribute to this statistic,
including genetics, exposure to viral infections,
such as herpes and Epstein-Barr, and geography.
Those of northern European and especially
Scandinavian heritage, as well as people in northern tier states like Vermont and Minnesota, are
particularly at risk. Epidemiologic studies, says
Panitch, show a link to exposure to sunlight (and
possibly one of its important components, Vitamin
D) and related distance from the equator.
4
A 30-year veteran in the MS field, Panitch
embarked on his research career as a neurology resident at the University of California at San
Francisco, then further delved into the science of
the disease as a postdoctoral fellow in neurovirolo-
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gy at Johns Hopkins University, moving on to serve
as a senior staff fellow with the Neuroimmunology
Branch of the National Institutes of Health. As a
neurology professor and principal investigator at
the University of Maryland, he had a leading role in
studying several breakthrough therapies that radically changed the lives of MS patients. Approved in
the early and mid-1990s, these interferon-based
treatments, which help control the immune system,
offered the first-ever option for halting the progression of MS.
“There was nothing 15 years ago to help
patients,” admits Panitch. “Now there are six
approved drugs, and MS is among the more treatable neurological diseases.”
In 2000, Panitch joined the College of Medicine
faculty and established the Multiple Sclerosis
Center at Fletcher Allen Health Care. UVM’s association with MS treatment stretches back to the
1960s, when former chairs of the Department of
Neurology George Schumacher, M.D., and Charles
Poser, M.D., developed sets of criteria still commonly used throughout the field to make a clinical
diagnosis of MS.
4
Charlene Young is one of about 700 MS patients
from Vermont and upstate New York who are treat-
ed at the Multiple Sclerosis
Center. Fourteen years ago, the
Jericho, Vt. resident was
plagued by a variety of symptoms, including a profound loss
of balance, weakness in her left
foot and leg and toe spasms. At
just 41 years of age, she learned
she had multiple sclerosis.
Most MS patients have the
relapsing-remitting version of
the disease, in which symptoms come and go in discrete
episodes, but Young is afflicted
with a rarer version. Called
primary progressive, this type
of MS only strikes about 10 to
15 percent of patients and is
characterized by persistent
symptoms that with time
progress in seriousness. Her
issues, in addition to the weakness and balance
problems common in MS, include a combination of
stiffness and involuntary muscle contractions called
spasticity. Now 55 years old, Young has had to
make adjustments over the past 14 years, including
designing and building a one-story home with her
husband, Larry, two years ago to accommodate her
physical needs.
“You learn to take care of yourself, make changes
in daily living and do things in short spurts,” she
explains. She has been on the staff at Fletcher
Allen’s primary care practice at Aesculapius Medical
Center in South Burlington, Vt. for 18 years. Young
currently works four days a week as a scheduler/
practice support specialist, and takes time off to get
treatments and tests as needed.
Clinical trials for primary progressive MS were
non-existent until a few years ago, when the first
study ever sponsored by an American pharmaceutical company was launched. “I waited a very long
time — about 12 years,” recalls Young.
Young took part in a study of rituximab, a monoclonal antibody that can be closely targeted on B
cells, one of the types of immune cells thought to
play a role in demyelination. Though the clinical
trial was double-blind placebo-controlled, Young
believes she received the actual drug due to a
noticeable improvement in her symptoms. Now,
(Facing page) Coleen Dandurand, R.N. and Dr.
Panitch attend to Charlene Young during one of her
periodic visits to Fletcher Allen Health Care. (Above)
Angela Applebee, M.D., assists Dr. Panitch in research,
patient care, and teaching.
after completing her participation in the clinical
trial, Young is officially “on drug,” receiving the
therapy via intravenous infusion in the hematology/oncology outpatient clinic twice in January and
then two more times in July.
“You treat symptoms, not the disease,” says
Young, who in addition to her rituximab therapy
also takes an anti-spasmodic drug called baclofen
and another drug to help alleviate the fatigue element of her MS.
Young is grateful to have had the chance to participate in the clinical trial, with a personal understanding of what that access can mean to someone
dealing with MS. “We’re lucky to have someone so
cutting-edge and dedicated to bringing trials to
patients as Dr. Panitch,” she says.
Neurology Chair and Physician Leader Robert
Hamill, M.D., agrees. “We were very fortunate to
have been able to recruit Dr. Panitch, who is one of
the most highly regarded neurologists in the field of
multiple sclerosis, to Vermont,” says Hamill. “He
established the MS Center as an important site for
S P R I N G
2008
15
clinical research and care that puts our academic
medical center at the forefront of this field.”
4
Two of Panitch’s associates complement his efforts
to ensure that patients like Young continue to lead
quality lives and find successful treatments.
Yang Mao-Draayer, M.D., Ph.D., is an assistant
professor and attending physician in neurology,
who completed a residency at Fletcher Allen and an
MS fellowship with Panitch. She sees MS patients
in the clinic and conducts laboratory-based research
with support from UVM’s Center of Biomedical
Research Excellence neuroscience grant, as well as
institutional and industry funding. Through her
work, Mao-Draayer hopes to identify how naturally-occurring protective factors in immune cells
like T-cells interact with neural stem cells to repair
the damage of demyelination. To do this, the group
is comparing immune cells in normal and MS
patients’ blood.
Mao-Draayer describes neural stem cells as “fire
fighters” and “construction workers,” based on their
tendency to go to where the “fire” or damage is, put
out the fire and then try to rebuild the area. Lab
associate Julia Cambron, a third-year M.D./Ph.D.
student, studies what factors promote the survival of
16
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
the neural stem cells and the interactions between
immune cells and stem cells.
“To understand how patients respond to different treatment, our lab team and my technician
Eugene Scharf have been trying to identify intrinsic
neuroprotective factors from patients’ immune
cells,” explains Mao-Draayer. “Our goal is to find a
potential novel therapy that could help to repair the
nerve damage.”
Forming new alliances and programs that lead to
better care is MS fellow Dr. Angela Applebee’s
goal. A graduate of the University of South Dakota
Sanford School of Medicine and former Fletcher
Allen neurology resident, she assists Panitch with
clinical research and patient care, as well as teaching neurology residents about the history, identification and treatment of MS. Among Applebee’s
many projects are several new clinical initiatives,
including a spasticity clinic and a collaboration
with the Department of Radiology on a regular
MS/MRI conference that keeps neurologists
updated on the latest sequences in the imaging
technology critical to assessing MS lesions. In her
research capacity, she attends national conferences
and trial meetings with Panitch and serves as a coauthor on his study papers.
“This fellowship allows me to work with a world-
renowned expert, who knows
the historical facts, because he
was part of the founding of all
the medications that became
available in the 90’s,” says
Applebee, reflecting on her
work with Panitch as she sits in
her office in the Neurology
Clinic.
With seven to eight active
clinical trials running and
another five or so soon-tolaunch, Panitch and the MS
Center are busy, to say the
least, and dependent on the
support of Mao-Draayer,
Applebee, and a highly capable
staff to keep things running
smoothly. MS patient Charlene
Young
describes
Sandra
McGrath, MS, F.N.P., a nurse
practitioner who works directly
with patients, as “my resource — she gives me all
the information I need.” Patty Krusinski, the principal MS study coordinator, is in charge of making
sure clinical trials run smoothly. Amy Savage, R.N.,
a clinical research nurse in the Office of Clinical
Trials, works part-time as an MS study coordinator
and is managing one of the new oral treatment trials, which, according to Panitch, is the latest trend
in MS clinical research.
“MS patients are interested in oral drugs versus
injection or I.V.,” says Panitch, “because oral is so
much easier.” A total of four oral medication trials
are getting ready to launch, three of which are for
established MS patients and another for people with
pre-MS conditions.
Even without oral medications, there is no shortage of treatments. However, the costs of these
breakthrough therapies run an estimated $20,000
annually, says Panitch, which is making it harder to
treat people, even those covered by insurance.
Another challenge to Panitch and his colleagues in
the MS field is the very way trials are conducted.
MS clinical studies mostly include untreated or
relapsed patients. In 2007, Panitch, who serves on
the National MS Society Medical Advisory Board,
participated in an MS Society task force discussion
on the ethics of conducting placebo-controlled tri-
(Facing page) Assistant Professor and attending physician
Yang Mao-Draayer, M.D., Ph.D. (at left) conducts laboratory-based MS research; lab associate Julia Cambron is
a third-year M.D./Ph.D. student. (Above) Eugene
Scharf, a research technician in Mao-Draayer’s lab, uses
the confocal microscope to examine neural stem cells.
als, since MS patients randomized to a placebo
group do not get treatment.
For a person facing an MS diagnosis today, the
outlook and options are very different than those of
just a generation ago. Thanks to passionate clinical
specialists like Hillel Panitch and the six therapies
that they have helped develop in that time —
Avonex, Betaseron, Rebif, Copaxone, Novantrone
and Tysabri — this one-time death sentence has
evolved into a chronic condition that, though still
complex to treat, offers patients like Charlene
Young the possibility of a quality life. Two summers
ago, a dozen years after her initial diagnosis, Young
took up kayaking — adapting to her equipment by
sitting on top of the craft to make getting on and off
easier – and enjoyed it all summer long. “I need to
focus on the glass being half full,” says Young, who
is hopeful that her therapy will successfully slow or
halt the progression of her MS. “I’d like to be in the
VM
same place when I’m 65.”
S P R I N G
2008
17
a
Public
Life
“Money is secondary,” a young physician named
Harry Rowe wrote to his wife Mary in 1945,
“And service and life with you and my family are primary.”
This year’s A. Bradley Soule Award
honors a life devoted to that plan.
by edward neuert
It’s a wintery morning in Wells River, Vermont, the kind of
a day when most people in the middle of their tenth decade would be forgiven for staying indoors wrapped in an old sweater or two. But Harry Rowe,
M.D.’43, has been up and about for hours. Neatly dressed with his tie firmly knotted under his sweater vest, he’s been out the door of his house on Main
Street for his daily trip to the post office to pick up the mail for the Wells
River Clinic, then back to the clinic, which is conveniently located in a building attached to his house. The physical attachment of clinic and home is
telling, for if anyone in Wells River can be said to have lived a life connected to the needs of his community, it would be Dr. Harry Rowe.
18
photography by shayne
lynn
19
There is one other name that comes to mind
when thinking of the community connection —
Mary Rowe, Harry’s wife of 62 years, who died in
2002. Together the Rowes, with careful planning,
set their sights on building a medical practice in the
Connecticut River Valley just after the end of the
Second World War. They soon built just that, and
much more. Working together, they attended to all
the needs of their community in medicine, education, and the arts. As Stephen Genereaux, M.D., a
local physician who is now a partner in the Wells
River Clinic, told Vermont Life in an article about
the Rowes published in 2002: “Their sense of civic
duty is so strong that you get the sense that there’s
not enough that they can do. They’re always looking to do more.” For his work, Harry Rowe was
given the 1981 UVM Physician Alumnus of the
Year Award, the precursor to the Medical Alumni
Association’s (MAA) Service to Medicine &
Community Award. This June, at Reunion 2008, his
life of service will be recognized with the highest
honor the MAA bestows — the A. Bradley Soule
Award.
“I’m deeply honored by this award,” says Rowe,
as he sits at his kitchen table looking over notes he’s
begun to make for his remarks at the Reunion ceremony. “I have to keep it brief, but I have so many
people to thank, so much to cover!” At age 95,
Rowe is the oldest person ever honored with the
Soule Award. The life he has lived, and the lives of
all the people throughout the community whom he
has touched (and who would be glad to thank him)
is indeed hard to summarize.
4
Harry Rowe was born October 10, 1912, in the
Northeast Kingdom town of Peacham. He was the
eighth child of nine born to parents who farmed and
ran a general store in nearby Barnet. “I grew up
working,” he says. “In our household, we were
expected to work, whether it was around the field or
leading a horse or cultivator.”
It was the act of leading a horse that brought
Rowe to his first interaction with medicine — as a
patient. One day when he was nine years old, he and
his six-year-old sister Polly were leading a team of
two horses back to the barn on the Peacham farm.
Suddenly, one of the horses spooked and reared,
kicking Harry soundly in the head. “I went flying
right over the fence,” he recalls. “And my sister
20
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
made her way around the horses and back to the
house and told them I was dead! When they first saw
me, I believe they agreed with her diagnosis.” Rowe
was still very much alive, but he spent nine days in
the hospital in St. Johnsbury recovering, and to this
day has a small piece of skullbone missing on the side
of his head. “The doctor told me he had to remove
about a teaspoon-full of brain when he closed me
up,” says Rowe. “It never affected me much — I just
speak a bit lightly, and I can’t whistle.”
Rowe still has a copy of the bill for that 1918 hospital stay. It details all $45.15 of the cost of his ninedays of care. The bill is just one of many personal
keepsakes that fill the Rowe home in Wells River.
Others include his diplomas from UVM, but the
framed pieces of paper don’t give a feeling for the
great amount of work that went into earning them.
After graduating from Peacham Academy in 1930,
Rowe had to put off matriculating at UVM while he
went to work. “In the depth of the Depression, I
had no money. I worked on the farm and in the
store. I was interested in studying medicine, but I
wasn’t sure I could do it.”
By 1932, he had earned enough to enroll, though
he continued working odd jobs and living on a
budget of three dollars a week. He still had enough
free time as an undergraduate to run cross-country
and sing in the glee club. It was while doing the latter that he first met Mary Whitney, a doctor’s
daughter from Northfield, Vermont, who accompanied the singers on the violin. “She really hit me
right between the eyes,” he said. It was an
encounter that would leave an even more lasting
mark on his life than the horse’s hoof. But even this
took time. “We went on a few dates, but I wasn’t
sure if she really liked me.”
The two drifted apart, and after graduation
Rowe took jobs in education for three years — first
as principal of the Middletown Springs school, then
in Bradford. In this he was following what was practically a family tradition: his three brothers were
principals in Bristol, Fairfax, and Waterbury. Rowe
taught, coached sports, and studied general sciences
on the side. “So I could teach sciences, and go into
medicine if I could.” In 1940, he took his savings,
plus the money he made by selling his car, and set
off for medical school in Burlington.
But by now he was not alone. While teaching,
he had written a note to Mary Whitney, and
received a warm reply. The two married just
Harry and Mary Rowe examine plans for the Health
Science Research Facility at a 1999 alumni leadership
weekend.
before the fall 1940 medical school term began.
The shadow of the war hung over Rowe’s class
from the beginning. The war created a unique situation at the College of Medicine, where classes
were accelerated to ready new doctors for service
in the armed forces as quickly as possible. For the
first and only time, two separate classes shared a
graduation year; Rowe’s class received their
degrees in March of 1943, and the class following
was graduated in December of that year.
4
After a brief internship at the Mary Fletcher
Hospital, and a training program in West Virginia,
Rowe shipped out as the commander of a medical
unit in the Army’s 78th infantry division. “My job
was to make sure we were at the right place, at the
right time,” he says. As Allied forces moved across
France and into Germany, the 78th was often in
some memorable places. “We were the first medical
unit across the Remagen bridge,” he says. By the
MEDICAL PHOTOGRAPHY
spring of 1945, the war in Europe was over, but
Rowe and his fellow army doctors thought that
their jobs had only just begun. “We figured we were
just about to be shifted to the Pacific to take part in
the invasion of Japan,” he says.
All through the war, Harry and Mary Rowe had
communicated with letters written almost daily.
Mary spent the war running a boarding house in a
rented house in Burlington, raising their young
son, Alan, and playing violin as a charter member
of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. In August
1945, a letter from Dr. Rowe arrived in the boarding house mail slot that contained, in essence, the
family’s next 60 years in a nutshell. Sitting in his
tent in occupied Germany, Harry Rowe described
hearing the news bulletin telling of Japan’s impending surrender. His future, like the futures of millions of other soldiers across the world, was suddenly, wonderfully, focused on home. “The future
holds a very interesting question for us,” he wrote
to Mary. “But time alone will answer it. What will
be the Army’s plan for us if Japan does surrender?
If it will only bring me back to you I’ll face most
anything else.” Rowe continued in the letter to
sketch out their post-war life: get some more trainS P R I N G
2008
21
ing at a good hospital, then focus on building “our
practice” in a central Vermont town. “Money is
secondary, and service and life with you and my
family are primary,” he wrote.
4
Harry and Mary Rowe set about following the plan
to a remarkable degree. Partly on the advice of
Elsworth Amidon, M.D., one of Harry’s teachers at
the College of Medicine, they settled in Wells
River, and opened their practice in 1946. Mary
processed lab work and kept the practice’s books for
over 30 years. In 1952, a large home on Main Street
came up for sale, and they purchased it for the clinic, which would occupy a back wing, and for their
growing family. There were eventually six Rowe
children, and the Main Street house allowed every-
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one to have their own room. Harry
Rowe practiced full-time at the clinic for 50 years, attending to the
minor and major health care needs
of generations of patients on both
sides of the Connecticut River —
and helping to deliver about 1,200
babies in the process. Practicing at
the clinic also meant driving every
back road in the surrounding countryside to make house calls, playing
a leading role in the improvement of
Cottage Hospital in nearby
Woodsville, and functioning as the
medical examiner for his region.
Over the years, Rowe was assisted
by several other physicians, including, from 1980 to 1992, his son John
Rowe, M.D.’77, and Elizabeth
Berry, M.D.’36, who retired in
1988. Today, the clinic is run by Fay
Homan, M.D.’90 and Stephen
Generaux, M.D. (Another Rowe
son, David, earned his M.D. from
UVM in 1969.)
Rowe also set about improving
the state of family medicine in
Vermont. In 1951, he was asked to
start a state chapter of what is now
the American Academy of Family
Practice. He became an ardent
recruiter of physicians across the
state, and remained active in the
national organization for decades. “In 50 years,
Harry may have missed one convention,” recalled
Marga Sproul, M.D.’76, emerita associate professor
of family medicine at the College. The Vermont
chapter of the AAFP has twice named Rowe
Vermont Family Physician of the Year, and he
received the AAFP Distinguished Service Award in
2006. He is also a longtime member and past president of the Vermont Medical Society.
Improving the health of the region was not
enough for Harry and Mary Rowe. They had only
settled in Wells River for two years when they set
about improving the area’s educational prospects
too. In 1947, Harry was elected to the local school
board. He has been on the board every year since
but one, and is today the longest-serving school
board member in the nation. Along the way, he led
Now retired after 63 years of practice, Dr. Rowe works
on organizing the 800 letters, like the V-mail at left, he
and his wife wrote to each other during World War II.
the 20-year effort to form a union school district,
and has overseen both the building and rebuilding
of the Blue Mountain Union High School. “He
believes in kids,” says Tom Page, the school board’s
current president. “He believes in the area; he
believes in the school. And he sets a good example
for public service that everyone should aspire to.”
Rowe knows Page very well: He helped deliver him
into this world 45 years ago.
4
Harry Rowe formally retired from medical practice
in 2006 — an event that was feted by hundreds of
his friends at a party at the high school, and recognized by a formal resolution of the Vermont
General Assembly. Today, he continues with his
school board service, and with a special project:
working with an editor to craft the 800 letters he
and Mary wrote each other throughout the war
into a publishable piece. He still sees students from
the College of Medicine when they come to do
preceptorships at the clinic; one student, Sundip
Karsan, M.D’03, summed up his feelings in a way
that captures just how much impact one doctor in a
small town can have on the world around him: “He
is an example of everything that I aspire to be,”
Karsan wrote in his senior year. “I truly believe that
if I can have part of the impact Dr. Rowe has had
on his community, I will be able to call my career a
VM
success.”
S P R I N G
2008
23
CARING
SERVING
LEARNING
Medical students find community connections
deepen the meaning of their vocation.
by edward neuert
photography by raj
chawla
Trevor Pour ’10 with some of the teens he taught (and learned from) this past year at the King Street Youth Center.
24
25
“COM CARES” — and dozens show it
On a cold winter day in downtown
Burlington, a homeless teenager crosses the street to
the clinic she’s just heard about, where she can get
free medical treatment for the first time in years. In
a church hall in central Vermont, a dairy farm worker thousands of miles from his home in Mexico hears
information on how to cope with depression, and
receives a winter coat to keep out the cold. At an
after-school youth center, a bunch of teens gather to
play a game and learn about making healthier
dietary choices. And in a lecture hall on the UVM
campus, a pediatrician attending a special colloquium gains a deeper understanding of the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered youth who
present for treatment.
Each one of these positive experiences is the
result of the planning and hard work of the kind of
people who by definition already have a lot on their
plate — second-year students at the College of
Medicine. Through programs such as the
Schweitzer Fellows Program, and through many
other individual efforts, medical students make a
positive difference to the health and wellbeing of
people throughout the community. In this they follow the words of the great humanitarian Albert
Schweitzer, who said that those who are really
happy are “those who have sought and found how to
serve.”
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V E R M O N T
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Supporting student-community connections since
1996, the New Hampshire/Vermont Schweitzer
Fellows Program annually selects a group of health
science and legal students to carry out health-related
service projects.
“Like all rigorous pursuits, medical education
can be all-engrossing,” says Associate Dean for
Student Affairs Scott Waterman, M.D. “The
Schweitzer Fellowship Program reminds us all of
the wider calling of service to the community of
which medicine is a part, while providing a mechanism through which students can complete specific
projects that improve the lives of our neighbors.”
4
Heidi Schumacher ’10 built on her past experience
for her community project. She is the third generation of her family to have a connection with the
College of Medicine. After college, she spent time
in non-profit management and working with homeless adolescents in New York City before entering
medical school. “It seemed natural that I should get
involved with something that would help homeless
youths,” she explains.
Schumacher focused on the Pearl Street Clinic,
run by the non-profit Community Health Center of
Burlington. Located on a busy street just a few steps
away from Church Street, Burlington’s main shop-
(Above left) Trevor Pour ’10 helps deliver a message on
good nutrition at the King Street Youth Center.
(Above) Heidi Schumacher ’10 researched and wrote a
needs assessment to help Community Health Center’s
Pearl Street Clinic.
ping district, the clinic and its next-door neighbor,
Spectrum Youth and Family Services, are a world
away in atmosphere from the trendy boutiques and
restaurants just around the corner. Here, at-risk
youth can find advice and support as they attempt to
make the successful transition to adulthood.
“My task was to try to gain greater access for the
clinic to the population of homeless adolescents in
the Burlington area,” says Schumacher. To do this,
she set about researching and writing a community
needs assessment that could guide the clinic to better promote its services. Schumacher conducted
interviews and focus groups with kids, and met with
the staff of agencies in the community who work
with homeless young people — a description that
covers a wide variety of people. “There are relatively few youths who actually live ‘on the streets’ in
northern Vermont,” she says. “But there are many
more kids who may have been kicked out of their
house, or left for their own reasons, and now ‘couch
surf’ at friends’ houses.”
Schumacher’s thirty-page needs assessment,
The commitment to community service runs deep
throughout the College of Medicine student body. That was
demonstrated in a big way at the beginning of this academic year with the inauguration of an event that promises to become a tradition at the school — COM Cares Day.
The event was sparked by the widespread desire among all
students to serve their surrounding community right at the
beginning of the year, before course work and other commitments make big claims on students’ time. “There was
tremendous enthusiasm among the remarkably large
number of participants that Saturday,” says Associate Dean
for Student Affairs Scott Waterman, M.D. “ It served as an
introduction to the wide variety of needs — and ways of
serving those needs — in our local community.” More than
100 students participated in the August 25 event, performing volunteer work for 14 different community agencies in
the Burlington area.
which she delivered to the clinic in December, offers
a clearer view of the clinic’s potential clients, and
concrete suggestions on how to promote its services
to keep kids in risky situations in better health.
4
Two thousand miles and sixty degrees Fahrenheit
separate the Mexican countryside from Addison
County on a Saturday in January when Luz FelixMarquez ’10, rolls into a church parking lot in
Bridport in a station wagon whose cargo area is
stuffed with bags of warm winter coats, shirts, and
other clothing. The winter gear has been donated
by students, staff, and faculty from across the UVM
S P R I N G
2008
27
Public Health Projects
Partner with the Community
campus, and will be given to Mexican farm workers
who work on dairy farms throughout Addison and
nearby counties.
“Many of these workers have no real idea how
cold it can get here when they came to work in
Vermont,” says Felix-Marquez. “This clothing is
really needed to keep them healthy and safe.” This is
the second such yearly clothing drive run by the student-run group, Covered Bridge Health Services.
But the clothing distribution is a sidelight —
albeit an important one — to the original reason for
Felix-Marquez’ visit on this day. As a part of her
Schweitzer Fellowship project, she has been working
in partnership with the Middlebury-based Open
Door clinic to provide monthly health-related services and education to the dairy farm workers. On this
day, she and other interested students have come to
the church hall where, after a Spanish-language religious service for dairy workers, they will run a health
awareness workshop that combines information with
entertainment — in this case, a skit that shows how
even superheroes can get depressed in the cold and
darkness of a long Vermont winter and need to learn
ways to get help. A few weeks earlier, the students
presented a workshop on how to deal with frostbite
and hypothermia.
“As a first-year medical student, it is easy to get
caught up in the demands of school,” said Catherine
28
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Mygatt ’11, who volunteers with Felix-Marquez.
“This program provides a great opportunity to leave
studying behind and learn about the real medical
needs of the community.” She recalls an earlier
meeting over a potluck meal. “Migrant farm workers
told me about their lifestyles on local farms. After
lunch we gave them a presentation on the importance of blood pressure management. In the course
of one afternoon, I was able to practice my clinical
skills, work on my Spanish, and get to know a population of Vermonters with whom I might not have
otherwise interacted.”
4
The community project of Trevor Pour ’10 developed out of an encounter brought about by his
Medical Student Leadership Group, a key component for first-year students in the Vermont
Integrated Curriculum. “We wanted to do something for the community as a group, so we volunteered at the King Street Youth Center in
Burlington,” he explains. “I had taught school for a
year before coming to med school, and this experience at King Street reminded me how much I liked
working with middle-school aged kids.” So Pour
put together a project based around 20 planned
health information sessions for youths. He found
that, in practice, even the most careful planning
Luz Felix-Marquez ’10 (above left, in pink shirt) joined
with other students to bring warm clothes and health
care to dairy farm workers (above) in Central Vermont.
sometimes has to be adjusted.
“I was way too ambitious and over-prepared for
this audience,” he says now with a laugh. “The kids
I was seeing at King Street had just gotten out of a
full day of school. Now, here I was showing up and
thinking they’d all just sit down and listen to me? It
was clear right away that wasn’t going to work, so I
went back and changed how I was going to
approach this.”
Pour’s reformulated approach involved throwing
out the lectures, and instead building group activities that he could lead along with one of the teens
from the center. Throughout the fall and early winter, these peer-led sessions covered issues ranging
from proper nutrition to the dangers of cigarette
smoking to the importance of wearing bike helmets
and car seat belts. For the session on nutrition, Pour
and his young “co-host” led the group through a
game show designed to highlight the highs and lows
of sugar consumption.
“This change really turned my project around,” he
says. “Even after this project is over, I plan to keep
volunteering at the center, and I hope this kind of
program can continue with med students next year.”
More than 100 second-year medical students, as
well as faculty mentors and community service
agency contacts participated in the fourth annual
Public Health Projects Poster Session and
Community Celebration in January at the College’s
Hoehl Gallery. A total of 14 projects, including
“Empowering Patients in Community Settings,”
“Preventing Medication Errors,” and “Improving
Nutrition in Homeless Vermonters” were featured.
Led by Jan Carney, M.D., associate dean for public
health and course director of the Medical Student
Leadership Groups II, the Public Health Projects
program is designed to teach students to approach
health issues affecting populations of people in the
broadest and most practical sense. Students learn
to apply the principles and science of public health
while working to meet the needs of the community
and in doing so, help improve the health of the community. The United Way of Chittenden County
coordinated the partnerships with local community service agencies.
4
Greta Spotswood and David Longstroth set out on
their community project with the goal of improving
the quality of medical care for Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, Transgendered, and Questioning
(LGBTQ) adolescents in northern Vermont. “This
is a population that often goes under the radar due
to institutional unfamiliarity and discomfort,” they
explain in their project report. “Because many are
F A L L
2007
29
HALL A
P R E S I D E N T
C L A S S
’
S
3
3
3
4
C O R N E R
N O T E S
D E V E L O P M E N T
N E W S
O B I T U A R I E S
2
3
5
3
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 where students spent so much of their time was named Hall A.
The Hall A magazine section seeks to be a meeting place for all former students of the College of Medicine.
reluctant to discuss the issues involved, the needs of
this population go unmet. We sought to find ways
to bridge the medical community and this population, and we worked to develop and implement
competencies that will help train physicians to provide the best care for LGBTQ patients regardless of
underlying attitudes.”
“We also wanted to bring positive closure to an
incident that happened on campus in 2006, when a
homophobic email was sent out as a joke to our fellow students,” explains Spotswood. “We felt that
there was a lot of conscious-raising to be done, and
this would be a good way of making something positive come out of that experience.”
The two second-year students worked with many
people across the UVM and local communities,
including Professor of Pediatrics Barbara
Frankowski, M.D., of University Pediatrics,
Professor of Pediatrics Paula Duncan, M.D., who is
course director of the Generations Foundations
course in the medical curriculum, Karen
Richardson-Nassif, Ph.D., associate dean for multicultural affairs, as well as staff members from
Outright Vermont and RU12?, two organizations
that serve the LGBTQ community. Longstroth and
Spotswood surveyed the health needs of the community, and identified ways local medical providers
30
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Greta Spotswood ’10 and David Longstroth ’10 work
with standardized patient Jae Vian. Their project findings will be incorporated into the medical curriculum.
could meet those needs. They then organized a successful colloquium in late November 2007 that
brought together faculty and students from all four
years of medical school to discuss the health care
needs of LGBTQ patients.
“What’s most gratifying is the openness we’ve
found for incorporating our findings longitudinally
into the medical curriculum,” says Longstroth.
4
Spotswood and Longstroth look forward to
passing their project’s focus along to other students as they go off to pursue clerkships. That’s a
sentiment shared by all the students whose
Schweitzer projects have now come to a close. “I’m
really hoping to find someone in next year’s entering class who’ll be interested in keeping the connection with King Street going,” says Trevor Pour.
In this, he and all the students involved in community service follow the sentiment expressed by
Albert Schweitzer 60 years ago: “Do something
wonderful,” the doctor advised simply. “People
VM
may imitate it.”
S P R I N G
2008
31
PRESIDENT ’S CORNER
M.D. CLASS NOTES
H A L L A
H A L L A
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT
COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
DEVELOPMENT &
ALUMNI RELATIONS OFFICE
ASSISTANT DEAN
Though the snow still lingers on the ground in many
parts of the country — certainly on the campus of our
medical alma mater — it’s the right time to look ahead a
few months to early June, when conditions will be much
different, and begin to think about Reunion 2008. For
those alumni of the College of Medicine who received
their medical degrees in years ending in 8 or 3, in particular, it is time to make plans to return to Burlington to
reconnect with the school and with your classmates and
former teachers.
As a member of the leadership of the Medical Alumni Association, I visit
the campus relatively frequently, yet I am always surprised by the pace of
change at the school. If you’ve not been back to Vermont for a number of
years, I believe you will be pleasantly surprised by the way our College has
both maintained the tradition of Vermont as a place of true caring and
learning, while at the same time pursued some of the most leading-edge
innovations in medical education. At Reunion, you’ll have a chance to get
a feeling for what the medical student experience is like today at UVM, and
I think you’ll be impressed not only by the facilities and the curriculum, but
by the students themselves. As Dean Morin mentions in his letter in this
issue, one of the major off-campus settings for our students’ clinical learning since the 1980s will be undergoing a change in the future, as UVM
transitions over the next four years from its clinical relationship with Maine
Medical Center to new teaching partnerships. More news on that will follow in future issues of this magazine. We can be proud that in the course of
talking with potential clinical partners, UVM’s reputation for excellence in
preparing its students and the quality of its integrated curriculum have
proven to be strong assets.
I should also mention that those of you coming to Reunion will get to
meet and help honor someone who’s never stopped learning from and caring for the community: Harry Rowe, M.D., from the Class of 1943m, who
is the subject of a profile in this issue of Vermont Medicine. After serving
with distinction in the U.S Army Medical Corps throughout Europe in
World War II, Dr. Rowe returned to Vermont to serve the people of the
Connecticut River Valley for seven decades as a physician, educator, and
community volunteer. For his record of service and his longstanding commitment to the College, Dr. Rowe will be recognized with the Medical
Alumni Association’s highest honor, the A. Bradley Soule Award.
Harry Rowe and the five other alumni who will be honored at Reunion
demonstrate the full breadth and spectrum of alumni contributions to the
community in Vermont, and worldwide. I’m sure that connecting with
them, and with all your old friends, will reaffirm what a special place the
College of Medicine is.
Marv Nierenberg, M.D.’60
32
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
rick blount
DEVELOPMENT OPERATIONS MANAGER
ginger lubkowitz
DIRECTOR , MAJOR GIFTS
manon o ’ connor
DIRECTOR , MEDICAL ANNUAL GIVING
sarah keblin
DIRECTOR , MEDICAL ALUMNI RELATIONS
cristin gildea
If you have news to share, please contact your class agent
or the alumni office at [email protected] or
(802) 656-4014. If your email address has changed, please
send it to: [email protected].
1941
1946
John S. Poczabut,
who passed away on
November 21, is
remembered on page 43.
J. Bishop McGill,
who died on October 14, is
remembered on page 43.
DEVELOPMENT OFFICER
travis morrison
ASSISTANTS
jane aspinall
james gilbert
cristal legault
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT
MEDICAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
ALUMNI EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
OFFICERS
( TWO -YEAR TERMS )
PRESIDENT
marvin a. nierenberg, m.d.’60
(2006-2008)
PRESIDENT- ELECT
ruth a. seeler, m.d.’62
(2006-2008)
TREASURER
paul b. stanilonis, m.d.’65
(2006-2008)
SECRETARY
james c. hebert, m.d.’77
(2006-2008)
EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
john tampas, m.d.’54
(ongoing)
MEMBERS - AT- LARGE :
(6-YEAR TERMS )
leslie s. kerzner, m.d.’95
(2002-2008)
frederick mandell, m.d.’64
(2002-2008)
don p. chan, m.d.’76
(2002-2008)
mark allegretta, ph.d.’90
(2003-2010)
mark pasanen, m.d.’92
(2004-2010)
h. james wallace iii, m.d.’88
(2004-2010)
naomi r. leeds, m.d., ’00 m.p.h.
(2004-2010)
betsy sussman, m.d. ’81
(2007-2012)
carleton r. haines, m.d. ’43
(2006-2012)
jacqueline a. noonan, m.d. ’54
(2006-2012)
R E U N I O N
’ 0 8
1943
Francis Arnold Caccavo
(M.D. Dec. 1943)
51 Thibault Parkway
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-3841
[email protected]
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]
1944
Wilton W. Covey
357 Weybridge Street
Middlebury, VT 05753
(802) 388-1555
1945
Robert E. O’Brien
414 Thayer Beach Road
Colchester, VT 05446
(802) 862-0394
[email protected]
H. Gordon Page
9 East Terrace
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 864-7086
Howard MacDougall
writes: “My wife Dorothy
and I are enjoying good
health in our 58th year of
marriage. Five children,
13 grandchildren, lost two
sons. Pat Izzo’s wife,
Maxine, lives at 4330
Outerbridge Crossing,
Harrisburg, PA 17112.”
1947
George H. Bray
110 Brookside Road
New Britain, CT 06052
(860) 225-3302
Porter H. Dale
5 McKinley Street
Montpelier, VT 05602
(802) 229-9258
Porter H. Dale writes: “I
couldn’t find any classmates at the Medical
Reunion weekend in June.
It was our 60th. I am
completely retired as of
January 2006, enjoying
three generations of family and some historical
writing.”
R E U N I O N
’ 0 8
1948
S. James Baum
1790 Fairfield Beach Road
Fairfield, CT 06430
(203) 255-1013
[email protected]
1949
James Arthur Bulen
4198 North Longvalley Rd.
Hernando, FL 34442
(352) 746-4513
[email protected]
Joseph C. Foley
32 Fairmount Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-0040
[email protected]
Richard E. Pease
P.O. Box 14
Jericho, VT 05465
(802) 899-2543
Edward S. Sherwood
24 Worthley Road
Topsham, VT 05076
(802) 439-5816
[email protected]
1950
Simon Dorfman
8256 Nice Way
Sarasota, FL 34238
(941) 926-8126
Dick Manjoney writes: “I
hope all of my classmates
have had a happy holiday.
I spend most of my time
reading and watching TV.
I never really recovered
from spinal surgery I had
for ankylosing spondylitis
over two years ago.But
I’m still here. As I looked
over the list of our departed friends I was filled with
fond memories.”
1951
Edward W. Jenkins
7460 South Pittsburg Ave.
Tulsa, OK 74136
(918) 492-7960
UPCOMING EVENTS
April 12, 2008
Spring Alumni Executive
Committee Meeting
Health Science Research Facility
Room 400
May 16, 2008
American College of Physicians
Annual Meeting
(Alumni Reception)
Grand Hyatt , Washington, D.C.
May 18, 2008
UVM Commencement Weekend
UVM Campus
June 6-8, 2008
Medical Reunion Weekend
UVM Campus
June 7, 2008
Ira Allen and Wilbur Society
Reception
UVM Campus
For updates on events see:
www.med.uvm.edu/medalum
R E U N I O N
’ 0 8
1953
Richard N. Fabricius
17 Fairview Road
Old Bennington, VT 05201
(802) 442-4224
1954
John E. Mazuzan Jr.
366 South Cove Road
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 864-5039
[email protected]
1955
Marshall G. London
102 Summit Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 864-4927
[email protected]
S P R I N G
2008
33
M.D. CLASS NOTES
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
H A L L A
1956
Ira H. Gessner
1306 Northwest 31st Street
Gainesville, FL 32605
(352) 378-1820
[email protected]
Larry Coletti
34 Gulliver Circle
Norwich, CT 06360
(860) 887-1450
[email protected]
1960
Leonard “Bill” Halling
writes: “We enjoy living in
Colorado Springs and
were happy to see so many
of our friends and classmates at the 50th Reunion
of the graduating class of
1957 before spending time
in Canada where we also
celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary. Hope to
make another in five years
and always glad to hear
from classmates.”
’ 0 8
1958
Peter Ames Goodhue
Stamford Gynecology, P.C.
70 Mill River Street
Stamford, CT 06902
(203) 359-3340
Rees Midgley writes: “I am
now an Emeritus Professor but busy as ever. I
started two small health
education software companies, funded for the last six
years on NIH and Department of Education grants.
I married a wonderful
woman after my first wife
died (cancer) and we split
our time in Ann Arbor and
the British Virgin Islands.”
Jim Wallace writes: “Dotty
34
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
1959
Jay E. Selcow
27 Reservoir Road
Bloomfield, CT 06002
(860) 243-1359
[email protected]
1957
R E U N I O N
and I are really looking
forward to our 50th. I
hope to see everybody
there.”
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]
Dick Caldwell writes: After
31 years of active solo
general surgical practice I
am now enjoying retirement as a grandfather of
two. My wife Carol, who
has been with me for some
44 years, and three children are all enjoying good
health. Plan to be at and
are looking forward to our
fiftieth reunion in 2010.
Can you believe that 50
years have passed by?
Would like to hear from
you, e-mail address is:
[email protected]”
1961
Wilfrid L. Fortin
17 Chapman Street
Nashua, NH 03060
(603) 882-6202
[email protected]
George Reservitz writes:
“Since retiring from position chief of urology and
BURKLE ELECTED TO INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE
Frederick M. Burkle Jr., M.D.’65 was among 65 new members elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine
(IOM) in October. Burkle seen above receiving the 2005
UVM College of Medicine Medical Alumni Association
Award for Service to Medicine and Community, is a senior
scholar and visiting professor in the Center for Disaster
and Refugee Studies at the Bloomberg School of Public
Health and research scientist at the School of Medicine at
Johns Hopkins. In addition, he serves as a senior fellow of
the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative at the Harvard
School of Public Health, as director of the Asia-Pacific
Center for Biosecurity, Disaster, and Conflict Research,
and as adjunct professor of surgery, tropical medicine
and public health sciences and epidemiology at the John
A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii at
Manoa, Honolulu. A former deputy assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development in
the State Department and founder of the Center of Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian
Assistance of the World Health Organization, Burkle
served combat tours in the Vietnam and Persian Gulf
Wars. During the latter, he served as senior medical officer in Iraq on the Disaster Assistance Response Team for
the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance USAID, and as
the interim minister of health in Iraq.
private practice, I have
started a free men’s health
clinic at Mt. Auburn
Hospital in Cambridge,
Mass.”
R E U N I O N
’ 0 8
1963
1962
John J. Murray
P.O. Box 607
Colchester, VT 05446
(802) 865-9390
[email protected]
Ruth Andrea Seeler
2431 North Orchard
Chicago, IL 60614
(773) 472-3432
[email protected]
H. Alan Walker
229 Champlain Drive
Plattsburgh, NY 12901
(518) 561-8991
UVM MEDICAL PHOTOGRAPHY
1964
1965
A BANNER SEASON FOR
SCHOLARSHIPS
Anthony P. Belmont
211 Youngs Point Road
Wiscasset, ME 04578
(207) 882-6228
[email protected]
George A. Little
97 Quechee Road
Hartland, VT 05048
(802) 436-2138
george.a.little@
dartmouth.edu
Endowed Scholarships
Five endowed scholarship
funds have been created under
the Medical Alumni Association Challenge Program. These
MAA Challenge endowed
funds, each of which is established with a gift of $100,000,
will generate scholarship dollars in perpetuity:
• William C. Street, M.D.’59
and Lorrain Hassan-Street of
North Easton, Mass., created a
fund in their names. Dr. Street
is a retired anesthesiologist
who celebrates his 50th
reunion next year.
• Robert and Joan Compagna
honored Mrs. Compagna’s
father by creating the Edward
Joseph Sennett M.D.’43
Endowed Scholarship Fund.
• Bernhoff Dahl, M.D., and his
wife Elaine have established
the Dahl-Salem Family
Endowed Scholarship Fund,
which honors their family,
including Sarah Dahl, M.D.’95
and her husband Charles
Salem, M.D.’91. Bernhoff Dahl
completed his Clinical
Pathology Residency in 1969 at
Mary Fletcher Hospital.
• The grandchildren of the late
Morris Wineck, M.D.’15 are
continuing their ongoing support of the College begun by
their parents by adding again
to the Wineck Endowed
Scholarship Fund.
• Annette Plante, whose generosity to the College was most
recently commemorated with
the naming of the Plante
Student Lounge in honor of her
father, Ulric Plante, M.D.’15,
has furthered her commitment
to today’s students with an
endowed and a term scholar-
Approximately 10 percent
of the class of 1964 gathered on the coast of Maine
over Labor Day weekend
for fun and reminiscence.
Mike Cheney, Jim Hallee
and Tony Belmont were
joined by Taylor Cook who
had sailed to Maine from
his Charleston home. We
were joined by wives and
friends from our days in
Burlington for lobsters,
clams, beer and wine. The
four Vermont graduates
shared stories of their
medical school days and
subsequent lives, thoroughly enjoying the
opportunity to get
together. Taylor promises
to return with his boat frequently, assuming this
doesn’t put too much of a
strain on the lobster population. Best to all!” Tony
Belmont writes: “I visited
with Taylor Cook, Jim
Hallee and Mike Cheney
this past summer along the
Maine Coast. Linda and I
are enjoying retirement,
brushing up on our studies
of the liberal arts at nearby
Bowdoin College, taking
all those ‘gut’ courses I
never could take while I
was a pre-med there.”
Lester Wurtele writes: “I
am still practicing radiology very part-time. I
attended the fall imaging
conference in Stowe. We
have two wonderful
grandchildren, Sara (4)
and Zack (3).
Joseph H. Vargas III
574 US Route 4 East
Rutland Town, VT 05701
(802) 775-4671
[email protected]
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]
John H. Arthur writes:
“Had a great time at our
40th reunion! Chester
(Chet) Boulris writes: “I
am medically retired due
to a heart attack and
stroke, but remain on the
emeritus staff of the
Massachusetts Eye & Ear
Infirmary and Harvard
Medical School and have
recently been elected on
the first ballot ever to the
Athletic Hall of Fame of
the Springfield, Mass.
Public Schools, for high
school performance in
football and baseball at
Springfield Technical
High School, Class of ’55.
It is astounding to me to
be mentioned on the same
page as Yankees’ pitcher
Vic Rashi, “The
Springfield Rifle.”
Leonard J. Swinyer writes:
“After more than 30 years
in dermatology, I was
ship through the Dr. U.R.
Plante and Joseph Plante
Endowed Scholarship fund,
which honors her father and
late brother.
Term Scholarships
In addition, three term scholarships have been established
through donations of at least
$30,000, which provide current
funding to students.
• Annette Plante has established a term scholarship in
addition to the above-mentioned endowed scholarship to
further her support in honor of
her father.
• Wilfrid Fortin, M.D.’61, along
with his wife Jeanne, have
established a term scholarship
in their names.
• The third term scholarship
honors Cifford M. Herman,
M.D.’59 and was given by an
anonymous classmate.
STRONG SUPPORT FOR
THE UVM COLLEGE OF
MEDICINE FUND
With less than four months
until the end of the fiscal year,
this greatest-need fund, which
primarily supports student
scholarship and other financial
aid, is on track to meet its goal
for the year. Participation in
giving as well as total dollars
raised are at levels higher than
last year. With a strong end to
the fiscal year (June 30, 2008)
the Med Fund should reach its
goal of $725,000. Currently the
Fund is at $457,162. A boost to
this year’s Med Fund has been
a special gift from Henry S.
Nigro, M.D.’63 and his wife
Lucinda R. Nigro, who made a
gift of $25,000 to the UVM
College of Medicine Fund as
they prepare to celebrate Dr.
Nigro’s 45th Reunion this June.
M.D. CLASS NOTES
H A L L A
awarded the Dermatology
Foundation Practitioner of
the Year Award for 2006. I
plan on continuing in private practice for three
more years, then retiring.”
1970
1967
John F. Beamis Jr.
24 Lorena Road
Winchester, MA 01890
(781) 729-7568
[email protected]
John F. Dick II
P.O. Box 60
Salisbury, VT 05769
(802) 352-6625
R E U N I O N
’ 0 8
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
William J. French is a
Professor of Medicine at
UCLA School of Medicine and the Director of
the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at
Harbor-UCLA Medical
Center. Todd Gladstone
writes: “I am retired now
and really enjoying life.
Rhoda is still teaching but
we enjoyed our first summer off together highlighted by a trip to
Ireland. Both our children
live in Needham, Mass.,
each with one daughter.
We visit twice a month.”
1969
Susan Pitman Lowenthal
200 Kennedy Drive
Torrington, CT 06790
(860) 597-8996
susan_w_pitmanlowen
[email protected]
36
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Raymond Joseph Anton
1521 General Knox Road
Russell, MA 01071
(413) 568-8659
[email protected]
Philip Buttaravoli, one of
the original graduates of
this country’s first
Emergency Medicine residency program has just
published the second edition of his book, Minor
Emergencies: Splinters to
Fractures with Mosby/
Elsevier. Dr. Buttaravoli
has recently started working as a cruise ship doctor
on The Pride of Aloha and
is presently sailing
between the Hawaiian
Islands. He is having a ball
and highly recommends
cruise ship medicine for
the late career emergency
physician. Darryl Raszl
writes: “I’m happily
retired since September
2005.”
R E U N I O N
’ 0 8
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]
Jim Betts and Phil Cohen
say they are looking forward to seeing everyone at
the 35th reunion in June
2008.
1974
Douglas M. Eddy
5 Tanbark Road
Windham, NH 03087
(603) 434-2164
[email protected]
Cajsa Schumacher
78 Euclid Avenue
Albany, NY 12203
[email protected]
Connie Passas writes that
she is enjoying life in
Portsmouth, N.H., and a
busy practice of rheumatology.
1971
1975
Wayne E. Pasanen
117 Osgood Street
North Andover, MA 01845
(978) 681-9393
wpasanen@lowell
general.org
Ellen Andrews
195 Midland Road
Pinehurst, NC 28374
(910) 295-6464
[email protected]
1972
F. Farrell Collins Jr.
205 Page Road
Pinehurst, NC 28374
(910) 295-2429
1976
Don P. Chan
Cardiac Associates of
New Hampshire
Suite 103
246 Pleasant Street
Concord, NH 03301
(603) 224-6070
[email protected]
Eric Reines writes: “I’m
chairing Pharmacy and
Therapeutics Committee
and directing the Inpatient
Anticoagulation Service at
Beverly Hospital—carrying out the mission of our
hospitalist group to
improve quality and
patient safety. Our group
is entering its seventh
year. Who will do primary
care? Iris and I. Avon
walked in memory of her
mother. Ariana, David,
Mary, Katie—what’s in
store for them?! Email
Address: ereines@
comcast.net”
1977
Mark A. Popovsky
22 Nauset Road
Sharon, MA 02067
(781) 784-8824
mpopovsky@
haemonetics.com
R E U N I O N
’ 0 8
1978
Paul McLane Costello
Essex Pediatrics, Ltd.
89 Main Street
Essex Junction, VT 05452
(802) 879-6556
Anita Henderson writes:
“My husband and I moved
to the northwest North
Carolina mountains in July
2004. I am now in a part
time family practice position in Boone, N.C. Bill
continues his product liability work. Our son
Stephen married in
January 2007 and lives in
Philly where he’s in graduate school.” Michael
Polifka writes: “Three
years ago I left the primary
care internal medicine
practice I started 25 years
prior with Mark Novotny
(’77) in Manchester Center,
Vt., to do Third World
volunteer medicine about
six months a year. It is
incredibly rewarding!”
1979
Sarah Ann McCarty
1018 Big Bend Road
Barboursville, WV 25504
(304) 691-1094
[email protected]
1980
Richard Nicholas Hubbell
80 Summit Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-5551
rich.hubbell@
vtmednet.org
Margaret I. Garner writes:
“Please remember John
Patrick Garner, M.D.’80.
April 12, 1951 – May 6,
1987. I would love to hear
from his classmates. Email
address mgarner@mwcsk
12.org”. Jeffrey Darrow
still has a busy plastic surgery practice in Boston.
He has four children, two
sophomores, one gradeschool and one preschool.
Dr. Jeryl Dansky Kershner,
child psychiatrist, joined
Alpert Jewish Family &
Children's Services in
Palm Beach Gardens,
Florida. She and her husband, Robert Kershner, an
ophthalmologist, have two
daughters, ages 19 and 23.
1981
Craig Wendell Gage
2415 Victoria Gardens
Tampa, FL 33609
craiggage@
tampabay.rr.com
Bob Cochran writes: My
son Tom is in his first year
of an emergency med residency in Portland, Maine
and has worked with the
daughters of Ernie Bove
and Tom Whalen. I realize
now that I am officially
old. And to Paul Cain—
How about those Red
Sox!”
2008 MAA AWARDS ANNOUNCED
1982
Service to Medicine & Community Award
Suzanne R. Parker, M.D. ’73
Michael D. Polifka, M.D. ’78
David and Sally Murdock
[email protected]
David Maccini writes:
“Great to see those who
attended the 25th Reunion
in June. I look forward to
the next one.”
R E U N I O N
’ 0 8
1983
Diane M. Georgeson
2 Ravine Parkway
Oneonta, NY 13820
(607) 433-1620
[email protected]
Anne Marie Massucco
15 Cedar Ledge Road
West Hartford, CT 06107
(860) 521-6120
[email protected]
1984
Richard C. Shumway
34 Coventry Lane
Avon, CT 06001
(860) 673-6629
rshumway@
stfranciscare.org
1985
Vito D. Imbasciani
1915 North Crescent
Heights Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90069
(323) 656-1316
[email protected]
This year, at Reunion 2008 the College’s Medical
Alumni Association will present six awards to graduates of the school for their outstanding achievements and service to the College and community.
A. Bradley Soule Award
Harry M. Rowe, M.D. ’43M
Distinguished Academic Achievement Award
Keiji Fukuda, M.D. ’83, M.P.H.
Joseph C. Kvedar, M.D. ’83
Recent Alumni Award
Omar A. Khan, M.D. ’03, M.H.S.
Lucille Poulin writes: “I
continue to live in Ellsworth, Maine with my
husband Chris Osterbauer
and two children, Kiona
and Ben, ages 7 and 4. I’m
joining a new family practice group in Ellsworth
after one-and-a-half years
doing walk-in care, which
allowed me more family
time. I’ve missed primary
care. My new job is part
time and has minimal call,
so I’ll have best of both
with family and professional goals being met. I
am still traveling to
Mexico each winter for six
to eight weeks. We and
the kids love it.” Eric Frost
writes: “The New England Surgical Society met
in Burlington September
28-30 2007. Charles Salem
M.D. ’91, Simon Drew
M.D.’91 and I, who all
work together in Burlington, had a nice reunion
with Neil Hyman M.D.’84,
Theresa Graves M.D.’85
and others.” Rory
Houghtalen writes:
“Debbie and I are proud
to announce that our son,
Ryan, will be an undergraduate at UVM next
year. He accepted a very
generous athletic scholarship to pitch for the
Catamount baseball team.
Ryan thought he wanted
to head south for School
until he met coach
DeCicco scouting a showcase in Wareham this summer. Thus began the
courtship that resulted in
Coaches Currier and
DeCicco making their
offer and Ryan picking
UVM from among several
opportunities. Now we
have a great excuse to visit
Vermont more! I hope
that my classmates still in
town will help keep an eye
on him and we hope to
reconnect with old friends
on visits. Go Catamounts!”
S P R I N G
2008
37
M.D. CLASS NOTES
H A L L A
1986
CONTINUING MEDICAL EDUCATION
2008 CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
Regional Urologic Cancer Update Symposium
March 28, 2008, Doubletree Hotel, Burlington, Vt.
A Statewide Geriatrics Conference for
Primary Care Physicians
April 8, 2008, Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center,
Burlington, Vt.
Women’s Health Issues Conference
May 7-9, 2008, Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center,
Burlington, Vt.
Child Psychiatry for the Primary Care Clinician
June 5-6, 2008, Wyndham Portland Airport Hotel,
South Portland, Maine
Vermont Family Medicine Review Course
June 10-13, 2008, Sheraton Hotel and Conference
Center, Burlington, Vt.
Vermont Summer Pediatric Seminar
June 12-15, 2008, The Equinox, Manchester, Vt.
Advanced Dermatology for the Primary Care Physician
September 4-7, 2008, The Inn at Essex, Essex Junction, Vt.
6th Annual Northern New England Critical Care
Conference
September 18-20, 2008, Stoweflake Conference Center,
Stowe, Vt.
Dementia & Neuropsychiatry Conference: An Update
for Neurologists, Psychiatrists, Geriatricians,
and Primary Care Providers
September 19-21, 2008, Hilton Hotel, Burlington, Vt.
22nd Annual Imaging Seminar
October 17-19, 2008, Stoweflake Conference Center,
Stowe, Vt.
College of Medicine alumni receive a special 10% discount
on all UVM Continuing Medical Education conferences.
For information contact:
University of Vermont
Continuing Medical Education
128 Lakeside Avenue Suite 100
Burlington, VT 05405
(802) 656-2292
http://cme.uvm.edu
38
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Darrell Edward White
29123 Lincoln Road
Bay Village, OH 44140
(440) 892-4681
[email protected]
Jennifer Weinraub and her
husband, David Evelyn (’87)
write: “We have been in
Ithaca, N.Y. now for two
years. Our oldest, Sarah, is
spending the year in Brazil
as a Rotary exchange student. Jacob is starting to
think about college and
Julia is just trying to make
it through fourth grade.”
1987
Dan Donnelly writes: “My
wife Nancy had a heart/
liver transplant in March
of 2007 at the Mayo Clinic
in Rochester, Minn., and is
doing well. We thank Bill
Cliby ’87 and Jill Cliby for
all they and their families
have done for us.”
R E U N I O N
’ 0 8
1988
H. James Wallace III
416 Martel Lane
St. George, VT 05495
(802) 872-8533
james.wallace@
vtmednet.org
Lawrence I. Wolk
5724 South Nome Street
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
(303) 771-1289
[email protected]
1989
Peter M. Nalin
13216 Griffin Run
Carmel, IN 46033
(317) 962-6656
[email protected]
Dean Mastras writes:
“2007 was a busy year.
Practice continues to
grow. I am now the senior
partner. Boy, time flies!
We are opening new
offices in Olympia. Julie,
Kassie (9), Izzie (5) and I
are still enjoying all the
Northwest has to offer.
We do miss the Vermont
alumni. Hope to see you
all in 2009 at Reunion!”
Winters III writes: “I got
out of the army in 2006
after five years in
Germany. I am now a gastroenterologist in
Bellevue, Washington,
across the lake from
Seattle. Have two boys:
Ross (5) and Duncan (2).
Looking forward to
Reunion in 2008!”
son, Adam ViningRecklitis in September.
Adam was born in
Vietnam in February 2007.
Lucas, age 7, really enjoys
the big brother role; Mark
also reports he was recently named an associate program director for the pediatric residency program at
UMass.
1994
1997
1990
Holliday Kane Rayfield
P.O. Box 819
Waitsfield, VT 05673
(802) 496-5667
[email protected]
Julie Clifford Smail
10 Proctor Street
Manchester-by-the-Sea,
MA 01944
(360) 240-8693
jsmail@
fidalgomedical.com
Barbara Angelika Dill
120 Hazel Court
Norwood, NJ 07648
(201) 767-7778
[email protected]
1991
John Dewey
15 Eagle Street
Cooperstown, NY 13326
[email protected]
Gip Welch writes: “Taking
a year off to travel—it’s
been great! Email Address:
[email protected]”
1992
Mark Eliot Pasanen
1234 Spear Street
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 865-3281
mark.pasanen@
vtmednet.org
R E U N I O N
’ 0 8
1993
Joanne Taplin Romeyn
22 Patterson Lane
Durham, CT 06422
(860) 349-6941
Russell Bradley writes:
“[email protected] —
Alta anyone? Powder’s
awaiting...” George R.
1995
Allyson Miller Bolduc
252 Autumn Hill Road
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 863-4902
allyson.bolduc@
vtmednet.org
Anjulika Chawla writes:
“Ron and I had our third
son in June. I am still at
Brown University Division
of Pediatric Hematology.
Lori Deschene (Everling)
has moved from Maine to
York, Penn.”
1996
Anne Marie Valente
66 Winchester St., Apt. 503
Brookline, MA 02446
anne.valente@cardio.
chboston.org
Patricia Ann King, M.D., Ph.D.
832 South Prospect Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-7705
patricia.king@
vtmednet.org
Mark Vining and
Christopher Recklitis welcomed home their new
Francis Shih writes: “Sorry
I missed the reunion, but I
saw the pics with lots of
kids! I moved to the
Seattle area last year.
Phoebe, myself, and our 3year-old son Josh hope to
add another family member soon.”
R E U N I O N
’ 0 8
1998
Halleh Akbarnia
2011 Prairie Street
Glenview, IL 60025
(847) 998-0507
[email protected]
Eileen Baker writes: “I
began my term as president of the Ohio Chapter
of the American College
of Emergency Physicians
in July 2007. My husband
Gary and I returned to
Burlington in July of 2006
for the BMW motorcycle
owners of America rally.
We’re looking forward to
seeing everyone at the
reunion in 2008!” Erika
Fellinger writes: “We are
living in Somerville, Mass.
and I have a great job
doing general and laparoscopic surgery at Cambridge Health Alliance.
Zachary is 2 and number
two is on the way in 2008.
We see a fair number of
UVM alums here and
treasure the connection.”
Susan Kiernan O’Horo
writes: “My husband Mike
and I welcomed our third
child, Delaney Elizabeth,
Joining Emma (4) and
Brendan (2). I am still
working full time as an
interventional radiologist
at Brigham and Women’s
in Boston.” Halleh
Akbarnia writes: “Just
moved to Chicago, with
my husband Stu and two
kids, and enjoying the
SNOW! Can’t wait for
reunion. If you haven’t
heard from me, please
send me your updated
email address so we can
keep the class connected!
[email protected] See
you in June!”
1999
Everett Jonathan Lamm
11 Autumn Lane
Stratham, NH 03885
(603) 929-7555
[email protected]
Deanne Dixon Haag
4215 Pond Road
Sheldon, VT 05483
(802) 524-7528
Jeff Kenney married
Monica Rama in Savannah, Georgia, on October
20, 2007. Jeff is the medical director of St Joseph’s
Hospital emergency
Department, and Monica
works as a private practice
allergist. Kyle Flik and
Thomas Evans were
groomsmen in the wedding. Anna (Grattan) Flik
could not attend because
she had just given birth to
her and Kyle’s fourth
child!” Elan Singer writes:
“I started a private practice in plastic surgery in
Montclair, N.J. Stop by
and say hi!”
2000
Jay Edmond Allard
USNH Yokosuka
PSC 475 Box 1757
FPO, AP 96350
[email protected]
Michael Jim Lee
71 Essex Lane
Irvine, CA 92620
michael_j_lee1681@
yahoo.com
Gregory Hunt writes:
“Genny and I are very
happy living in New
Bedford, Mass., working
in St Luke’s ED. Enjoying
the ocean and watching
our daughter Maddy grow
up. If you are in the area
we’d love to see you.” Amy
Doolan Roy writes: “I’m in
the middle of my fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine at Yale
and Marc (’99) is keeping
busy as an ED attending at
the Hospital of Central
Connecticut. Our boys,
Ben (2) and Sam (10
months) are keeping us
just as busy at home.”
2001
Ladan Farhoomand
1481 Regatta Road
Carlsbad, CA 92009
(626) 201-1998
[email protected]
S P R I N G
2008
39
M.D. CLASS NOTES
H A L L A
Joel W. Keenan
Greenwich Hospital
Five Perryridge Road
Greenwich, CT 06830
[email protected]
JoAn Louise Monaco
Suite 6-F, 5E
4618 Warwick Blvd.
Kansas City, MO 64112
(816) 753-2410
[email protected]
Wendy Boucher writes:
“Greeting from Iraq. With
the holidays behind me
the toughest part of this
deployment is behind me.
I am looking forward to
getting back home by
Valentine’s Day and taking
some time to go back to
Vt. for some skiing...
enough with the sand.
Email Address: wendy.
[email protected].”
(JoAn Monaco has gathered a wealth of news from
her classmates. Special
thanks to JoAn for all her
efforts.) Greetings classmates! Another year has
come and gone and there’s
plenty of exciting news to
report from the class of
2001. Starting with our
classmates out
West…Jason Dimmig
reports that he and
Christy are enjoying life in
Bend, Oregon, where he is
a partner in a private ophthalmology practice and
Christy is teaching at the
University of Oregon.
They are also proud parents to a beautiful sixmonth-old baby boy
named Bodie James who is
ready to start enjoying the
great outdoors with his
parents as soon as the
weather permits.
Shaw Henderson is a
happy newlywed to a
40
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
charming plastic surgeon
(aren’t they all?) named
Colette Stern. They married in the lovely French
countryside of Provence
this past May. They are
excited to report the
arrival of a little one this
spring. Both Shaw and
Colette will complete their
residencies at the University of Utah this June and
will relocate to Asheville,
N.C., this summer. Shaw
will complete his pulmonary/critical care fellowship this June. Shaw
also keeps in touch with
Rob and Leslie Cohen who
are happily married and
living in Seattle.
Karine Ekmekji
Mouradian is keeping
busy in private pediatric
practice in Los Angeles.
She and Ara are proud
parents to two very handsome and intelligent little
boys, Alek and Ayk who
are just as quick and
skilled with their
Armenian language skills
as they are with Beverly
Hills hip hop chatter!
Their boys are extremely
intelligent and adorable!
Also in California are
Ladan Farhoom and and
Tae Song who are both
doing very well. Ladan is
enjoying life as a staff
anesthesiologist in San
Diego and sends her
regards to everyone in our
class. Tae completed his
general surgery residency
at UCLA Harbor and is
currently in a vascular surgery fellowship at Stanford. He is busy with his
research and his family
who are a truly adorable
bunch. His wife Eileen is
excited to see an end that
is near with this long
training road. Eileen holds
down the fort with the talented Song Family bunch
who are exceptionally busy
with after-school activities,
sports and play time…
They are growing so fast
and their oldest, Charlie,
is a spitting image of his
dad.
Michelle and Joe
Cassara moved to North
Carolina after graduating
from UVM and have been
enjoying their time in the
South for the past seven
years. After completing
internal medicine residencies at UNC, both
Michelle and Joe took
chief years and then
Michelle completed an
endocrine fellowship and
Joe will complete a GI fellowship this June. In the
process, they have become
parents to two little ones,
Olivia (4) and Jason (2).
This summer, they will
relocate to Colorado
where Joe has accepted a
position with Kaiser
Permanente and Michelle
will be the medical director for an endocrine and
diabetes center at a local
hospital.
Another classmate in
North Carolina is JoEllen
Speca who recently completed a heme/onc fellowship at Duke and is now in
private practice in Raleigh.
Luke Jantac, her husband,
also completed a fellowship in cardiology and is
working with Pinehurst
Medical Center. They are
proud parents to two
beautiful little girls,
Mikaela (Mia) who is two
and Kaya who is just a few
weeks old.
Word of mouth is that
Marc and Ali Richard are
also in North Carolina
completing an ortho fellowship and both are
enjoying raising a handsome little boy named
Carter.
Anna Murchison is also
enjoying Southern living
where she has accepted a
faculty position at Emory
University in Oculoplastic
and Orbital Surgery. She
is also a happy newlywed
after marrying in Italy.
Kinjal Nanavati
Sethuraman writes that
she and her husband
Girish are proud parents
to a little boy named Avi
who was born in June.
The Sethuraman family
relocated in August to San
Antonio where Girish will
be stationed for the next
three years. In the meantime, Kinjal has been busy
working on EMS development in India for the past
four years. She created a
six month long EMT
training program that will
graduate its third class this
spring.
Jenny and Loren
Majersik are delighted to
announce the birth of
their second son, Emmett
Byrns Majersik. His two
year old brother Max
seems to be taking the
addition pretty well,
though Loren and Jenny
are pretty sleepy. Jenny
completed her stroke fellowship in June at the
University of Michigan
and has stayed on as faculty. She continues to study
diabetes and stroke as well
as stroke epidemiology.
She is also in a Master’s
program in clinical
research design and statistics.
Steve Simensky is doing
very well in Columbus,
Ohio where he and his
wife Julie are busy raising
their daughter Elyse who,
at the ripe old age of six,
has figured out how to
juggle spunk with charm
to have her daddy
wrapped around her pinky.
Steve is an attending general neurologist in
Buckeye country at a
smaller urban hospital.
He is also the medical
director of a sports concussion group that handles
all of the professional
teams in town in addition
to high school and small
colleges. Julie is working
hard as a neuropsychologist at Ohio State University Rehab Hospital.
Emily June Ryan is
enjoying her family practice in beautiful Venice,
Florida where she and
Tim keep busy with their
daughter June, who is
four.
As for our New
Englanders, Sarah Barnett
completed her pediatric
neurology training at Mass
General and was recently
awarded the Epilepsy
Foundation’s William
Gowers Fellowship. This
clinical/ research fellowship permits Sarah to
spend her time at
Children’s Hospital of
Boston studying the diagnosis and treatment of
neonatal seizures. She is
proud to report that Ben
will be nine and Hannah is
six. Sarah is enjoying living in Arlington, Mass.
Kelley Saia and Mazda
Jalali are proud parents to
a lovely little two year old
named Bella. They live in
Somerville, Mass., and are
working at Boston Medical Center and in private
practice respectively.
Jennifer Oles is living in
Chicopee, Mass., and
working at a private multispeciality practice as a
pediatrician in Springfield,
Mass. She is getting married in May to Robert
Dugre at Old Sturbridge
Village in Sturbridge.
Also in Boston are Jen
Stover who will complete
her peds critical care fellowship this spring and
Bill Meikrantz who is busy
with frequent trips to
France while working for
Cambridge Health
Alliance.
Gretchen Gaida is living
in Concord, while working for Harvard Vanguard
Medical Associates in
Chelmsford. Gretchen is a
happy newlywed after
marrying Larry Michaels
in Burlington on a lovely
October day with Chris
Staats as one of her
bridesmaids. She also
keeps in contact with
Lydia Grondin who is on
staff at FAHC as an
obstetric anesthesiologist
after completing her
obstetric anesthesia fellowship at Wake Forest in
2006. Lydia and her husband Chad are expecting
their first baby this May.
Chris Scully Manning
and Peter have relocated
from Portland to Kennebunk this past May where
COMMUNICATE WITH A CLICK
The new College of Medicine Online
Alumni Directory is now up and running.
Go to www.med.uvm.edu, click on “Alumni &
Friends,” and follow the link to the directory. If you
need assistance call the Medical Development and
Alumni Relations Office at 802-656-4014.
both Chris and Peter work
for PrimeCare. They are
proud parents to Noah
who is three and Kate who
is nine months old.
Liz McGowan completed
her neonatology fellowship at Brown and has
taken a faculty position at
New England Medical
Center. She and Andy are
enjoying their seaside life
in Rhode Island and Liz is
managing the daily commute to Boston for work.
Chris Staats is working
in Winooski as a family
physician in the same
group as Karen Sokol.
Chris reports that Ella is
already in the second
grade and is keeping her
smiling!
Also in Vermont are
Teresa Fama and Greg
McCormick who are both
respectively enjoying private practice lifestyles.
Teresa completed her
rheumatology fellowship
and started a solo practice
and Central Vermont
Medical Center. She is
truly enjoying her work
and is very excited to
report that her daughter
Amira is applying to college…we remember Amira
as the adorable, articulate
and intelligent six year old
who would read her books
while the rest of us
worked together on basic
science stuff… hard to
believe how quickly time
has flown.
Greg McCormick married in June to Monica
Fiorenza and is enjoying
life as an ophthalmologist
at the Timber Lane
Medical Center in South
Burlington with Dr. Tom
Cavin. Greg specializes in
corneal and refractive surgery.
Nicole Rioux Hynes is
doing very well in Waterbury, Vt., with her husband Jake and their two
girls, Eva, who is four and
Maya, who is two. Nicole
will complete her rheumatology fellowship in June
of 2008 and is hoping to
work part time to have
more time to play!
Marc Nespoli and his
wife live in Connecticut
where Marc works parttime in the VA and parttime in a private psychiatric practice.
Adam and Jodi Kanter
have been extremely busy
both professionally and
personally. After returning
from an incredible year in
New Zealand, Adam completed a minimally invasive spine surgery fellowship at UCSF in December and has started as an
assistant professor at the
S P R I N G
2008
41
M.D. CLASS NOTES
OBITUARIES
H A L L A
H A L L A
JOHN S . POCZABUT, M . D.’41
MED STUDENT MARATHONERS
First-year medical students David Diller and
Matthew Meyer have founded a marathon team
that has attracted nearly forty runners, mostly
first-year medical students, to run the full
marathon, half-marathon or the 5-person relay in
the KeyBank Vermont City Marathon on May 25,
2008. Their mission is to promote unity and wellness within their class while engaging friends, family and community members in the support of promising neuroblastoma pediatric cancer research taking place at Fletcher Allen and the College. They
will be raising funds for the Penelope and Sam Fund
for Neuroblastoma Research at the Vermont Cancer
Center and are well underway with both training
and fundraising. To learn more or to make a donation to their efforts you can visit the medical
marathon page link on www.med.uvm.edu/alumni.
University of Pittsburgh as
a Co-Director of the
Biomechanics Spine Lab.
He and Jodi are the proud
parents to FIVE Kanter
kids….yes, FIVE Kanter
kids! Jared, Kamryn and
Jeremy were joined by
beautiful twin girls, Aliyah
Hadley and Kyli Makenzi
in September.
As for this author, JoAn
Monaco, I completed my
plastic surgery residency
this past June and have
relocated to NYC for an
aesthetics fellowship where
shows like Nip/Tuck and
Dr. 90210 are not too far
from reality in the New
York plastic surgery world.
Someday, I’ll have a book
to write! Please keep your
emails coming. Right now,
I’m averaging 40 percent
of class representation
from your great
updates…I’m hoping for
plenty more the in the
months to come! All the
best to everyone!
42
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
2002
scott.goodrich1
@us.army.mil
2006
Jonathan Vinh Mai
15 Meadow Lane
Danville, PA 17821
(570) 275-4681
[email protected]
Kristopher Cumbermack
writes: “I’m currently living in Atlanta, Georgia,
and in my second year of a
pediatric cardiology fellowship training at Emory
University. Life is good!”
William C. Eward
[email protected]
Kerry Lee Landry
(919) 732-9876
[email protected]
Mary O’Leary Ready
[email protected]
2004
Maureen C. Sarle
[email protected]
Jillian S. Sullivan
[email protected]
Charles Honsinger III is a
anesthesia resident at
Strong Memorial
Hospital.
Emily A. Hannon
emily.hannon@
hsc.utah.edu
R E U N I O N
2005
’ 0 8
2003
Omar Khan
33 Clearwater Circle
Shelburne, VT 05482
(802) 985-1131
[email protected]
Steven D. Lefebvre
fabulous5lefebvre@
hotmail.com
Julie A. Alosi
[email protected]
Richard J. Parent
[email protected]
Deborah Rabinowitz
debbie.rabinowitz@
uvm.edu
Sundip Karsan writes: “I'm
a second-year medicine
resident at Cedars Sinai in
L.A. My wife, Payal, finally moved here with me
earlier this year and is now
a pediatrics attending at
Kaiser Sunset Boulevard.
Marc Makhani is on GI
consult service with me
and he is doing well.
Elaine Parker is also doing
well. Strange thing, we’re
all planning a future career
in GI. Must be something
about the Vermont air that
encourages interest in the
gut.”
Scott Goodrich
309 Barben Avenue
Watertown, NY 13601
RAJ CHAWLA
Dr. Poczabut died on Nov. 21, 2007,
at the age of 93. He was born in
Pittsford, Vt., the eldest of thirteen
children. He graduated from the
University of Vermont, with a B.S.
degree, in 1936. In 1941, he graduated from the College of Medicine. He
was called into service with the Army
Medical Corps in 1942. He was discharged as a Major in September of
1945 and started his residency at
Stamford Hospital in Connecticut. In
July 1946, he started private practice
in medicine and surgery. He was the
founder of the medical department
for Pitney Bowes Inc. and served as
the medical director for 28 years. He
was president of the College’s Medical Alumni Association from 1976 to
1978 and was a long-time class agent.
The College of Medicine bestowed
upon him the A. Bradley Soule Award
in 2000.
Kansas City, Mo., and returned to
Sioux City, where he practiced orthopedic surgery from 1959 to 1983.
J . BISHOP MCGILL , M . D.’46
Dr. McGill died peacefully at his
home in Stowe, Vt., on Oct. 14, 2007,
from complications of Parkinson's disease. He was 85. Born in St.
Johnsbury, he was devoted to St.
Johnsbury Academy, the University of
Vermont, and to Fletcher Allen
Health Care where he practiced and
taught surgery for over 40 years.
Active in community and medical
organizations, he cofounded the
Northeast
Medical
Association
(NEMA), was a member of the New
England Surgical Society, a president
of the Burlington Chamber of Commerce, and served as medical director
for the Mount Mansfield Ski Patrol
and was his class agent for many years.
HARLEY G . SHEPARD, M . D.’51
J. SANBOURNE BOCKOVEN, M.D.’42
Dr. Bockoven died June 30, 2007. He
was 91 years old and a resident of
Lincoln, Mass. After graduation from
the College in 1942, he served in the
U.S. Army in World War II. He later
practiced psychiatry for many years.
ALBERT D. BLENDERMAN JR., M.D.’43
Dr. Blenderman died in Houston,
Texas on December 21, 2007. He was
88. He last resided in Venus, Florida,
and was formerly of Sioux City, Iowa.
Dr. Blenderman was born Nov. 20,
1919 in Sioux City, where he attended school and graduated from
Central High School in 1937. He
attended the University of South
Dakota before finishing work for his
medical degree from UVM in 1943.
He interned at Beverly Hospital in
Massachusetts, and then entered the
U.S. Air Force and served as a flight
surgeon in World War II. Following
the war, he returned to Iowa and
practiced medicine in Paullina, Iowa,
for eight years. He then completed a
residency in orthopedic surgery in
Dr. Shepard died December 7, 2007,
in Park Ridge Hospital in Fletcher,
N.C. He was born in Burlington, Vt.,
on Dec. 26, 1925. He served three
years in the U.S. Navy during World
War II, and graduated from the
College of Medicine in 1951. Dr.
Shepard started his medical career in
Bristol, Vt., in 1953. He moved with
his family to New Jersey in 1958 to
continue his career in industrial medicine. Dr. Shepard and his wife raised
five sons who all became Eagle
Scouts, and he was made an honorary
Eagle himself. He retired to North
Carolina in 1986.
JOHN A . WARDEN , M . D.’52
Dr. Warden died peacefully in his
home in Alburgh, Vt., on September
2, 2007, after a brief battle with cancer. He was 82 years old. He was born
in Bluefield, West Virginia, and was a
veteran of World War II. He received
his undergraduate degree from the
University of Vermont, and was an
AOA graduate in 1952 from the
College of Medicine. He began his
medical practice in Gilbert, W.V.,
where he worked for three years. He
completed a residency in radiology at
the University of Pennsylvania in
1958, and spent the remainder of his
career at Beverly Hospital in Beverly,
Mass., until his retirement in 1988.
JACK A . GREBB , M . D.’79
Dr. Grebb, a psychiatrist who worked
for fifteen years leading the development of various psychiatric, neurologic, and pain drugs at pharmaceutical companies, died of esophageal
cancer on November 1, 2007. He was
54. Dr. Grebb obtained both his B.A.
and M.D. degrees from UVM. Dr.
Grebb held joint academic appointments at the Laboratory of Molecular
and Cellular Neuroscience at The
Rockefeller University, and in the
Department of Psychiatry at New
York University. In 1992, Dr. Grebb
started work at Abbott Laboratories,
and subsequently moved to Johnson
& Johnson, and then BristolMyers
Squibb Company.
FACULTY
PATRICIA POWERS , PH . D.
Dr. Powers age died of colon cancer
on Sept. 29, 2007 in the Vermont
Respite House in Williston, Vt. She
was 69. She attended Marymount
College, Bellevue School of Nursing,
and Hahnemann Medical College,
where she earned a doctorate in basic
medical science. She was hired as
course director of medical anatomy at
the College of Medicine in 1972 and
remained in that position until she
retired in 2000. Dr. Powers was
selected as Teacher of the Year in
1999 by students in the Class of 2001.
During her tenure in the Department
of Anatomy & Neurobiology, she
also maintained a productive research
program focused on thyroid structure
and function in normal and diseased
states. During her retirement, Dr.
Powers committed much of her time
and effort to community service.
S P R I N G
2008
43
P r o f i l e s in g i v i n g
Committed to Helping Young Patients
january 19, 2008
1:00pm
In a church hall in Bridport, Vt., medical students Asya Mu’Min ’11 and Robert Klein ’08
join another community volunteer as they rehearse a medical education skit on coping strategies
for mental wellbeing during winter (when even superheroes can get depressed).
Though Marilyn and Melvyn Wolk, M.D.’60 have
made their home in Pennsylvania for years, they still
make it a point to visit Vermont almost every year to
check on the institution that has meant so much in the
life of their family — the University of Vermont and its
College of Medicine. Dr. Wolk not only received his
medical degree from the College, but also earned his
undergraduate degree from UVM; and one of the
Wolk’s three children, Larry, received his medical
degree from the College in 1988.
Melvyn Wolk built a renowned practice, specializing
in pediatric allergy and immunology, and has published numerous times in his field. Now, in retirement,
when they’re not out pursuing their mutual passion for
writing and photography, the Wolks may be found
continuing their commitment to caring for their community through the annual Asthma Ski Day they coordinate — a yearly outing for children with asthma that
illustrates how asthmatic kids can enjoy fresh air and
activity despite their illness.
This year the Wolks have deepened their strong commitment to the College of Medicine with a generous
gift to the Department of Pediatrics to support efforts in
research and education that will strengthen the treatment of young patients. It is a gift that typifies one family’s love of Vermont, and the health care of children.
For more information about how you can support the College of Medicine,
please contact the Medical Development and Alumni Relations Office.
photograph courtesy of Luz Felix-Marquez ’11
medical development and alumni relations office
(802)656-4014 [email protected] www.med.uvm.edu/giving
44
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
S P R I N G
2008
45
YOUR DONATION
CAN HELP SHAPE A CAREER
Heather Provencher ’11 came to the College of
Medicine with the dream of one day practicing in a
rural, underserved area, a dream that stands a greater
chance of becoming reality thanks to the generosity
of those who give to the UVM College of Medicine
Fund. Heather’s own words of appreciation say it best:
“Being accepted into the UVM College of
Medicine was one of the greatest moments of my
life. One of the greatest challenges that I will face
will be trying to figure out how to finance my medical education while holding onto the hope of pursuing a career as a physician in a rural area. Your
generosity helps lessen this concern.
“As I am faced with challenges each day and take
on the task of learning the intricacies of the human
body, [because of this scholarship] I do not have to
be as concerned with the challenge of financing
this dream. The College of Medicine provides the
opportunity for me to obtain an excellent medical
education while my scholarship affords me the
opportunity to enter into a field that I could not
pursue without financial assistance. Thank you for
RAJ CHAWLA
your generosity and support.”
For more information on supporting scholarships through the UVM College of Medicine Fund, contact Sarah Keblin:
university of vermont college of medicine
medical development and alumni relations office
(802)656-4014 [email protected] www.med.uvm.edu/giving
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