medicine Gift Aging v e r m o n t

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
O F
M E D I C I N E
the
Gift
of
Aging
Lois Howe McClure helps establish
the UVM Center on Aging
F A L L
2008
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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F A L L
FROM THE DEAN
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COLLEGE NEWS
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2 0 0 8
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PRESIDENT ’ S CORNER
CLASS NOTES
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
OBITUARIES
REUNION
STOPPING TYPHOID IN ITS TRACKS
With the help of the Vermont community,
Beth Kirkpatrick, M.D., is finding a more
effective way to counter a global menace.
The Class of 2012 settles in; a MERIT
award for a College faculty member;
a marathon with extra meaning, and more.
HALL A
M A G A Z I N E
by edward neuert
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AGING GRACEFULLY
The largest gift ever by the McClure
family launches the UVM Center on
Aging to help Vermont meet the
challenge of an aging population.
by edward neuert
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A NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL
Students work to revitalize The Red
Wheelbarrow, the College’s magazine
of literature and the arts.
on the cover:
Photograph of Lois McClure by Raj Chawla
vermont
medicine
FROM THE DEAN
F A L L
COLLEGE NEWS
2 0 0 8
EDITOR
edward neuert
During a recent drive to an alumni gathering in
Stowe, the changes in the color of the foliage was
a clear signal that late summer was turning into
early fall in Vermont. The seasonal change also
signals the start of a new academic year at the
College of Medicine. In early August I helped
welcome the 114 members of the Class of 2012,
a diverse and talented group who are already well
into their first year classes in the Foundations
Integrated
Curriculum.
level of the Vermont
This season is a personally notable one for me also, as I mark the end
of my first year as dean of the College. A year ago at the reception graciously hosted by President Fogel, I noted how impressed I was with the
physical proximity of all the elements that make an academic health center work — our College, the University campus, and our clinical partners
at Fletcher Allen. Now, after twelve months in residence in the Given
Building, I can truly say that that physical closeness is matched by personal experiences I’ve had and the people I’ve met throughout the past
year.
It was a special pleasure for me and my wife, Tracy, to meet so many of
you during Reunion this summer. The enthusiasm and pride our alumni
feel for the College, and the steadfast interest in and support of all that
continues to make our institution great, was inspirational and I am looking forward to all that lies ahead.
I have had many opportunities to connect with people beyond the
boundaries of the campus, of course, and I am repeatedly struck by the
extent to which our College is engaged with our community here in
Burlington, across the Green Mountain State, and in the world beyond its
borders. We as an institution exist to serve our community with a commitment to improve the health and wellbeing of all.
That mission and community connection was celebrated this summer
with the announcement of the new UVM Center on Aging, established
with a generous $5 million gift from local philanthropist Lois Howe
McClure. The Center will be directed by our own Professor William
Pendlebury, M.D.’76, and represents the culmination of effort by many
people throughout state government, the health care profession, nonprofit agencies, and private citizens who anticipate the changing nature of
society as Vermont’s population ages significantly in the next twenty years.
This is the essence of what our close connections can bring forth — the
community helping us to do work that will in turn benefit the community for years to come.
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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
ASSISTANT DEAN FOR
DEVELOPMENT & ALUMNI RELATIONS
rick blount
WRITER
jennifer nachbur
ART DIRECTOR
elise whittemore-hill
ASSISTANT
aliza mansolino
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT
COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
DEAN
frederick c. morin iii m.d.
SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN
FOR MEDICAL EDUCATION
lewis first, m.d.
SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN
FOR CLINICAL AFFAIRS
paul taheri, m.d.
SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN
FOR RESEARCH & ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
russell p. tracy, ph.d.
SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN
FOR FINANCE & ADMINISTRATION
brian l. cote
Medical
Class of 2012
Begins at UVM
A diverse group of 114 first-year students, including 34 Vermonters, began
their medical school careers at the
University of Vermont College of
Medicine this August. After a formal
welcome from the Dean and other
members of the faculty and staff on
Monday, August 11, the new first-year
students took part in a week-long orientation schedule that included sessions
on the UVM medical curriculum, leadership, professionalism, a team-building ropes course, and training on the
award-winning COMET e-learning
platform. To mark the completion of
Orientation Week, the new first-year
students held a celebratory pizza and
lawn party for faculty and new friends
from other classes on the ChittendenBuckham-Wills green on the UVM
campus on Friday.
THE COLLEGE OF MEDICINE CLASS OF 2012 INCLUDES:
• 58 women and 56 men
• Students ranging in age from 19 to 34
• Students from 23 different states, as well as Puerto Rico, Canada,
and Ethiopia
• Students with undergraduate majors in such areas as Biology,
Environmental Studies, Engineering, Psychology, and English, as
well as Apparel Design, History, Physical Education, and
Economics
• Students with an average undergraduate GPA of 3.7
EDITORIAL ADVISORS
rick blount
marilyn j. cipolla, ph.d.’97
christopher s. francklyn, ph.d.
james c. hebert, m.d.’77
russell tracy, ph.d.
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]
Brian L. Cote Appointed Senior Associate
Dean for Finance and Administration
Dean Frederick C. Morin
this summer announced
the appointment of Brian
L. Cote as Senior Associate
Dean for Finance and
Administration. Cote has
served as Associate Dean
for Finance and Administration for the College of
Medicine since January 2007.
“Brian has taken on an increasingly more significant
role in managing the strategic financial and human
resources of the College, demonstrating leadership and
commitment in helping the College achieve its goals,”
ALL : RAJ CHAWLA
said Dean Morin. “He has earned the respect of
University leadership, of our partners at Fletcher Allen,
and of the campus and Vermont communities, and I am
pleased to have him as a member of my leadership
team.”
Cote joined UVM in 1986, and was named Director of
Finance for the College of Medicine in 2001. He was
appointed Assistant Dean for Finance and Administration in 2004, and Associate Dean in 2007. In this new
role, Cote will have responsibility for Finance, Human
Resources, and Information Systems for the College of
Medicine, and will continue as Vice President of
University Medical Education Associates (UMEA).
F A L L
2008
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COLLEGE NEWS
JUST THE FACTS: UVM TEAM WORKS
TO EDUCATE VERMONT PRESCRIBERS
It’s no surprise to anyone in the health care community that pharmaceutical companies are
spending big money to market drugs to physicians across the country. In Vermont alone, more
than $3.1 million was spent on marketing drugs
to physicians in 2007, according to a recent
report from the Vermont Attorney General's
office. Two programs offered through UVM’s
Office of Primary Care aim to educate prescribers, as well as medical students, about drug
representatives’ tactics.
Together, the Office of Primary Care and
Area Health Education Centers (AHEC)
Program operate the Vermont Academic
Detailing (AD) Program, one of the first such
programs in the country. The term “detailing”
refers to one of several strategies used by pharmaceutical companies to influence the prescribing behavior of
physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants. The detailing strategy, which is based on theories of social marketing
and behavior change,
involves person-to-perRichard Pinckney, M.D., was feason education and distured in a recent episode of Vermont
cussion by a pharmaPublic Radio’s “Vermont Edition”
ceutical representative
program dealing with drug market“expert.” Pharmaceutiing. To listen to a podcast of the
cal companies spend mil“Marketing Pharmaceuticals in
lions of dollars each year
Vermont” broadcast, visit:
on a sales and detailing
http://www.vpr.net/episode/44028
workforce. Borrowing
the successful format of
expert, person-to-person, or small-group education used by pharmaceutical representatives, the academic detailing program focuses on educating prescribers using an evidence-based, unbiased presentation of safe, effective, and well-established treatments,
rather than promoting a specific product.
Since 1999, the Vermont AD Program has been
helping healthcare providers translate prescribing
guidelines into practice. The one-hour, condition-specific (e.g., hypertension, depression, insomnia), casebased interactive sessions are delivered at practices by
members of the AD team, including Charles MacLean,
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V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
M.D., associate professor of medicine, Richard
Pinckney, M.D., assistant professor of medicine,
Amanda Kennedy, Pharm.D., research assistant professor of medicine, and Fletcher Allen Health Care pharmacists Michele Corriveau and Gary Starecheski. The
program presents an objective overview of what evidence from studies shows about various drugs used to
treat a medical condition, and where appropriate,
emphasizes the importance of lifestyle change and
non-drug therapies as the building blocks upon which
drug therapies may be added. This program is funded
by multiple sources, but there are no drug company
sponsorships, nor do any of the team members have
any ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
Launched in 2007, a second program called the
Program in Wise Prescribing is a UVM Office of
Primary Care initiative funded by the Attorney
General Consumer and Prescriber Grant Program.
The impact of drug company marketing strategies on
consumer and prescriber behavior is well understood.
However, the proper approach for limiting marketing's
negative impact on inappropriate and needlessly
expensive use of medications remains controversial.
The Program in Wise Prescribing approach centers on
raising awareness about the general methods and effectiveness of pharmaceutical marketing. Pinckney is the
principal investigator on this grant. The Wise
Prescribing educational program will be disseminated
nationally in 2009 through a partnership with AHEC.
RESEARCH MILESTONES
RINCON AND COLLEAGUES
IDENTIFY NOVEL
TREATMENT TARGET
Research by Associate Professor
of Medicine Mercedes Rincon,
Ph.D., (pictured at left) and colleagues has opened up a potential new pathway for pharmaceutical development. This new
work, recently reported in the
journal Science, has connected
two key signaling pathways
commonly used as therapeutic
Mercedes Rincon, Ph.D.
targets for drug discovery. The
group’s findings link glycogen
synthase kinase-3beta (GSK3beta), a key enzyme
known to be involved in metabolism, neurodegeneration and cancer, and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), which plays a role in
inflammatory responses.
Rincon and her team have now discovered a
novel mechanism that inactivates GSK3beta.
Tina Thornton, Ph.D., a postdoctoral associate in
Rincon’s group, has elegantly demonstrated that
GSK3beta is also inactivated by phosphorylation
mediated by p38 MAPK. With the help of the
UVM Proteomics Facility, directed by Dwight
Matthews, Ph.D., professor and chair of chemistry, Rincon’s team has identified the amino
acid Serine 389 located at the end of GSK3beta
(C-terminal region) to be phosphorylated by p38
MAPK. More importantly, a synthetic peptide —
a small protein fragment — of GSK3beta at the
C-terminal containing a phosphate in Serine 389
blocks GSK3beta activity. These results are
promising for development of novel therapies to
block GSK3beta and enhance cell survival.
In the Science publication, Rincon’s team also
shows that this novel mechanism to inactivate
GSK3beta through p38 MAPK takes place primarily in the brain and thymus (the gland where Tlymphocytes are generated) to promote cell survival. “We think this mechanism is important for
promoting cell survival in thymocytes and, likely,
nerve cells,” said Rincon. “Since inhibitors of p38
TOP : MARIO MORGADO ; RIGHT: RAJ CHAWLA
MAPK are currently in Phase I clinical trials for
treatment of rheumatoid arthritis as antiinflammatory treatments, these drugs should be
taken with caution, since they may enhance neuronal or thymocyte death,” added Rincon.
Additional co-authors on the Science paper
include postdoctoral associate C. David Wood,
Ph.D., and Alexander Aronshtam, a lab research
technician in the immunobiology division of the
Department of Medicine.
GRUNBERG PRESENTS
NEW CHEMO - INDUCED
NAUSEA TREATMENT RESEARCH
Promising results from a Phase
III clinical trial of casopitant, a
novel therapy for one of the
most troubling adverse effects
of cancer treatment, were presented May 30 at the 44th
Annual Meeting of the American
Society of Clinical Oncology in
Chicago by Professor of Medicine Steven Grunberg, M.D.
Chemotherapy-induced nausea
and vomiting (CINV) can be a
serious, feared and distressing
side effect of chemotherapy for
patients and their families, and Steven Grunberg, M.D.
can last for about five days. The
risk of nausea and vomiting without preventive
therapy is greater than 90 percent for patients
receiving highly-emetogenic (nausea and
vomiting-producing) chemotherapy treatment
regimens and 30 to 90 percent for patients
receiving moderately-emetogenic chemotherapy treatments.
The study examined the effects of adding a
single oral dose regimen of casopitant to the
standard dual CINV therapy (an anti-nausea
treatment called ondansetron HCI plus the
steroid dexamethasone). The results showed
that adding casopitant achieved a significant
reduction in the number of patients experiencing
CINV.
COLLEGE NEWS
3 QUESTIONS FOR
Can Cholesterol-Lowering
Medication Reduce the Risk
of Breast Cancer?
MARK NELSON, PH.D.
Despite major advances in early identification and
treatment of breast cancer, it is estimated that more
than 182,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer and
about 41,000 breast cancer deaths are expected to
occur among women in the United States in 2008.
Currently, researchers at the Vermont Cancer Center
are examining cancer prevention strategies to help
improve these statistics.
Previous research shows that women who have
taken statins — a class of cholesterol-lowering drugs —
are less likely to develop breast cancer. Professor of
Medicine Marie Wood, M.D., who is also director of
the High Risk Breast Program at the Vermont Cancer
Center, is leading an ongoing research study to determine whether taking the popular medication Lipitor
can reduce a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer.
Titled “Statins and Breast Cancer Biomarkers” and
supported through funding from the Breast Cancer
Research Foundation, the study is taking place at UVM
and four other locations across the country. Wood and
colleagues will evaluate whether taking Lipitor reduces
mammographic breast density, a known risk factor for
breast cancer. The study will also evaluate how the
Reaching the Goal
For four months, more than 40 yellow-shirted students in
the College of Medicine's Class of 2011 trained for the
KeyBank Vermont City Marathon (VCM), which took place
this year on Memorial Day weekend. Inspired by children
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V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
This summer, Professor Mark Nelson, Ph.D., chair of the
Department of Pharmacology, and a member of the UVM faculty
since 1986, received word that he had been awarded a prestigious
MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health National
Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. The tenyear, $3.39 million grant provides continued funding for Nelson’s
research, which has been published in such prestigious journals as
Nature, Science, and Nature Neuroscience.
drug affects other indicators of
breast cancer risk.
“This study could help to provide new and bettertolerated options for preventing hormone-receptornegative breast cancer in high-risk patients,” said Wood.
To be eligible to participate in the study, women
must have an increased risk for breast cancer, be at
least 35 years old and premenopausal. Study participants will be randomly assigned to take either Lipitor
or a placebo once a day for a year. They will have annual mammograms, physical exams, and routine blood
draws for lab testing and research sampling.
Participants will also be asked to complete questionnaires on medical history, diet, and physical activity.
Marie Wood, M.D.
with neuroblastoma and research led by Giselle Sholler,
M.D., a pediatric oncologist and assistant professor of
pediatrics, the students organized the team to support
The Penelope & Sam Fund for Neuroblastoma Research at
the Vermont Cancer Center . The group raised over $10,000
for the Fund.
Neuroblastoma is an often-fatal cancer that afflicts
very young children. The Penelope & Sam Fund, established by the parents of two neuroblastoma patients and
fueled by hundreds of donors, supports Sholler’s research.
Second-year medical students Matthew Meyer and
David Diller were co-leaders of the team. About 17 students, including Meyer and Diller, ran the full marathon,
and the remaining 24 teammates, four of whom ran a halfmarathon, participated in the relay.
TOP AND RIGHT: RAJ CHAWLA
Q: How would you broadly describe
your research?
A: We have two major areas. One is
the urinary bladder. We study what
controls the contractility of the
bladder, which controls the two
functions of the bladder, filling and
voiding. We also study what goes
wrong in the body to cause incontinence, on the molecular and the in
vivo levels. This is a huge medical
issue that affects almost 20 million
people in this country, with no really decent drugs to treat it. So we
have a number of candidates —
proteins that have a profound control over bladder function, and
probably don’t work properly in
urinary bladder disorders. The
other project, which can be viewed
as different — but which in many
ways is similar, involves understanding blood flow control in the
brain, which relates to the basic
function of how oxygen nutrients
are delivered to the neurons in the
brain from moment to moment and
what goes wrong in such conditions
as hypertension and Alzheimer’s
disease.
The muscles that control the
blood flow and arteries are the
same types of muscle cells that
encase the urinary bladder, smooth
muscle cells. The smooth muscle
cell is really the common denominator in my research.
Q: What are the criteria for a MERIT
award?
but does also consume an enorA: You are chosen for a MERIT, it’s mous amount of time. The value of
nothing you apply for. I’ve had this the award is there in its name —
particular grant for ten years, and Method to Extend Research in
it’s always been highly scored by Time. It provides that continuity of
the Institute. They look at what funding that will enable me and the
grants have been continuously pro- other people in my lab to take a
ductive, and they see the progress broad view of our projects and
reports every year. They decided move them forward without having
that, in this case, this is something to spend time writing and competthey want to reward and invest in, ing for grants. It provides more
so that productivity in this area time for the lab and myself to actucontinues to go forward, to explore ally do research. I have three NIH
new areas in biomedical science. A grants and I’m involved in several
MERIT award also functions as a others. I sometimes liken it to the
way to keep a researcher in a par- life of a politician, who has to start
ticular field. If you work in multiple spending time fundraising right
areas you might be tempted to say, after first taking office. So getting
well maybe I’ll work more on this this MERIT frees up a lot of time.
than that. If you’ve been very pro- It also provides extra continuity in
ductive and made a lot of progress, the lab, knowing that I have the
a MERIT award is a way for the funds to support the projects I’m
institute to keep the person focused working on and the people who are
on that area that they think is working with me.
important.
Q: How will this award
impact your work?
MERIT AWARDS
A: Each grant’s competitive
Several members of the College of Medicine faculty have been honored with MERIT awards over
renewal involves months of
the years. Included among this prestigious group
effort to prepare. As a
are Paula Fives-Taylor, Ph.D., professor emerita
researcher, you often spend
of microbiology and molecular genetics (1994);
20 percent of your time
Stephen Higgins, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry
either writing progress
(2001); Kenneth Mann, Ph.D., professor of bioreports or renewal paperchemistry and medicine (1989); and Susan
work. The grant process is
Wallace, Ph.D., professor and chair of microbiolan important one — it
ogy and molecular genetics (1995).
makes people think about
and focus their research —
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2008
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COLLEGE NEWS
&
AWARDS
Robert Wood Johnson
Grant Funds Health
Video Game Study
A grant from the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation (RWJF) is funding research at the
College to explore how interactive digital games
could be designed to improve players’ health
behaviors and outcomes. UVM joins eleven other Associate Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics Peter Bingham,
research teams supported in this first round of M.D., leads a patient through a biofeedback game.
funding from Health Games Research, an RWJF
national program established to strengthen the evi- and puts CF patients more in charge of their own
dence base related to the development and use of games health. We feel lucky to have the people at Champlain
to achieve desirable health outcomes.
College to work with us on this project.”
Peter Bingham, M.D., associate professor of neuIn the early version of the system, which was tested
rology and pediatrics, is the RWJF grant recipient. His with a number of teenagers with CF, the patient would
research project, titled “Breath Biofeedback Video breathe in and out of a simple air flow meter connectGame for Children with Cystic Fibrosis,” will explore ed to a computer, which displayed an icon on the
whether a breath biofeedback video game can improve screen. As the airflow changed, the icon would move
cystic fibrosis (CF) patients’ self-administration of vertically on the screen while the image of a curvy road
inhaled medicines, engagement in respiratory exercis- scrolled past. The object of the game was for the
es and awareness of their respiratory status. The game patient to keep the icon on the road. Now, with their
uses a breath controller and game software developed partnership with Champlain’s gaming experts, the
by a research team at Champlain College’s Emergent UVM research team can work to bring the concept to
Media Center in collaboration with patients in the tar- a more sophisticated level.
get user group. In addition to potentially helping CF
“This collaboration plays to some of the key
patients self-manage their condition and maintain bet- strengths of the UVM College of Medicine and
ter health, the game also may be useful for children and Champlain College,” said Ann DeMarle, director of
adults with asthma and other forms of chronic obstruc- Champlain’s Emergent Media Center. “The particular
tive pulmonary disease.
combination of disciplines required to tackle this issue
Bingham began exploring the concept of turning presents the perfect opportunity for our students to
CF patient breathing training into a video game sever- work with young patients, faculty, and researchers to
al years ago. He approached his colleague Jason Bates, create media that could positively impact their lives as
Ph.D., a professor of medicine working in the Vermont well as those of other cystic fibrosis patients.”
Lung Center, for help with the practical aspects of testHealth Games Research is headquartered at the
ing the concept. With funding from the Office of University of California, Santa Barbara, and is funded
Technology Transfer’s UVM Ventures program, the by an $8.25 million grant from RWJF’s Pioneer
two professors and researchers, including biomedical Portfolio, which supports innovative projects that may
engineer John Thompson-Figuero and Chris Coulter lead to breakthrough improvements in the future of
of Adaptive Engineering, developed the breath health and health care.
The 12 grantees were selected from 112 research
biofeedback system and method. UVM submitted a
organizations that applied for Health Games Research
patent application for the system in 2006.
“We know that eye-hand coordination can be funding during the first funding call, which focused on
improved by playing video games, but eye-breath games that engage players in physical activity and/or
coordination is something new,” said Bingham. “With games that promote and improve players’ self-care. As
the help of some very creative patients with CF, we UVM and the other eleven grantees conduct their
hope to devise a completely new kind of game that studies, Health Games Research will provide them
helps kids to connect with each other about breathing with ongoing assistance and research resources.
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V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
RAJ CHAWLA
Charles Irvin, Ph.D., professor of
medicine and director of the
Vermont Lung Center, chaired
the Second Biennial National
IDeA Symposium for Biomedical
Research Excellence (NISBRE) in
Washington, D.C. August 6 to 8.
The symposium, designed to
showcase the scientific and
Charles Irvin, Ph.D. training accomplishments of
the Institutional Development
Award (IDeA) Program of the National Center of
Research Resources (NCRR) at the National
Institutes of Health, featured high-level scientific
presentations and open discussions and exchange of
ideas on science and training. The IDeA program consists of the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence
(COBRE) and IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research
Excellence (INBRE) programs and focuses on developing scientific centers of excellence and training
biomedical scientists in states such as Vermont that
are in the minority for federal funding for biomedical
research.
UVM currently has three COBRE grants and one
INBRE grant.
Virginia L. Hood,
M.B.B.S.
Virginia L. Hood, MBBS, professor of medicine and a nephrologist at Fletcher Allen Health Care,
has been re-elected to serve a
second three-year term with the
Board of Regents of the American
College of Physicians (ACP), the
main policymaking body of the
nation’’s second-largest physician organization. She began her
second term during Internal
Medicine 2008 — this year’s ACP
annual scientific meeting held in
Washington, D.C.
Judith Shaw, E.D., R.N., M.P.H., research
associate professor of pediatrics and
director of the Vermont Child Health
RECOGNITION
Improvement Program, was selected to participate
in the 2008-09 Management Institute for Women in
Higher Education, an integrated series of five seminars offering women administrators and faculty professional leadership and management training,
sponsored by the New England branch of Higher
Education Resource Services (HERS) and held at
Wellesley College.
Second-year medical student
Rebecca Evans was invited to
compete in the Medical
Student Poster Competition at
the Walter E. Washington
Convention Center as part of
the American College of
Physicians national meeting,
Internal Medicine 2008, in
Washington, D.C. this May.
Rebecca Evans
Hyman Muss, M.D., professor of medicine and medical oncologist at the Vermont
Cancer Center, received the B.J.
Kennedy Award for Scientific
Excellence in Geriatric Oncology at
the American Society of Clinical
Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting
in Chicago this June.
The B.J. Kennedy Award and
Lecture for Scientific Excellence in
Geriatric Oncology was created in
2007 in honor of B.J. Kennedy, M.D.,
a past ASCO president and pioneer Hyman Muss, M.D.
in the field of geriatric oncology
who also helped promote the recognition of medical
oncology as a subspecialty of internal medicine during his career. The award honors individuals who
have demonstrated outstanding leadership or contributed outstanding scientific work — laboratory,
clinical or epidemiologic — of
major importance to the field of
geriatric oncology. Muss is the
second ASCO member to receive
the award.
Judith Shaw, E.D., R.N., M.P.H.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: FARREL DUNCAN , MEDICAL PHOTOGRAPHY,
TONY RINALDO, NATALIE STULTZ , SALLY MCCAY
F A L L
2008
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COLLEGE NEWS
MEDQUEST GIVES TEENS FIRST-HAND
GLIMPSES OF HEALTH CAREERS
Frymoyer Scholarship Program
Supports New Educational Efforts
The Frymoyer Scholars program
entered its sixth year of support for
clinician-scholars this year, with
scholarships announced to support
the work of three members of
Vermont’s academic health center.
The Frymoyer Scholars Program supports clinician teachers —
distinguished physicians and nurses
who are recognized for their ability
to understand and demonstrate
humanistic interaction between clinician and patient. The program is
an investment in outstanding medical education and promotes teaching that emphasizes the art of
patient care. Scholars are selected
based on the quality of their project
proposal; the strength of the project's contribution to improvement
of the relationship between clinician and patient; and evidence of
commitment to clinical education,
commitment to project and support
of department/division/program.
The program is supported by
The John and Nan Frymoyer
Fund for Medical Education. Dr.
Frymoyer served as dean of the
College of Medicine from 1991 to
1999 and also served as CEO of
Fletcher Allen from 1995 to 1997.
Nan Frymoyer is a former community health nurse and has a strong
interest in patient advocacy. She
serves on the UVM College of
Nursing and Health Sciences advisory board and helped plan and
implement the Frymoyer Community Health Resource Center at
Fletcher Allen Health Care.
This year’s scholarships were
awarded to two projects, one to be
undertaken by Assistant Professor
of Medicine and geriatric specialist
Robert Karp, M.D.; the other is a
joint effort by Nancy Morris,
Ph.D., A.P.R.N., associate professor
of nursing, and Peter Igneri, PA-C,
M.M.Sc., clinical instructor of family medicine and surgery.
Karp’s proposal, titled “Improving Basic Medical Student Competencies in Clinical Geriatrics,”
focuses on the development of a
web-based educational program for
attending physicians that provides
the necessary information and skills
they will need for teaching
medical students about
geriatrics. Using COMET,
the College of Medicine
Educational Tools webbased learning system,
Karp aims to align each
of the program’s eight
learning modules with
the proficiency required
of graduating medical
students. Karp will initially design modules for
four of the eight required
Two of this year’s Frymoyer scholars, Peter Igneri, and Nancy
domains, including hosMorris, R.N. Not pictured is this year’s third scholar, Robert
pital care for elders; falls,
Karp, M.D.
balance, gait disorders;
10
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
2008 Frymoyer Scholar Robert Karp,
M.D., assistant professor of medicine
and a geriatric specialist, will undertake a project to improve the clinical
geriatric competencies of students
such as Lorna Grant ’09, above left.
self-care capacity; and health care
planning and promotion.
Morris and Igneri were selected
for their project proposal titled
“Communication and PsychoMotor Skills for Minor Office
Procedures to Improve Access and
Enhance Quality Care.” Their project proposes a nurse practitioner
training program that will provide
the skills to perform office-based
minor clinical procedures. The
innovative program will incorporate
the use of standardized patients,
members of the community who
take on the role of patients with
specific medical histories. After
piloting the program, the two
Frymoyer Scholars hope to be able
to extend the training to medical
students, physician assistants and
physicians already in practice.
“Communicating clearly with
patients is critical,” says Morris.
ALL : RAJ CHAWLA
“The Frymoyer Scholarship provides a way to teach nurse practitioner students common office
procedures, while paying special
attention to communication strategies, such as how to explain the
procedure, obtain consent, and
teach necessary aftercare to the
patient.”
“Increasingly, there are more
technologically advanced simulators
available, which colleagues treat like
a new gadget or video game system,
but a video game cannot give emotional feedback to patient care
demands,” says Igneri. “With this
project, we hope to marry technology and human touch.”
Morris and Igneri recognized
the additional benefits that a training program using standardized
patients rather than inanimate
models could offer. “Standardized
patients will provide realistic scenarios for the students,” explains
Morris. “Not only will students
have to be proficient at performing
the minor clinical procedures, they
will have to provide this service to a
person who might be frightened, in
pain, or simply inquisitive.”
Middlebury High School student Amer Avdagic took an advanced biology class his
junior year and wanted to get a first-person perspective of the health care field.
Emily Corrada of South Burlington is interested in nursing as a career and wanted
to find out if she could handle the work the job requires. Nominated by their high
schools to participate in the Champlain Valley Area Health Education Center (AHEC)
MedQuest Health Careers Exploration Program, Avdagic and Corrada are two of sixteen junior and senior high school students from Addison, Chittenden, Franklin, and
Grand Isle Counties who participated in this six-day-long camp this summer, based
at the University of Vermont/Fletcher Allen campus, that offered an in-depth exploration of health careers.
Offered during the summer months by the Champlain Valley AHEC in St. Albans,
the Southern Vermont AHEC in Springfield and the Northeastern Vermont AHEC in
St. Johnsbury, the MedQuest program provides highly motivated Vermont high
school students with the opportunity to job shadow with health care professionals,
receive training in basic medical skills, CPR and first aid, learn about medical technologies, as well as take part in leadership skills-building activities. UVM medical
students help staff the program.
“I’m pretty set on athletic training, but I wanted to learn about the different
health care fields,” said Avdagic, who was looking forward to viewing a laparoscopic surgery live via telemedicine at the UVM College of Medicine on Friday morning.
Both he and Corrada have friends who took part in past MedQuest camps and recommended the program.
Participants in the Champlain Valley AHEC MedQuest program live in UVM residence halls, eat on campus, have access to University of Vermont resources, and
shadow with and learn from a wide range of health care professionals at Fletcher
Allen, Northwestern Medical Center and Porter
Medical Center. Representatives from the fields
Vermont high school students
of nursing, dentistry, medicine and other
receive a first-person look at
health areas interact with students in lecturehealth care careers through
based and job shadowing settings.
summer MedQuest camps.
With the help of the Vermont community, Beth Kirkpatrick, M.D.,
and her colleagues are finding a more effective way to counter a disease that
affects tens of millions of people across the globe every year.
Stopping Typhoid
in its tracks
by edward neuert
“It’s Dosing Day!” Clinical Research Associate Katrin
Sadigh says in a stage whisper, as the hands of her wristwatch read
7:30 a.m. on a Wednesday morning in late July. Sadigh, along
with Associate Professor Beth Kirkpatrick, M.D., and several
other colleagues are clustered at one end of the hallway of the
third-floor corridor of the Arnold Wing of the University Health
Center in Burlington. There’s a pause of several seconds, and a
few anxious glances, and then down the hallway comes the first of
this morning’s 15 important guests — volunteers who today will
swallow a dose of a new vaccine for typhoid fever that could help
better the lives of millions of people half a world away.
4
Brian Kilonzo ’11 works
on typhoid vaccine analysis.
12
“It’s important to keep in mind the 80 percent rule — the fact that
more than eight out of ten prospective vaccines never make it past
Phase I trials,” says Kirkpatrick, as she stands in the crowded doorway of her lab space in Stafford Hall. Next to her stands a stack of
insulated shipping cartons that contain blood samples from Miami
Research Associates in Florida, and from the Bloomberg School of
Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. Lab personnel are
busily pulling blood vials, arranging tests, and logging data. A few
steps away, in a small office area, assistants are interviewing
prospective participants for the next round of this Phase II vaccine
dosing.
All the activity swirling around Kirkpatrick is focused toward
one effort: proving the safety and dosing level of an oral typhoid
vaccine developed by Emergent Technologies of Rockville,
Maryland. If proven, this vaccine could be a vastly more versatile
tool to prevent typhoid cases in the developing world, thanks to
photogtraphy by raj chawla
13
its single dose and powdered stored form, that
makes it much easier to administer and transport
than current vaccines, which are either delivered by
injection or multiple doses, or need constant refrigeration before use.
Since coming to UVM in 1999, Kirkpatrick, who
has a faculty appointment in both the Department
of Medicine and the Department of Microbiology
& Molecular Genetics, has built a unit with a reputation for tackling some of the most pressing needs
in vaccine research. Through her efforts, last year
UVM/Fletcher Allen was chosen as the single participating academic medical center in the nation to
collaborate with the Navy Medical Research Center
and a Denmark-based company in testing a new
vaccine against one of the most common foodborne bacteria, Campylobacter jejuni.
Kirkpatrick has made infectious disease research
her focus for years. After receiving her medical
degree from Albany Medical College and completing a residency at Rochester, she pursued a fellowship in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins and
certification in Tropical Medicine and Travelers’
Health in Peru.
“My research in infectious disease and vaccines
really stems from my interest in global health in
general,” she says. That interest earned her a shared
2006 Frymoyer Scholarship at the College that
funded work to enhance global health education for
medical and nursing students.
For second-year medical student Brian Kilonzo,
who worked in the Kirkpatrick lab this summer,
typhoid is anything but a disease that happens “elsewhere.” A native of Kenya, Kilonzo grew up with
the risk of typhoid as a regular part of daily life. “ It’s
personal, for me,” he says. “Being a part of helping
test this vaccine is very meaningful.” Kilonzo originally met Kirkpatrick and heard about the vaccine
trial through the College’s Global Health Group.
Second-year student Erin Beardsworth also spent
this past summer working on the project. The medical students helped hang posters seeking recruits,
screened prospective volunteers over the phone,
assisted in lab work, and helped run the three “dosing days” when volunteers received the vaccine.
Beardsworth, who was a trained phlebotomist
before medical school, helped draw blood samples
from the volunteers on dosing day. A third current
medical student is one of the study participants.
4
Beth Kirkpatrick, M.D. (above), leads the Phase III
trial of the new oral typhoid vaccine which, if successful,
could be much easier to use in the field.
4
Today in Vemont, and throughout the U.S., typhoid
is a disease more read about than seen, thanks to
improvements in sanitation and antibiotics. The
disease is a bacterial illness, caused by Salmonella
enterica, that commonly causes severe chills, sweating and pain, along with high fever, diarrhea, and
internal bleeding that can lead to death. It was seen
in large outbreaks in the U.S. during the Civil War,
when 25 percent of soldiers who died of disease succumbed to typhoid. (Typhoid killed both Abraham
Lincoln’s son, William, and the president’s famous
debate partner, Senator Stephen Douglas.) In
Vermont, as in many other states, mass outbreaks
were fairly common in the 19th and early 20th centuries. An outbreak in Windsor in 1894 sickened
more than 130 people, killing ten percent of those.
Typhoid continued to be a major problem in rapid-
14
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
ly-growing U.S. cities in the early 20th century. It
was at this time that Mary Mallon, a cook in the
New York area, became famous as “Typhoid Mary,”
the first healthy carrier of the disease to be identified by public health authorities.
Nowadays, only an isolated case or two of
typhoid occurs in Vermont every decade, but in
parts of the world where sanitation and drinking
water supply are still below standard, Salmonella
enterica is a common and devastating visitor. An
estimated 22 million people in the developing world
had typhoid in the last year, and at least 200,000
died from it; most of them were children.
Though there are two approved vaccines for combating typhoid, both present problems for delivery.
“In the many regions where lack of infrastructure
means refrigeration is not possible, getting a vaccine
to the people who need it most is a real problem,”
TOP : DARIA BISHOP/ UVM MEDICAL PHOTOGRAPHY ; BOTTOM : EDWARD NEUERT
On “Dosing Day,” a tray of vaccine is delivered for use
from the UHC pharmacist (at left); (above) David
Vuono takes his dose. His blood and others will later be
tested for typhoid antigens in Kirkpatrick’s lab.
says Kirkpatrick. “That’s the promise of this vaccine,
that it will be highly effective, and much easier to use
as a public health tool.”
The development of this new vaccine, as with all
others, followed the carefully-mapped pathway set
out by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,
which is set up to protect the safety of vaccine trial
volunteers at every step. After a small first study
confirmed safety in humans, two Phase I trials were
conducted by Kirkpatrick in 2003 and 2005.
Kirkpatrick’s lab developed a specialty in the complicated analysis of blood samples from volunteers to
confirm the presence of anti-typhoid antibodies in
their systems after vaccination, and this led naturally
to their doing all the immunology for the latest
Phase IIb trial.
TOP : RAJ CHAWLA ; BOTTOM : EDWARD NEUERT
As Dosing Day proceeds, participant David Vuono
seems calm and completely at peace with the fact that
he’s about to swallow a few thousand inactive typhoid
microbes. This is territory he’s covered before.
“I was a volunteer on the Campylobacter study last
year,” the 25-year-old photographer and UVM
graduate explains in the waiting area. “I survived
that one just fine, and I’m sure I will this one too.
For me this is a learning experience and a chance to
help with something important.” Vuono and his
fourteen fellow volunteers in the group have all
been extensively briefed on the safety and possible
side effects of the vaccine. They all keep a diary in
which they log such information as twice-daily temperature readings. They come back to the clinic six
times over the following month for evaluation. All
trial participants receive a $550 payment.
Ultimately, all the preparation and careful planning comes down to the moment when Vuono and
his group unscrew the caps on their liquid doses, and
sip down the lemon-lime flavored concoction. If this
trial is a success, in a year or so thousands of other
people throughout the developing world will also be
swallowing the vaccine as a part of a final stage of
development, widespread Phase III field trials.
“That will be the ultimate test, but we wouldn’t get
there without our volunteers,” says Kirkpatrick. “It’s
really a tribute to our relationship with the community
VM
that people are willing to do this.”
F A L L
2008
15
AGING
GRACEFULLY
The largest single gift ever by the McClure family launches the UVM Center on Aging
to help Vermont rise to the challenge of an aging population.
M
Lois McClure, seen
here in the garden of
her Charlotte home,
reviews the white
paper on aging issues
she helped write.
16
photography by raj chawla
by edward neuert
Medical science, take a bow. Your goal was to combat disease
and bring long, healthy life to millions of patients, and you’ve
succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Thanks to penicillin and other discoveries, the servicemen of World War II
survived their battles in record numbers, and came home to
produce the greatest demographic bulge of offspring ever
seen in America. Those resulting Baby Boomers have watched
survival rates for heart disease, cancer, stroke, and many other
conditions climb higher every year. Millions of people who in
earlier days would have died young, from infections, from
childbirth complications, from trauma, have instead recovered
and lived on.
And now, the challenge: how to take that good news, and
keep it good. Breakthroughs and better treatments, declining
birthrates, along with many improvements in social science
and policy, have led to a steadily rising percentage of older
Americans. The change is already happening, and will become
increasingly apparent in the next 20 years, particularly in a
small state like Vermont, where by 2030 one in four residents
will be over age 65. As society ages, it has profound implications for all aspects of life. The “wave” of aging is on the horizon; how we go about positioning ourselves now will determine how well we ride that wave when it reaches us.
17
With that challenge in mind, one of Vermont’s
foremost philanthropists, Lois Howe McClure, has
made the largest gift ever by the McClure family to
help find ways to meet the challenge. The $5 million McClure gift, coupled with $100,000 in funding from the State of Vermont, has underwritten the
establishment of the Center on Aging at the
University of Vermont.
4
Standing in the fragrant gardens of UVM’s
Englesby House on a warm July day, just after the
formal announcement of her gift to found the new
center, Lois Howe McClure speaks to a gathering of
supporters of the Center from across the University,
and state and non-profit agencies. “The statistics
are really scary,” she says. “I really don’t think we’re
ready for it.” For one mid-day hour, the honeybees
that normally have the garden to themselves this
time of year have been displaced by the prestigious
group of public figures who have gathered for the
event, including Governor Jim Douglas, Lieutenant
Governor Brian Dubie, UVM President Daniel
Mark Fogel, and the newly-appointed Center on
Aging director, William Pendlebury, M.D.’76. Lois
McClure is very comfortable in this environment,
which is not surprising after the decades of involvement she and her late husband J. Warren “Mac”
McClure had as community leaders, including
18
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
The announcement event in July included (from left)
Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, William Pendlebury, M.D.’76,
Mary Cushman, M.D.’85, Gov. Jim Douglas, Dean Rick
Morin, Lois McClure, Dean Betty Rambur, President
Fogel, and Rachel Kahn-Fogel. At right, Fogel extends
personal thanks for the McClure gift.
many years as owners and publishers of of the
Burlington Free Press, Vermont’s largest daily
newspaper. At this announcement, the assembled
dignitaries have made a point of praising both her
generosity, and her prescience in focusing on a
demographic shift that could, if ignored now, lead
to many problems in the not-too-distant future.
For Lois McClure, the realization of the need for
better understanding of aging issues came originally not from statistics, but from a personal experience she had a couple of years before Mac’s 2004
death, when they were on a trip to Philadelphia.
“We were waiting to board a flight back to
Burlington when Mac fainted,” she recalls. “He
came to fairly promptly, but we were told he could
not board until he had been seen at the hospital.
This was the start of a very difficult two days.”
McClure was carrying a list of all her husband’s
current medications, as well as other pertinent
information, but none of that seemed important to
the health care providers she encountered at the
emergency department. After an inconclusive day,
Mac was admitted to the hospital and Lois was told
to find herself a room in a local motel.
“The next morning, at 5:00 a.m., I returned to
the hospital, but was told I could not go to the
patient floor until 8:00 a.m. I insisted they call the
patient floor anyway. As it turned out, they were
quite anxious for me to come to the floor at once. It
had been a bad night, and my husband was eventually moved to a room next to the nurse’s station.”
From her position next to the station, Lois heard
that more tests were in store for her husband. She
decided to take action. She called the airport and
found there was a plane leaving for Burlington in
two hours. “Despite significant protest from the
staff,” she says, “I helped dress my husband and we
left by cab to the airport and, eventually, home. I
made a promise to myself and to Mac that we would
never find ourselves in this situation again.”
A few weeks after this incident, at a support
group meeting for relatives of those who, like Mac
McClure, had Alzheimer’s disease, Lois met that
day’s featured speaker, Dr. Pendlebury. She told him
of her experience, and her realization that many
other older Americans must be put in such situations every day — conditions that may only get
worse as the number of older Americans increases.
She contrasted her Philadelphia experience to a
time many years earlier when the caregivers at the
Vermont hospital where her daughter was a patient
encouraged her to spend the night close to the
child. Pendlebury listened to her story of an imperfect health care system, and remembered it when,
several months later, he was charged to lead a working group on aging-related issues.
4
The call for a special effort to produce a white paper
on aging issues came in 2006, from the University’s
provost and Graduate College. William Pendlebury
was charged with forming a working group that
would study the problems of an aging Vermont, and
suggest actions the University could take to help
contribute to solutions. “It was paramount, for me,
that this effort be broad-based, and universitywide,” says Pendlebury. Trained as a neurologist,
Pendlebury later did a fellowship in neuropathology; today he is a professor of medicine, neurology,
and pathology at the College of Medicine, is medical director of the Memory Center at UVM/
Fletcher Allen Health Care, and performs research
focused on age-related degenerative disease.
Currently he is the lead investigator at UVM on a
Phase 3 clinical study examining a new approach to
treating Alzheimer’s disease using a therapeutic
antibody called bapineuzumab, that helps the body’s
own immune system to clear Alzheimer’s-inducing
plaques from the brain.
The white paper working group included memF A L L
2008
19
Three former College deans attended
the Center on Aging announcement:
from left, John Evans, Ph.D., John
Fogarty, M.D., and John Frymoyer, M.D.
A RECORD
OF SUPPORT
For decades, UVM
and Vermont have
benefited from the
philanthropic spirit
of Lois Howe
McClure and her late
husband, J. Warren
“Mac” McClure.
• In 1978, the McClures made a $500,000
challenge grant toward the renovation of
Bailey-Howe Library (which is named after
Lois’s late father, David Howe)
• In 1987, a $1.5 million gift established the
McClure Professorship in Musculoskeletal
Research and the McClure Center for
Musculoskeletal Research.
• In 2001, the McClures gave a $1 million
challenge grant to the John & Nan Frymoyer
Fund, which supports the work of distinguished clinicians and teachers at the
Colleges of Medicine and the College of
Nursing & Health Sciences.
Lois McClure has also been a continuing supporter
of other smaller projects at the University, including the Robert Hull Fleming Museum.
20
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
bers from six of the University’s schools
and divisions, as well as members from
the staff of Fletcher Allen and from the
Governor’s Commission on Healthy
Aging. And it included one community
representative who knew aging issues
first-hand: Lois McClure.
“I’d listened to her story about all
that she’d gone through in caring for
her husband, and realized how much
she could inform the process of building this
report,” says Pendlebury.
The group worked for several months researching, compiling data, and seeking out information
and opinions from people across the University and
the wider community. Their report paid special
attention to producing an assessment of “agingrelated research at the University of Vermont and
the organizational structure needed to support these
endeavors.” It concluded that a new Center on
Aging at the University of Vermont was needed to
serve as a resource for the efforts in many areas —
medicine, nursing, economics, sociology, business,
and political science to name a few — that dealt with
the rising tide of elders in society.
“This Center will function as a core, a resource
facility, to coordinate efforts across the larger
organization and bring about connections that need
to happen. We’ll help people who are interested in
aging health research and education and policy find
additional resources that will move their programs
forward,” says College of Medicine Dean Frederick
Morin.
The Center will also work to create a subtle but
important cultural shift. In general, the University’s
working group concluded, society has bred an attitude toward aging that is more negative than positive — aging as something to be feared rather than
embraced. Education is the key to this change, says
working group member Deborah Worthley, the
director of UVM Continuing Education’s Osher
Lifelong Learning Institute. “Society often views
older people as a burden,” Worthley says. “We need
AN AGING VERMONT
35
2000
2030 (projected)
30
25
20
15
10
5
27.3
22
0-19
26.6
22.3
20-39
33.4
31.3
12.7
40-64
24.4
A comparison of real and
projected data from the
U.S. Census Bureau shows
the marked change in
Vermont’s population by
the year 2030. By the third
decade of this century the
percentage of people over
65 will nearly double.
65+
Percentage of Vermont Population by Age Group
to change that sense of what aging is all about, and
the potential contributions seniors can make to the
community. That attitude needs to be shifted, and
clearly education is one of the ways to do that.”
The Center will also focus on workforce issues.
Twenty-five years from now, when Vermont is predicted to rank seventh in the nation in percentage of
population over 65, with one out of every four people in that age bracket, then significant changes in
workforce policy and economics are inevitable.
“This shift has major implications,” said Gov.
Douglas, “not only for the number of people available to work in the state, but also for our ability to
pay for entitlement programs.” Pendlebury concurs. “I think there’s going to have to be a focus on
people staying in the workforce longer, and creating
the climate in which people do not feel compelled
to retire,” he says. “There are going to have to be
tough discussions about what ‘retirement age’ is,
and when entitlement programs kick in. The fact is,
more seniors are going to be a part of the workforce, because we’re going to need the people to do
the work that needs to be done, and we’re going to
need the workers to support those who are in retirement and receiving the benefits of entitlement programs.” This shift will undoubtedly be seen in com-
ing years in the health care workforce, for instance,
as more physicians and nurses are encouraged to
remain practicing through restructured jobs and
scheduling. The Center on Aging will work to make
the connections that will help those changes come
about.
The Center on Aging is, of course, a newborn,
and the first actions it will take will be to reach out
to stakeholders throughout the community — at the
University, at state agencies, and at non-profit agencies — to bring together people with similar goals.
Building an external scientific advisory committee is
another important step, says Pendlebury. “We’d like
to find three to five people who are viewed as
national experts in gerontology to advise the center
on how it views itself and how it approached its
work.” Pendlebury will also meet with similar
Centers in other states over the next months to view
best practices in their work.
Looking over the work she has done so far on the
issue, and the work that will now take place following her gift, Lois McClure is firmly convinced of
the importance of aging issues. “I’m glad to be able
to support this,” she says. “This is not only something we have to pay attention to, we have to pay
VM
attention to it now.”
F A L L
2008
21
a
New England
journal
excerpt from “murmurs”
Contributors to the College’s revitalized
literary magazine explore the art of healing
for the past decade,
The Red
Wheelbarrow has been the College of Medicine’s
student-run journal of literature and art. The publication takes its name from a sixteen-word poem
published in 1923 by America’s greatest physicianpoet, William Carlos Williams. Williams led both
a life as a leading poet of his generation and as a
general practitioner who delivered more than
2000 babies in the course of his 40-year practice in
Rutherford, N.J.
The red wheelbarrow of Williams’ poem came
from a detail he noticed looking out the window
while sitting at the bedside of a patient. Secondyear medical student Jake Scott sought to rejuvenate the journal, which had not been published in
the past few years, and present poetry, prose, and
art that, like Williams’ writing, spring from daily
experiences of students and faculty at the school —
a few of which are excerpted on the following
pages. Third-year student Dilip Babu and senior
Emma Hazlett also assisted in the editing and
design of the magazine.
Second-year medical student
Jake Scott has edited the latest
issue of The Red Wheelbarrow.
Copies of the latest Red Wheelbarrow are available from the College’s Medical Development
and Alumni Relations Office, whose College of Medicine Fund helped support the effort,
at 802-656-4014 or [email protected].
PHOTOGTRAPHY BY RAJ CHAWLA
22
Frank dreamed of saving lives, but he spent
most of his time changing diapers and taking
no for an answer. During medical school and
residency he’d saved a few people, and for
years afterward he faithfully reviewed resuscitation protocols, just to be ready. But now
only the mnemonics remained in his memory:
“Shock, shock, shock. Everybody shock. Little
shock, big shock.” Shock meant defibrillate
three times in a row, and everybody probably
stood for epinephrine. Little might be lidocaine. But what drug started with a B? In the end it
really didn’t matter, because even if a kid’s heart
stopped, by the time Frank got to “big” somebody
would be there to help him, or the child would be
gone.
He adjusted his Mr. Potatohead tie in the rear view
mirror as he took the long way to work. Speeding on
the interstate would have shaved ten minutes off the
trip, but the back roads meandered through the northern Vermont countryside over covered bridges, passing stately horse farms and trailers with rusting bikes
in the yard. It was worth the extra time to try to recall
why he’d moved there a dozen years ago, and the
patients were used to waiting, anyway.
He pulled into the row designated “Doctors
Parking” in front of Lincoln Hospital. With stethoscope and identification badge in hand he walked up
the steps of the two-story brick building, which had
once been a manor house. A century ago servants
would have been heating water for the master’s tea, but
now nurses in pastel scrubs gossiped over steaming
travel mugs. He passed the collage of physician photos
on the lobby wall — he’d had more hair when his was
taken, but the same gap-toothed smile — and walked
down the hallway of Main Floor. The few patients not
watching TV were looking out their windows at the
mist rising off the corn fields.
The maternal/child section was a small annex off
the back of the building, with two labor areas, a handful of postpartum rooms, and the nursery. At the nurses’ station Roxanne was leafing through People magazine, which had Julia Roberts holding her twins on the
cover. The sound of a baby’s cry drifted down the hall.
“Morning, Doctor Arsenault.”
“Good morning,” he said, savoring the strength of
his family name. His ancestors had been among the
original colonists of Quebec, and
had responded to subsequent
British attempts at assimilation
with a mixture of insurrection and
disdain. “Just one little guy?”
“Yup. There’s a mother in labor,
but that’ll be a while.”
The chart described an uncomplicated pregnancy and routine
delivery. The baby’s vital signs
were stable, and he was peeing,
pooping, and nursing well. The two older siblings,
Ashley and Emma, were also Frank’s patients, and he
imagined them at home pushing their father’s limits.
You could almost smell the toast burning and see the
magic markers on the wall.
Frank walked into the room and asked how the
mother was feeling.
“Fine,” she replied, without looking up from her
New York Times.
After washing his hands he turned his attention to
the sleeping baby, who was bound to be Rowan or
Caleb or whatever name was currently in vogue. Frank
put his stethoscope on the boy’s chest, and it was easy
to hear his heartbeat. Two footfalls in rapid succession,
with a measure of silence in between. When babies
cried you had to use tricks that only came with experience: rock them back and forth just so, or let them
suck your finger as you listened. Today, though, was
routine.
Frank undid the diaper to verify pulses in the groin,
the absence of which suggested coarctation of the
aorta, which all pediatricians were taught to fear but
few had ever seen. As he cupped the knees in his
palms, carefully avoiding the pool of meconium in the
diaper, his index fingers felt the bounding pulsations,
and he let them rest there an instant longer than he
needed to. In that moment he was connected to the
baby, like a continuous electrical circuit, gaining
strength from the baby’s heart, reminded of the possibilities that had once been his. He pressed down on
the knees to make sure the hips were not dislocated,
touched the soles of the feet to assess the grasp reflex,
and did several other tests in one continuous motion
without even thinking about it. He was confident that
if something were amiss, he would notice it.
— Robert Macauley, M.D.
23
i had some body (#2)
silencing motion
with motion
I wanted to say
something about
touching your hand
when it
taps,
or wanting to
Something about
silencing
motion
with
motion
But in a
kind, gentle
way
HALL A
P R E S I D E N T
C L A S S
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
N O T E S
N E W S
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.
— Jack Nicolet ’09
“I approach ALS as a journey through the garden of life”
— from Joseph Patlak’s “A Letter to Peg”
— Jennifer Wlodarski ’11
26
27
29
37
38
C O R N E R
R E U N I O N
The
reaching out
for you
and staying put
until
you find
peace in presence,
because life
is just
motion
Most of
which we cannot.
S
O B I T U A R I E S
Allan Ramsay, Professor of Family Medicine and Medical Director of the
Palliative Care Service, writes vignettes of patients he has seen, inspired by the
writings of the late Professor Joseph Patlak, Ph.D., whose writings about his ALS
experience were featured in the spring 2007 Vermont Medicine.
Mrs. L was a seventy-five-year-old
woman who had been admitted three
times in the past six months. One
hospital stay alone had lasted eight
weeks. She had renal disease and
severe congestive heart failure. Pain
was a constant problem associated
with her rheumatologic condition
and bowel dysfunction. Mrs. L lived
on a small farm in southern Vermont
with her husband of fifty-six years, a
grandson, five horses, and nine dogs.
Her two sons and daughter lived
within a short distance.
“The most important thing to
me is to go home,” she said many
times. “I know my life is short and
you all have done as much as possible. Spring is when I plant my
’
D E V E L O P M E N T
Where action is
Created
from feelings of
comfort
Some of
which we can control
24
In final fits my heart caught, stopped, then started
Now undressed, unstressed and dearly departed
I go in a place without name
Or crippling shame
No longer lame
I return once in a while
To see my familiar smile that beguiled
The heart of a life
The love of my wife
Now under your knife
Measure twice and cut once, if you please
Daughters and sons of Hippocrates
Have your way with me
And learn to be and see
As doctors – MD and PhD
I won’t last long, just a spell to quell
Soon overcome by the smell
I had some body, true, now passed on to you
To probe and to view atop Table 2
So that you can know too, learn what to do
garden and the horses will be frisky
in their pasture. Didn’t I tell you we
had nine dogs? How can they get
along without me?”
“We still haven’t been able to
control your heart failure and the
fluid on your lungs. You may end
up coming back to the hospital.”
“I have planted a garden with my
husband every year of our marriage
and this one should be no different.
There are enough vegetables to
share with my whole family. A garden and my family are part of my
life.”
Mrs. L was discharged home and
died peacefully five days later. I am
sure there will be a garden this year.
— Allan Ramsay, M.D.
F A L L
2008
25
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
Marv Nierenberg, M.D. ’60 will be a hard act to follow as
President of the Medical Alumni Associtaion. On behalf of
the Medical Alumni Association, I want to thank Marv for his
wise and patient leadership as President. I’ve known Marv
for many years; he is an untiring champion for UVM and its
medical school. I am just getting to know our new Dean,
Frederick ‘Rick’ Morin, M.D., and I am thrilled that UVM
has another “baby doctor” at this important helm. Dr. Morin
will be a fine leader of the College of Medicine with its long
history of superlative medical education (5th in the nation in
primary care!) and a steadily growing reputation for research.
I return to campus at least twice a year and am amazed at the continual
change in this corner of Vermont — all of it positively exciting. Having spent
my career in academic medicine, I recognize the signs of a thriving campus and
I see that in Vermont: not only new buildings and brilliant people who keep
them buzzing with activity, but — more important — great passion and creative
ideas. I also revel in that which remains unchanged: the incredible dedication of
faculty and staff, the caliber of students who enter here each fall, the beauty of
this state and campus, and the unwavering commitment to preparing compassionate physicians who are ready to dedicate their lives to the health of their
communities.
I was 100% of the women in my class — 40 years after UVM admitted its
first woman, Dorothy Lang Bulger, and when some other medical schools were
still just beginning to accept women. Others among our alumni have their own
reasons for being grateful to UVM for opening its doors to them, and helping
make them who they are. Today, as I look back on my career as a pediatric
hematologist/oncologist I am very proud to support my alma mater and the
great opportunity that it brings to so many. I hopefully will encourage all alumni to generously give back to this school which made our professional lives possible.
During my tenure, you will become accustomed to my asking all of you to
join me in giving back to our alma mater. The collective support of alumni —
at all stages of their careers — is what makes the difference. Many of you know,
the cost of a medical education today presents an enormous burden to those just
graduating from medical school. Our annual donations help to mitigate this
financial burden.
It is not only a cliché, but also simply a fact, that giving also involves receiving. Through my own support of students — and through my role in the alumni leadership — I have the privilege of hearing directly from students how our
financial aid has impacted their lives. They are grateful for scholarship, loan
support and the many other alumni-funded resources such as student wellness
programs, academic counseling services, travel grants, research grants and
more. The opportunities are endless but not without cost. We can help — and
in the process we will be richer.
Please take time to read Vermont Medicine, which highlights many of the
things going on today at the College of Medicine.
I wish you all a wonderful end-of-summer and hope to see you on campus
in Burlington one day soon.
Go Med Cats Go,
Ruth Seeler, M.D.’62
26
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
ASSISTANT DEAN
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
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
ruth a. seeler, m.d.’62
(2009-2011)
PRESIDENT- ELECT
james c. hebert, m.d.’77
(2009-2011)
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].
1943
1948
Francis Arnold Caccavo
(M.D. Dec. 1943)
51 Thibault Parkway
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-3841
[email protected]
S. James Baum
1790 Fairfield Beach Road
Fairfield, CT 06430
(203) 255-1013
[email protected]
Carleton R. Haines
(M.D. Dec. 1943)
88 Mountain View Road
Williston, VT 05495
(802) 878-3115
R E U N I O N
Harry M. Rowe
(M.D. March 1943)
65 Main Street
P.O. Box 755
Wells River, VT 05081
(802) 757-2325
[email protected]
TREASURER
paul b. stanilonis, m.d.’65
(2009-2011)
SECRETARY
mark pasanen, m.d.’92
(2009-2011)
EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
john tampas, m.d.’54
(ongoing)
MEMBERS - AT- LARGE :
(6-YEAR TERMS )
mark allegretta, ph.d.’90
(2003-2010)
naomi r. leeds, m.d.’00, m.p.h.
(2004-2010)
h. james wallace, iii, m.d.’88
(2004-2010)
carleton r. haines, m.d.’43
(2006-2012)
jacqueline a. noonan, m.d.’54
(2006-2012)
betsy sussman, m.d.’81
(2007-2012)
don p. chan, m.d.’76
(2009-2014)
leslie s. kerzner, m.d.’95
(2009-2014)
frederick mandell, m.d.’64
(2009-2014)
suzanne r. parker, m.d.’73
(2009-2014)
R E U N I O N
’ 0 9
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
1947
George H. Bray
110 Brookside Road
New Britain, CT 06052
’ 0 9
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]
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
1951
Edward W. Jenkins
7460 South Pittsburg Ave.
Tulsa, OK 74136
(918) 492-7960
Dick Esser writes that he
has practiced his entire
career in Sweden, where
he also played in an
orchestra in Stockholm.
He was sorry to miss the
last Reunion. Ed Kamens
shared with Ed Jenkins
recently the story of his
escape from Russia after
his father had been killed
by the Cossacks. His
mother and uncle took
him and after multiple
journeys made it to North
America. They were not
allowed in at first and
spent a few years in Cuba
before coming to the U.S.
After attending medical
school he practiced surgery for many years in
Connecticut. Bill Sohn was
practicing at the time of
the Class of 1951’s last
Reunion — he passed
away this past March. His
daughter resides in
Burlington, Vt. Frances
Conklin has given up her
annual Caribbean trips to
spend time with her beautiful granddaughter.
Murdo MacDonald lives at
Appletree Point in
Burlington and has had
three hip replacements on
the same hip in addition
to a shoulder replacement.
This football veteran is
still gardening though and
gets around. He says he’s
very proud of his son, who
teaches acting in Boston,
Montreal and Toronto. Ed
Jenkins is doing well. He
had the pleasure of
attending a family practice
course in June in
Burlington, although it
was hotter in Burlington
than in Oklahoma and
there were tornado warnings!
1953
Richard N. Fabricius
17 Fairview Road
Old Bennington, VT 05201
(802) 442-4224
UPCOMING EVENTS
September 24, 2008
Frymoyer Scholars Reception
Hoehl Gallery, UVM Campus
October 11, 2008
Alumni Executive Committee
Fall Meeting
UVM Campus
October 11, 2008
American Academy of Pediatrics
National Conference Reception
Marriott Copley Plaza, Boston
October 13, 2008
ACS 94th Annual Clinical
Congress
Hilton Hotel, San Francisco
October 24, 2008
Graduate Student Welcome
Back Breakfast
Hoehl Gallery, UVM Campus
December 2, 2008
Radiological Society of North
America Reception
Four Seasons Hotel, Chicago
March 18, 2009
Class of 2009 Dinner
(Match Day eve)
Sheraton Hotel Burlington
May 17, 2009
UVM College of Medicine
Commencement
Ira Allen Chapel
June 12-14, 2009
Reunion 2009
UVM Campus
For updates on events see:
www.med.uvm.edu/medalum
R E U N I O N
’ 0 9
1954
John E. Mazuzan Jr.
366 South Cove Road
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 864-5039
[email protected]
F A L L
2008
27
M.D. CLASS NOTES
H A L L A
1955
1960
Marshall G. London
102 Summit Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 864-4927
[email protected]
Marvin A. Nierenberg
15 West 81st Street
New York, NY 10024
(212) 874-6484
[email protected]
Ira H. Gessner
1306 Northwest 31st Street
Gainesville, FL 32605
(352) 378-1820
[email protected]
1961
Class of 1958
1957
Larry Coletti
34 Gulliver Circle
Norwich, CT 06360
(860) 887-1450
[email protected]
Arnie Goran writes:
“Outstanding 50th
Reunion! Thanks to the
efforts of Pete Goodhue
and the Alumni Office of
the Medical College.”
R E U N I O N
’ 0 9
1958
1959
Peter Ames Goodhue
Stamford Gynecology, P.C.
70 Mill River Street
Stamford, CT 06902
(203) 359-3340
Jay E. Selcow
27 Reservoir Road
Bloomfield, CT 06002
(860) 243-1359
[email protected]
Wilfrid L. Fortin
17 Chapman Street
Nashua, NH 03060
(603) 882-6202
[email protected]
ONE BIG CHECK
George Reservitz is enjoying semi-retirement. He
has started a free health
clinic at Mt. Auburn
Hospital in Cambridge,
Mass.
1962
John J. Murray
P.O. Box 607
Colchester, VT 05446
(802) 865-9390
[email protected]
H. Alan Walker
229 Champlain Drive
Plattsburgh, NY 12901
(518) 561-8991
One way the College of Medicine Fund helps foster
medical students’ learning experience is by funding
student travel learning. Three times a year, through
a competitive grant application process, funding is
awarded to a limited number of applicants. This past
Spring the first round of grants were awarded and
students traveled this summer to such places as
Bangladesh, Tanzania, Tokyo, Japan, Ethiopia, and
Colorado to experience and learn about global health
issues and expand their clinical knowledge base in a
diverse and unique way. Students, as part of their
grants, are required to present on their experiences
to their peers upon their return. Later this fall students, faculty and staff will have the chance to hear
from the first round of
grantees.
Arnold Kerzner writes:
“Not retired yet, but we
have moved from the
‘burbs’ to Lowell, Mass.,
to become urban pioneers.
We’ve been welcomed to
Class of 1963
V E R M O N T
The hundreds of alumni gathered for Reunion 2008
in June took away many fond memories of old friendships renewed, and familiar places revisited. They left
behind a sizable achievement in philanthropy. All
told, the combined reunion gifts from the thirteen
classes present was $779, 510. Peter Goodhue, M.D.,
class agent for the 50th Reunion Class of 1958 presented Dean Frederick Morin with a ceremonial
check at the Legends & Leaders celebration on Friday
night of Reunion.
GLOBAL LEARNING
Ruth Andrea Seeler
2431 North Orchard
Chicago, IL 60614
(773) 472-3432
[email protected]
1963
28
CLEAVES ADDS TO FUND
Melvyn H. Wolk
Clinton Street
P.O. Box 772
Waverly, PA 18471
(570) 563-2215
[email protected]
1956
Douglas M. Black is still
very busy. He is in the
office two-and-a-half days
per week, working for the
N.H. Board of Medicine
in administration and
investigation and sits on
the City of Concord City
Council. Valery Worth
Yandow writes: “Although
my mobility is limited by a
peripheral neuropathy, I
continue to supervise therapists at the Brattleboro
Retreat, serve on the
Medical Society Committee on Physician Health,
play my violin, and spend
time with my children and
seven grandchildren.”
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
M E D I C I N E
RAJ CHAWLA
LEFT: RAJ CHAWLA ; RIGHT: SALLY MCCAY
When he saw a Boston Globe article in the spring of
2003 about the University of Vermont and its bold
vision for the future, Burton Cleaves was impressed.
He was further impressed with the response he
received from President Fogel. Cleaves sent a contribution to the University’s
campaign, and since established a number of charitable gift annuities in support
of the University’s priorities.
His latest was a generous
$40,000 addition to the
endowed Medical Alumni
Association Challenge fund
that bears his name.
A CONTINUING
TRIBUTE
In 2002, Burnett Rawson,
M.D.’39 established a
Burton Cleaves
Diversity Scholarship fund
in honor of his late
daughter, the author Deborah Rawson. This summer
Dr. Rawson added to the fund with a charitable gift
annuity of $25,000.
A
30TH COMMEMORATED
This fall, 30 years of financial support to the Vermont
Cancer Center by the Lake Champlain Cancer
Research Organization (LCCRO) will be commemorated by the College of Medicine. The third-floor conference room in the Health Science Research Facility
will be renamed to honor the organization. Under
LCCRO’s founder, the late Walter Juckett, and his successor, Floyd Rourke (who passed away this year), the
organization has contributed in excess of $10 million
to support cancer research and care in Vermont and
Northern New York.
M.D. CLASS NOTES
H A L L A
the city culturally, socially
and even medically, as I
am starting as the first
ever psychiatric consultant
to UMass/Lowell’s
Student Health Services.
Life is good!”
R E U N I O N
’ 0 9
1964
Anthony P. Belmont
211 Youngs Point Road
Wiscasset, ME 04578
(207) 882-6228
[email protected]
george.a.little@
dartmouth.edu
Joseph H. Vargas III
574 US Route 4 East
Rutland Town, VT 05701
(802) 775-4671
[email protected]
David Hirsch writes: “I
retired in 2007 and
received a Laureate Award
from Mississippi Chapter
of the American College
of Physicians.”
1966
Mel Feldman writes: “My
wife, Linda, and I just celebrated 43 years of marriage and going strong as
ever. I’m still practicing
pediatrics as part of the
Children’s National
Medical Center. Still enjoy
playing golf, but mostly
love spending time with
my seven grandchildren.”
Robert George Sellig
31 Overlook Drive
Queensbury, NY 12804
(518) 793-7914
[email protected]
1965
John F. Dick II
P.O. Box 60
Salisbury, VT 05769
(802) 352-6625
George A. Little
97 Quechee Road
Hartland, VT 05048
(802) 436-2138
G. Millard Simmons
3165 Grass Marsh Drive
Mount Pleasant, SC 29466
[email protected]
1967
“I have retired twice so far.
I am now back at work less
than half-time in urgent
care. Emilie is involved in
EmileGruppeGallery.com
and jerichosettlers
farm.com.”
1968
David Jay Keller
4 Deer Run
Mendon, VT 05701
(802) 773-2620
[email protected]
Timothy John Terrien
14 Deerfield Road
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 862-8395
Todd Gladstone
[email protected]
R E U N I O N
’ 0 9
1969
Susan Pitman Lowenthal
200 Kennedy Drive
Torrington, CT 06790
(860) 597-8996
susan_w_pitmanlowen
[email protected]
Stuart A. Alexander writes:
1970
Raymond Joseph Anton
1521 General Knox Road
Russell, MA 01071
(413) 568-8659
[email protected]
John F. Beamis Jr.
24 Lorena Road
Winchester, MA 01890
(781) 729-7568
[email protected]
1981
1971
Class of 1973
Wayne E. Pasanen
117 Osgood Street
North Andover, MA 01845
(978) 681-9393
wpasanen@lowell
general.org
1972
Ellen Andrews
195 Midland Road
Pinehurst, NC 28374
(910) 295-6464
[email protected]
1973
’ 0 9
Douglas M. Eddy
5 Tanbark Road
Windham, NH 03087
(603) 434-2164
[email protected]
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Mark A. Popovsky
22 Nauset Road
Sharon, MA 02067
(781) 784-8824
mpopovsky@
haemonetics.com
1978
Paul McLane Costello
Essex Pediatrics, Ltd.
89 Main Street
Essex Junction, VT 05452
(802) 879-6556
R E U N I O N
’ 0 9
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
Craig Wendell Gage
2415 Victoria Gardens
Tampa, FL 33609
craiggage@
tampabay.rr.com
1982
David and Sally Murdock
[email protected]
MG George W.
Weightman, MC, USA,
has been appointed
Commanding General, US
Army Medical Research
and Materiel Command,
Ft. Detrick, MD. He
reports, “Joan and I went
over to Germany in
Don P. Chan
Cardiac Associates of
New Hampshire
Suite 103
246 Pleasant Street
Concord, NH 03301
(603) 224-6070
[email protected]
1974
30
1977
1976
James M. Betts
715 Harbor Road
Alameda, CA 94502
(510) 523-1920
[email protected]
R E U N I O N
Doug Deaett writes: “I am
retired from ER medicine
and living in Hanover,
N.H. I hope to see everyone at next year’s
reunion.”
1975
F. Farrell Collins Jr.
205 Page Road
Pinehurst, NC 28374
(910) 295-2429
Philip L. Cohen
483 Lakewood Drive
Winter Park, FL 32789
(407) 628-0221
[email protected]
Class of 1968
Jeryl Dansky Kershner is a
child psychiatrist practicing in West Palm Beach
Fla. She just completed
writing a textbook on
child psychiatry for pediatricians. Robert M.
Kershner continues consulting in Palm Beach and
is teaching at Palm Beach
College.
Cajsa Schumacher
78 Euclid Avenue
Albany, NY 12203
[email protected]
Bob Backus writes: “Still
in full-time practice of
rural family medicine and
blessed by happy children,
grandchildren and a loving
wife.”
Class of 1978
F A L L
2008
31
M.D. CLASS NOTES
H A L L A
“Greetings to all from
sometimes sunny Seattle.
Continuing my hospitalist
and pulmonary critical
care practice at Northwest
Hospital. I somehow was
selected to be chief of
staff. Still haven’t learned
to say ‘No.’ Regards to
all.” Alan Katz writes: “My
oldest daughter, Brittany,
will be graduating from
Roslyn High School as
valedictorian and will be
attending Brown in
September. She was
accepted into a program
that will allow her to earn
her BS and MD degrees.”
Class of 1983
December to welcome
back our oldest son from
his second tour in Iraq. It
was a very special time.
When I started Medical
School in 1978 that boy
was the only child in our
whole class! Time flies.”
1983
Diane M. Georgeson
2 Ravine Parkway
Oneonta, NY 13820
(607) 433-1620
[email protected]
recovering organs for
patients who need transplants. Bill and I are about
to experience an empty
nest. Tova (6 weeks old at
our graduation from
UVM) is 25, a registered
nurse, married for a few
years, is now a new mom.
That makes me a grandmother! Debbie, 21, is in
college in N.Y., and Harry,
18, just graduated from
high school. He is also
heading north for college
Anne Marie Massucco
15 Cedar Ledge Road
West Hartford, CT 06107
(860) 521-6120
[email protected]
(Cornell). Send my
regards to all. Email
Address: sganz@med.
miami.edu.”
R E U N I O N
1984
Richard C. Shumway
34 Coventry Lane
Avon, CT 06001
(860) 673-6629
rshumway@
stfranciscare.org
Mary Horan writes:
’ 0 9
1985
Vito D. Imbasciani
1915 North Crescent
Heights Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90069
(323) 656-1316
[email protected]
Roger Virgile writes:
“Franklin, Pennsylvania, is
a great rural place to live,
but recruiting is difficult.
If anyone knows of a good
ophthalmologist who is
looking to relocate, please
have him or her contact
me. Two of my kids (Sean
and Chelsea) are undergraduates at the University
of Rochester. If any of you
have children there too,
have them say hello.”
1986
Darrell Edward White
29123 Lincoln Road
Bay Village, OH 44140
(440) 892-4681
[email protected]
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]
’ 0 9
1989
Peter M. Nalin
13216 Griffin Run
Carmel, IN 46033
(317) 962-6656
[email protected]
1990
Barbara Angelika Dill
120 Hazel Court
Norwood, NJ 07648
(201) 767-7778
[email protected]
Susan Ganz writes: “Best
wishes to everyone, and
congratulations to the
honorees, Keiji and
Joseph. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the 25th
reunion. I live in Miami
Beach and work as the
medical director of the
organ procurement agency
and as faculty at
University of Miami,
1992
Mark Eliot Pasanen
1234 Spear Street
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 865-3281
mark.pasanen@
vtmednet.org
1988
R E U N I O N
B.J. Beck writes: “I continue to live and paint in
West Newbury, Mass., but
started a new job in
January as chief medical
officer for Beacon Health
Strategies, a managed
behavioral health organization. I still see outpatients at Mass General
and also work at the local
hospital unit.”
1991
John Dewey
15 Eagle Street
Cooperstown, NY 13326
[email protected]
Jennifer Woodson writes:
“We have enjoyed three
years in Italy. I finally
went back to work this
past year; actually it was
‘volunteering’ in the family practice clinic at the
military hospital on-base.
July 2008 we moved to the
southern coast of England.
Come visit!” Rebecca
McPherson writes: “Hi to
all. I am currently living in
Mt. Pleasant/Charleston
S.C. area to be closer to
my two grandchildren and
daughters. I am on faculty
at the Medical University
of South Carolina practicing neonatology.”
CONTINUING MEDICAL EDUCATION
2008-2009 CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
22nd Annual Imaging Seminar
October 17-19, 2008
Stoweflake Resort & Spa, Stowe, Vt.
Northern New England Neurological Society
Annual Meeting 2008
October 24-25, 2008
Maine Medical Center,
Portland, Maine
20th Annual Eastern Winter Dermatology Conference
January 16-19, 2009
Stoweflake Resort & Spa, Stowe, Vt.
Emergency Medicine Update
January 28-31, 2009
Stoweflake Resort & Spa, Stowe, Vt.
18th Annual Current Concepts & Controversies
in Surgery
January 28-30, 2009
Stoweflake Resort & Spa, Stowe, Vt.
14th Annual Vermont Perspectives in Anesthesia
March 4-8, 2009
Stoweflake Resort & Spa, 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
1993
Joanne Taplin Romeyn
22 Patterson Lane
Durham, CT 06422
(860) 349-6941
Brad Watson
[email protected]
Barbara Ariue writes: “My
husband, Ed Yang, and I
are pleased to announce
the birth of our daughter,
Rachel Yuriko Yang, born
on May 10, 2008 at 6:55
am. She weighed 6 lbs. 7
oz. and was 19.5 inches
long. Our first daughter.”
R E U N I O N
’ 0 9
1994
Holliday Kane Rayfield
P.O. Box 819
Waitsfield, VT 05673
(802) 496-5667
[email protected]
Class of 1988
32
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
F A L L
2008
33
M.D. CLASS NOTES
H A L L A
1997
Julie Smail
390 Bridge St.
South Hamilton, MA 01982
(978) 468-1943
[email protected]
Nasreen Malik writes:
“Frank and I had a baby
girl in October! Her name
is Yasmin. She and her
brothers, Simon and Max,
are keeping us busy. Hello
to everyone!”
1998
Halleh Akbarnia
2011 Prairie Street
Glenview, IL 60025
(847) 998-0507
[email protected]
Class of 1993
1995
Allyson Miller Bolduc
252 Autumn Hill Road
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 863-4902
allyson.bolduc@
vtmednet.org
Lieutenant Cmdr. Leslie
Wood, Senior Medical
Officer, Coast Guard Air
Station Sitka (Alaska) has
been named the United
States Public Health
Service Physician’s
Professional Advisory
Committee Clinician of
the Year.”
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
34
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-7705
patricia.king@
vtmednet.org
Amy Roberts McGaraghan
writes: “Neil and I, along
with big brothers Jack (5)
and Leo (4) welcomed
Lucinda, born September
17, 2007. Lucy is a beauty!” Mark Vining,
Christopher Recklitis and
big brother Lucas welcomed home Adam
Alexander Vining-Recklitis
in September 2007. Adam
was adopted from
Vietnam. Mark and
Christopher were married
June 21, 2008 at their
home in Worcester. In
attendance were Carolyn
Krasner ’95, Michelle
Dostie ’96, Betsy Knauft ’96
and Payson Oberg Higgins
’96.
In June 2008, Air Force
Major Stephen Messier
graduated from the
Neonatology Fellowship
at the San Antonio
Uniformed Services
Health Education
Consortium (SAUSHEC)
at Wilford Hall Medical
Center, Lackland AFB,
Texas. He received the
Commander’s Award for
the best fellow-level basic
science research performed at SAUSHEC this
year for his work comparing the tidal volume delivery and clinical utility
between a high frequency
percussive ventilator and a
high frequency oscillatory
ventilator. In September
he begins a three-year
assignment at Kadena
AFP, Okinawa, Japan,
where he will work as a
neonatologist. Previously,
he lived in San Antonio
with his wife, Leila, and
their four children.
R E U N I O N
’ 0 9
1999
blabbing away on my
weekly radio show!”
Everett Jonathan Lamm
11 Autumn Lane
Stratham, NH 03885
(603) 929-7555
[email protected]
2001
Deanne Dixon Haag
4215 Pond Road
Sheldon, VT 05483
(802) 524-7528
Stephen G. Hassett writes:
“EM Urgent Care will
celebrate its fifth anniversary in September, having
seen over 80,000 patients
since opening.” Jason
Cook writes: “I have finished Pediatric Critical
Care Fellowship, visited
Tony Liu in Los Angeles,
but we weren’t talking
until the NBA finals were
over.”
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
Naomi R. Leeds
52 Garden St. Apt. 48
Cambridge, MA 02138
[email protected]
Anna Lewis writes: “I am
happy and well on the
Hopi Reservation where I
have been with my family
for five years! ER, OB and
clinic keep me busy halftime with the other half
devoted to health promotion in the community. I
am mentoring a new generation of Hopi docs and
Ladan Farhoomand
1481 Regatta Road
Carlsbad, CA 92009
(626) 201-1998
[email protected]
Joel W. Keenan
Greenwich Hospital
Five Perryridge Road
Greenwich, CT 06830
[email protected]
JoAn Louise Monaco
Suite 6-F, 5E
4618 Warwick Blvd.
Kansas City, MO 64112
(816) 753-2410
[email protected]
Meghan Cadwallader
Gump writes: “I am living
in Western Massachusetts
with Jay and Leah (our
two-year-old daughter). I
recently played disc-golf
with Todd and Julie
Holmes and keep in touch
with Sara August. Please
come and visit if you are
in the neighborhood.
2002
Jonathan Vinh Mai
15 Meadow Lane
Danville, PA 17821
(570) 275-4681
[email protected]
Kerry Lee Landry
(919) 732-9876
[email protected]
Mary O’Leary Ready
[email protected]
Maureen C. Sarle
[email protected]
Class of 1998
2003
Omar Khan
33 Clearwater Circle
Shelburne, VT 05482
(802) 985-1131
[email protected]
Scott Goodrich
309 Barben Avenue
Watertown, NY 13601
scott.goodrich1
@us.army.mil
Isaac Rudloe is director of
the New England Eye
Center-Leominster
(Mass.) and assistant professor of Ophthalmology
at Tufts University. Jackie
Panko is enjoying life in
Utah, and finishing up her
dermatology residency.
Suze Palinski is expecting!
She and her husband Tom
Renaud (’02) are in New
York City where Tom is a
pediatric hem-onc fellow.
Duc Do is assistant professor of medicine at
Dartmouth-Hitchcock
where he practices as a
hospitalist. He and his
partner, Trevor Law, have
started an exciting new
local venture called
EarthDeco (www.earthdeco.com), which provides
environmentally sustainable (and very cool) home
furnishings and accessories. Jared Christensen
and his wife are busy with
their kids, Brock (9),
Layne (7), Morgan (5),
Paige (4), Taylor (2), and
Riley (3 months). They
are moving to N.C. for a
fellowship in cardiothoracic imaging at Duke.
Jenn Carlson [Bergeron] is
in Salt Lake City, working
in the pediatric emergency department. She
and her family plan to
return to Vermont in
2009, when she joins a
practice in South
Burlington. She will be
joined by husband Brad,
son Taylor (now 2 years
old) and by Baby Carlson
number two due in
November ’08! Hannah
Chang [Choi] is headed to
Yale for a fellowshp in
neuroradiology. She is
joined by her husband,
Jason Chang, who finished his neurology residency and fellowship in
sleep medicine. Jason
Phan is finished with his
radiology residency at
UVM and goes on to a
musculoskeletal radiology
fellowship at UC Davis in
Sacramento. Havaleh
Gagne is moving back to
Vermont. She is joining
the Department of
Radiation Oncology, and
will be living with her
family in South
Burlington. Nareg
Roubinian and Erin Arthur
are doing great. Nareg
works as a hospitalist at
UCSF, and is starting a
pulmonary and critical
care fellowship soon.
Erin is practicing primary
care in a San Mateo
County community health
center. They are expecting
later this year. Omar Khan,
Salwa Khan ’05 and son
Zareef (age 7) are splitting
time between Vermont
and the mid-Atlantic. He
teaches the global health
course at UVM and putters around Vermont any
excuse he gets. Down in
Deleware he is a partner
in a primary care practice
and teaches family medicine for U. Penn students.
Salwa is finishing up pediatric residency at the
F A L L
2008
35
M.D. CLASS NOTES
OBITUARIES
H A L L A
H A L L A
PORTER H . DALE II , M . D.’47
Class of 2003
University of Maryland
Hospital for Children and
is busy with a new
research project on
influenza preparedness.
David Leavitt is practicing
psychiatry at Boulder
Community Hospital in
Colorado. He also finished
a two-year fellowship in
integrative medicine at the
University of Arizona and
is now board-certified in
holistic medicine. He’s
enjoying Boulder with his
girldfriend Marnie and
two cats and four (up from
two!) bearded dragon
lizards.
36
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
R E U N I O N
’ 0 9
2004
Jillian S. Sullivan
[email protected]
Emily A. Hannon
emily.hannon@
hsc.utah.edu
Steven D. Lefebvre
fabulous5lefebvre@
hotmail.com
2005
Julie A. Alosi
[email protected]
Richard J. Parent
[email protected]
2006
William C. Eward
[email protected]
Deborah Rabinowitz
debbie.rabinowitz@
uvm.edu
2007
Allison Collen
[email protected]
Scot Millay
[email protected]
2008
Mark Hunter
21 Lindenwood Drive
South Burlington, VT 05403
[email protected]
Alyssa Wittenberg
7649 Briarcrest Lane
Orange, CA 92869
alyssa.wittenberg@
gmail.com
Ashley Zucker
[email protected]
2209 Albany Street
Durham, NC 27705
Dr. Dale passed away at his
Montpelier, Vt., home on June 15,
2008 — Father’s Day — surrounded
by his family. He was diagnosed with
cancer in May of this year. He led a
life marked by devotion to his family,
his profession, and his community. A
fifth-generation Vermonter, he was
born on Sept. 27, 1922. He lived his
early years in Island Pond, Vt., the
oldest of four children. After completing high school he was offered a
scholarship to Wesleyan University,
which he attended before returning
to Vermont to complete both his
undergraduate and medical education at the University of Vermont.
Following his marriage to Mary Lois
Westover in 1951 and the completion of his military service, he established a practice in internal medicine
in Montpelier in 1953. He practiced
medicine in Central Vermont for 40
years until his retirement in 1991.
During those years he served as president of the Vermont Heart Association, president of the Vermont State
Medical Society (1971-1972), American College of Physicians Governor
for Vermont (1975-1979), and president of the Vermont Board of
Physical Therapy Registration
(1957-75). Dr. Dale played a pivotal
role in establishing the first Coronary Care Unit at Central Vermont
Hospital and served as its director
from 1968 to 1980. He was also president of the Central Vermont
Hospital Medical Staff from 1980 to
1982. Throughout his medical career
and until 2006, Dr. Dale served as
medical consultant to the Social
Security Disability Determination
Agency of Vermont. His tenure as a
medical consultant to the Social
Security Administration was the
longest of any physician in the
United States. He was deeply
involved in his community. In addition to his many activities with community agencies, he was named the
Washington County Citizen of the
Year for 1994.
Dr. Dale had a love of Vermont
history, including the history of his
hometown of Brighton (Island
Pond), and he authored several published works on this subject.
SPENCER W. BURNEY, M . D.’62
Dr. Burney died at Community
Hospice House in Merrimack, N.H.
on April 13, 2008. He was 82. Dr.
Burney grew up in Charlestown,
N.H. attending 11 years of school
there and graduating from Springfield Vt. High School in 1943. He
spent 21/2 years in the United States
Navy as a Hospital Corpsman. Dr.
Burney did pre-medical studies at the
University of New Hampshire
before graduating from the College
of Medicine in 1962. He was board
certified in anatomical and clinical
pathology in 1967 and became chief
of laboratory services at the Veteran's
Administration Outpatient Clinic in
Boston. He served there for 20 years.
He then served as a physician at the
Armed Forces Entrance Station in
Boston for several years. In 1971 he
was commissioned as a Reserve
Officer in the United States Army
and retired at age 65 in 1992 as a
Colonel.
MELVIN A . GOLDEN , M . D.’64
Dr. Golden died November 13,
2007, at MetroWest Medical Center
in Framingham. Mass. A graduate of
Boston University with a bachelor’s
degree in biology, he simultaneously
earned a bachelor’s degree in Jewish
education at Hebrew College before
earning his medical degree at UVM.
He completed his residency in radiology at the Ichilov Hospital in Tel
Aviv, Israel, then settled in Lubbock,
Texas, and began the private practice
in radiology. Eventually, he retired
and restarted his career working for
the federal government as a radiologist, primarily at veterans hospitals
around the United States, and had
served as recently as the spring of
2007 at the VA Hospital in West
Roxbury.
JOHN H . ELLIOTT, M . D.’72
Dr. Elliott, of Lyndon, Vt. died July
9, 2008, at Northeastern Vermont
Regional Hospital as a result of
injuries sustained in a July 7 accident.
He was born in St. Johnsbury, Jan.
16, 1946, the son of Herbert and
June (Hall) Elliott. After attending
St. Johnsbury elementary and middle
schools, Dr. Elliott graduated from
Lyndon Institute in 1964, Tufts
University in 1968, and the UVM
College of Medicine in 1972.
Following a rotating internship at
Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre,
Penn., Dr. Elliott worked one year in
the emergency room at Putnam
Memorial Hospital in Bennington.
There he met his future wife, Martha
Romlein. He then joined friend
and colleague Dr. Lloyd ‘Tim’
Thompson at The Doctor’s Office
on Main Street in Lyndonville. They
went on to establish Corner Medical.
Commenting on Dr. Elliott’s life, the
St. Johnsbury Caledonian-Record
editorial page noted that: “Elliott
truly enjoyed giving more than
receiving. With Elliott, working to
help a patient late at night or on a
Sunday afternoon, or working to
help Lyndon Institute raise money
for a new program, or working to
beautify the Lyndon Corner covered
bridge was what he did and who he
was. His was a lifetime of generosity
and of giving more than anyone
asked.”
An obituary for Professor of Physiology and Biophysics Emeritus William
Halpern, Ph.D.’69 will appear in the
next issue.
F A L L
2008
37
REUNION
2008
For the hundreds of graduates who retuned to campus
June 6-8 for Reunion 2008, the unusually warm temperatures
of early June made the memories of snowy mornings rushing
to class and clinic seem even a little farther in the past. The
members of the dozen classes represented at Reunion dove
into the festivities with gusto, picnicking on the lawn with
friends and family [7, 11] meeting today’s students, [4] and
getting reacquainted with old friends [5, 6, 9].
Many alumni took advantage of the tours run by students
and staff to get an inside look at their new, improved medical
campus, including the Student Assessment Center, wherein
lives Kramer, the College’s simulated patient [3]. The Class
of 1988 celebrated their twentieth reunion in a special way,
by performing a group community service project at the
King Street Youth Center in Burlington [2]. That project was
spearheaded by class agents Jim Wallace and Larry Wolk.
Dean Frederick Morin and his wife, Tracy, welcomed members of the Ira Allen and Wilbur societies at a special reception at Englesby House on Saturday the 7th. [1] Two nights
before, the Morins hosted a dinner for the recipients of the
Medical Alumni Association 2008 Awards [10 – not shown,
Omar Khan, M.D.’03]. One of the awardees, Keiji Fukuda,
M.D.’83, gave a brown bag luncheon presentation on careers
in public health for current medical students on the Friday of
Reunion [8].
1
2
3
If your class year ends in a 4 or 9,
mark your calendars now for
Reunion 2009 – next June 12-14!
5
4
6
7
38
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
10
8
9
RAJ CHAWLA
11
F A L L
2008
39
THE MEDICAL IRA ALLEN SOCIETY
honoring a
FOUNDER’S
legacy
T
august 7, 2008
1:20 pm
Members of the new Class of 2012 take part in a team-building excercise
during their Orientation Week.
photograph by Raj Chawla
hough he last walked across the UVM Campus
Green in the early 19th Century, Ira Allen is to
this day an unforgettable presence at the university he
helped found, and is memorialized by a statue, a chapel,
and a growing society of generous individuals.
Originally from Cornwall, Connecticut, Ira Allen was
actively interested in the affairs of Vermont, where he
received large grants of land and was a member of the
Green Mountain Boys, commanded by his brother
Ethan. A prominent figure in the development of the
state constitution, Ira Allen was also elected a member of
the Governor’s Council and first treasurer of the
Republic of Vermont. In addition, Allen was the author
of the Vermont Bill of Rights and Declaration of
Independence.
Allen also had great interest in establishing a university in Burlington, Vermont. In 1789 he pledged £4,000
and donated land for such a purpose. He became one of
the university’s trustees in 1791.
Allen’s memory was long neglected until James B.
Wilbur donated funds to erect a statue of Ira Allen that
now stands on the Campus Green. Wilbur also provided
the funds to build the Ira Allen Chapel, erected in 1927
in honor of the founder of the University of Vermont.
The commitment to excellence in education at the University of Vermont and its College of Medicine is a tradition
made possible by alumni, parents, and friends who share the vision of its founder. Since 1964, that vision has been
recognized for donors by annual membership in the Ira Allen Society. Today, the Medical Ira Allen Society has
nearly 700 members who make generous leadership contributions each year.
Help strengthen this cornerstone of individual support to the College by joing the Medical Ira Allen Society today.
Contact us at:
medical development and alumni relations office
(802) 656-4014 [email protected] www.med.uvm.edu/giving
SPRING 2004
40
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
41
A GOOD CALL
RAJ CHAWLA
It started out as an unremarkable Sunday afternoon in
April for Olivia Sierra, a sophomore English major from
Massachusetts who works on weekends with the Chatty
Cats, UVM’s student phonathon callers. But that was
about to change.
“It was my first day making calls from the College of
Medicine list,” she says. “Pretty typical. I’d gotten a few
hundred dollar gifts and a few smaller ones.”
But her last call of the day was anything but typical.
“I called Dr. Sullivan, and we kind of hit it off right
away,” Olivia says. “I never really even got to the part
where I make the case for a gift. He was really fun to
talk with. He asked me to think about becoming a physician’s assistant.”
Dr. Sullivan is Thomas J. Sullivan, M.D.’66 of Etna,
New Hampshire, who recently retired as a radiologist
and faculty member at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical
Center. Olivia didn’t know it, but Dr. Sullivan was about
to make her the most successful telephone fundraiser in
Chatty Cats history.
“He indicated he was willing to make a substantial
gift, and I thought he was thinking about maybe $1,000
or $2,500 or even $5,000.” Dr. Sullivan prefers not to
disclose the actual amount of his gift, but it was substantial and unprecedented for the student callers.
“Oh my gosh. It was pretty crazy,” Olivia says about
the excitement in the workroom. “I was so surprised.”
Dr. Sullivan says his gift was motivated by his wish to
give something back to Vermont and to UVM, and perhaps to motivate others to do the same. “I’ve always felt
this kinship with Vermont and with UVM,” he says. “I
did my undergraduate work there then entered the medical school and even came back and did some postdoctoral work, so I’ve spent a lot of time in Burlington. It
didn’t cost me a penny to go there, what with scholarships and all, so I thought it would be a nice thing to do
while I’m still alive, to give something back to the
College of Medicine.”
Dr. Sullivan put no restrictions on his gift, other than it
be used to advance the College of Medicine’s top priorities.
For information about how you can support the College of Medicine,
please contact the Medical Development and Alumni Relations Office.
university of vermont college of medicine
medical development and alumni relations office
(802)656-4014 [email protected] www.med.uvm.edu/giving
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