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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
Medicine
in the Line of Fire
S U M M E R
2005
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FEATURES
COLLEGE NEWS
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M A G A Z I N E
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MEDICINE IN THE LINE OF FIRE
For some College of Medicine doctors, following the
dictum of “first, do no harm” has meant putting
themselves in harm’s way.
Update your personal information
by edward neuert
Enjoy free lifetime e-mail forwarding
A SYSTEM
OF QUALITY
and your personal UVM alumni address
The Vermont Child
Health Improvement
Project has become a
national model of a
way to bring academicians and pediatric
practitioners together
to raise standards.
New campus countdown, fourth-years get a
match, a Haitian medical mission, and more.
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PRESIDENT ’ S CORNER
CLASS NOTES
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
OBITUARIES
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by rachael
moeller gorman
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THE CHEMISTRY OF COGNITION
Using your ten-digit UVM ID # located on the Vermont Medicine mailing label,
Professor of Psychiatry Paul Newhouse, M.D., follows the
complicated pathways of the brain, and along the way traces
the possible good effects of a classically “bad” substance.
Or contact the Medical Alumni Office for your ID number:
by jeffery lindholm
E-mail: [email protected] or 802-656-4014
UVM
The UVM Connection the on-line community for alumni, parents, and friends of UVM
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on the cover:
photo by AP Photo/John Moore
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FROM THE DEAN
S U M M E R
COLLEGE NEWS
2 0 0 5
EDITOR
edward neuert
MEDICAL COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR
Just a few days ago, at commencement in Ira
Allen Chapel, I had the pleasure of presenting
each of our graduates their diplomas. Commencement is a special day for all these new
physicians and scientists, as well as their families — a day most have dreamed about for
years. It’s also a ceremony that crystallizes our
institutional dreams, for educating the next generation of physicians and scientists is at the very core of the mission of our academic health center.
That mission is very much in mind too as those of us here on
campus view the continued progress of our joint project with
Fletcher Allen Health Care to improve our campus with a new
Medical Education Center. Workers will continue putting the finishing touches on the center, and on the new Ambulatory Care
Center, throughout the summer. As you’ll see listed here, a series
of previews and celebrations is planned for all the members of our
community, and I hope many of you will join in the festivities.
Vermont Medicine has previously showcased some of the key elements of our new fully-integrated curriculum: our students will
now have a 21st Century space in which to learn 21st Century
medicine. They will benefit from a classroom pavilion that accommodates increased small-group learning, a new medical library, and
the latest information technology. The Education Center will serve
students, faculty, and the community.
As this summer begins with traditional Memorial Day remembrances, it is a time to recall the mission of our graduates, staff, students, faculty, and friends who serve and have served their country.
Whether on active duty, in the reserves, or in the National Guard,
they give willingly of their time far from home and family, practicing medicine in what is frequently the most dangerous of conditions. We hope that the cover story in this issue, in a small way,
honors their very large and continued sacrifices.
carole whitaker
ASSISTANT
andrea rathje
WRITER
jennifer nachbur
ART DIRECTOR
elise whittemore-hill
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT
COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
DEAN
john n. evans, ph.d.
EDITORIAL ADVISORS
rick blount
ASSISTANT DEAN FOR
DEVELOPMENT & ALUMNI RELATIONS
marilyn j. cipolla, ph.d.’ 97
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
OF NEUROLOGY
christopher s. francklyn,
ph.d.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
OF BIOCHEMISTRY
james c. hebert, m.d.’ 77
ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR GRADUATE
MEDICAL EDUCATION
russell tracy, ph.d.
SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR RESEARCH
& ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
vermont medicine is published three times a
year by the University of Vermont College of Medicine.
Articles may be reprinted with permission of the editor.
Please send address changes, alumni class notes, letters
to the editor, and other correspondence to
University of Vermont College of Medicine Alumni
Office, Farrell Hall, 210 Colchester Ave, Burlington,
VT 05405. telephone: (802) 656-4014
Letters to the editor specifically may be e-mailed to:
[email protected]
COUNTDOWN TO A REVITALIZED CAMPUS
When the Alumni Executive Council of the Medical Alumni Association met this April, they viewed the latest
progress on the joint College of Medicine - Fletcher Allen Health Care building project that will result in a new
Ambulatory Care Center (ACC) at Fletcher Allen and the Medical Education Center at the College. A series of receptions and celebrations are planned this summer to introduce the new facilities to the different audiences they serve:
July 7
July 9
August 5
September 6
September 8
September 10
September 17
Emergency Department Employee Open House
Emergency Department Dedication Ceremony and Public Open House
Medical Education Center Preview
Inpatient Psychiatry Employee Open House
Inpatient Psychiatry Dedication Ceremony and Public Open House
ACC/Medical Education Center Grand Opening Employee Open House
ACC/Medical Education Center Grand Opening Public Open House
MICHAEL SIPE
For up-to-date information about specific events, see: www.med.uvm.edu/mec
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GORDON MILLER / MEDICAL PHOTOGRAPHY
S U M M E R
2005
3
COLLEGE NEWS
RESEARCH MILESTONES
Mann to Step Down from
Biochemistry Chair
GENE MUTATION LINKED TO EXTRA - EARLY
BODY CLOCK , HEALTH CONDITIONS
Geneticists from the UVM College of Medicine, the
University of California, San Francisco, and University
of Utah have uncovered a new gene mutation that
causes familial advanced sleep phase syndrome
(FASPS) — an inherited condition in which sufferers
are such ‘early birds’ that they struggle to function in
society. Their research findings were reported in the
March 31 issue of the journal Nature.
The team of scientists, including Robert Shapiro,
M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of neurology at the
College, studied three generations of a Vermont family in which five members are affected by FASPS. The
body clock of each of the five is tuned to a day-length
shorter than normal; on average, they wake at around
4 a.m. and go to sleep at about 6 p.m. The family members carry a mutation in the casein kinase I delta (CKId)
gene, which interferes with the protein believed to
have a key role in regulating the body clock.
Every animal cell has a molecular machinery to tell
the time of day. Many of the details of these mechanisms have been identified in fruit flies. Particular
nerve cells in the brain act as master time-keepers to
ensure that the whole organism is appropriately coordinated with the actual time of day. In the study,
researchers tested the DNA of the affected individuals
in the Vermont family and found that the same gene
that is important to fruit fly clocks possessed a mutation that is not present in unaffected family members
or others.
STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY PROJECT
STUDIES DNA REPAIR
A team of UVM researchers affiliated with the Vermont
Cancer Center was recently awarded a five-year, $7.5
million program project grant by the National Cancer
Institute. The funding will support a study using biochemical, computational and structural biology
methodologies to determine how three families of
DNA enzymes repair damage caused by ionizing radiation.
Susan Wallace, Ph.D., professor and chair of microbiology and molecular genetics and program leader of
the VCC’s Genome Stability & Expression Research
Program, secured the award. She says the grant is one
of just three program projects funded by the NCI that
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Core faculty of the structural biology project:
Scott Morrical, Jeff Bond, Susan Wallace, Mark Rould,
and Sylvie Doublié
depend on structural biology. The others are at
Stanford University and the University of California,
Berkeley. Wallace says that the NCI was especially
excited about the Vermont project’s use of computational and phylogenetic approaches to look at DNA
repair.
The effort centers on four other core faculty: Jeff
Bond, Ph.D., research associate professor of microbiology and molecular genetics; Sylvie Doublié, Ph.D.,
associate professor of microbiology and molecular
genetics; Scott Morrical, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry; and Mark Rould, Ph.D., research assistant professor of molecular physiology and biophysics.
STUDY SHOWS OLDER BREAST CANCER
PATIENTS BENEFIT FROM CHEMOTHERAPY
Hyman Muss, M.D., professor of medicine, authored a
Journal of the American Medical Association article in
March that analyzed the results of four major clinical
studies on chemotherapy treatment in older versus
younger women with breast cancer between 1975 and
1999. Muss found that healthy older women who
underwent the stronger chemotherapy derived the
same benefits as the younger women — they had similar reductions in breast cancer recurrence and lived as
long. Some doctors have been reluctant in the past to
GORDON MILLER / MEDICAL PHOTOGRAPHY
offer strong chemotherapy to older patients
for a variety of reasons, a situation Muss
hopes will change.
“With today’s life expectancy, a healthy
65-year-old woman can expect to live another 20 years,” he says. “If you have a 75-yearold woman in your office who has advanced
breast cancer with lots of positive lymph
nodes and is in good health, we now have
evidence, based on the results of this study
and others, that she should be offered the
best chemotherapy available to help
improve her life and reduce the risk that she
will die of breast cancer.”
Roughly 50 percent of new breast cancers
in the United States occur in women aged 65
or older, and, every year, about 40,000 people die from breast cancer. For the study,
Muss led the analysis of data from four randomized clinical trials from the Cancer and
Leukemia Group B arm of the National
Cancer Institute. These trials compared
more aggressive with less aggressive
chemotherapy regimens for the treatment
of lymph node-positive breast cancer cases
between 1975 and 1999. A total of 6,487
women with lymph node-positive breast
cancer were included in the trials. A startlingly small number — 8 percent — of the
patients were 65 years or older and only 2
percent were 70 years or older.
TONY RINALDO
The person who has steered the College
of Medicine Department of Biochemistry for more than two decades,
Kenneth G. Mann Ph.D., will step down
from the chairship this summer to continue his work as a researcher and professor of biochemistry.
Mann came to UVM in 1984 from
the Mayo Clinic (Mayo Medical School)
in Rochester, Minn. In his more than
twenty years of research at the College,
he has focused particularly on ways to
identify and help individuals at risk for
thrombosis (the formation of blood clots
in the vascular system). Over the years, Mann has helped
attract to UVM a key group of researchers who specialize in clotting.
Mann’s many professional awards include the prestigious E. Donnall Thomas Lecture and Prize from the
American Society of Hematology in 2002, which recognized the important role his research has played in
elucidating the biological mechanisms that bring about
blood clots.
VM Photographer
Wins Pulitzer
Deanne Fitzmaurice, a San
Francisco-based photographer
whose work illustrated the
Summer 2003 Vermont Medicine
cover story on alumnus James
Betts, M.D.’73, was awarded
the Pulitzer Prize for Feature
Photography
this
April.
Fitzmaurice’s prize-winning
photos appeared in the San
Francisco Chronicle, and covered the struggle of a severely wounded 9-year-old
Iraqi boy, Saleh Khalaf, who was brought to
Children’s Hospital Oakland for treatment. Betts, a
pediatric surgeon who led the Children’s team that
treated the boy, described him as “an amazing
young man… He exceeded our expectations
because of his strong will to live.”
S U M M E R
2005
5
COLLEGE NEWS
Residency Matches for the College of Medicine Class of 2005
The Future — One Envelope Away
(as of March 17, 2005)
ANESTHESIOLOGY
Marta Bator
Matthew Breckenridge
Brian McAllister
Mohammad Safdar
Neal Saxe
ORTHOPAEDIC SURGERY
Jackson Memorial Hospital
UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care
University of Utah Affiliated Hospitals
UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson
UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care
The envelope, please: Fourth year
students such as Miki Ford, M.D.’o5
(above) learned their residency
matches on March 17.
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GORDON MILLER / MEDICAL PHOTOGRAPHY
Heather Carney
Lisa Cole
Silvia Skripenova
PEDIATRICS
Lisa Emrick
Stephanie Ardell
Kimberly Chong
Kristin Clark
Alexandra Cornell
Michaeline Ford
Tiffany Frazar
Alicia Hoag Casey
Bernadette Johnson
Jennifer Lee
Malaika Little
Mark Lo
Michelle Pahl
Katherine Philla
Leslie Quan
Patty Rissacher
Nicole Rizkalla
Jason Shapiro
Michelle Sokolove
Johns Hopkins Hospital
Paul Allegra
Roshelle Beckwith
Selin Caglar
Laura Forman
Christopher Lee
Edward Lin
Marie McDonough
Seth Podolsky
Bridget Quinn
Kristina Robinson
Kyle Vanstone
Hung Vu
Hennepin County Medical Center
Johns Hopkins Hospital
Baystate Medical Center
Baystate Medical Center
Yale-New Haven Hospital
Kern Medical Center
SAUSHEC-Brooke Army Medical Center
Metropolitan Hospital Center
Emory University School of Medicine
Rhode Island Hospital/Brown Univ.
Long Island Jewish Medical Center
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
FAMILY MEDICINE
Jean Andersson-Swayze
Rachel Gaidys
Daniel Goodyear
Andrea Regan
Christine Swartz
UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care
Montana Family Medicine
UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care
UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care
Central Maine Medical Center
GENERAL SURGERY
Julie Alosi
Debra Gargiulo
Thomas Manchester
Hannah Swayze
UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care
Baystate Medical Center
Exempla St. Joseph Hospital
Baystate Medical Center
INTERNAL MEDICINE
Mark Chen
Paul Crainich
Michele Delenick
Sarah Hallen
Benjamin Kalsmith
Winifred Lee
Cynthia Meier
Shaun Miller
Richard Nguyen
Ariana Wallack
MEDICINE
California Pacific Medical Center
UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care
Maine Medical Center
University of Rochester/
Strong Memorial
New England Medical Center
UC Davis Medical Center
University of Washington
Tripler Army Medical Center
Scripps Clinic/Green Hospital
University of Colorado
– PRELIMINARY
Christina Alavian
Jaina Clough
Marinshine Gentler
Meera Sreenivasan
St. Vincent’s Hospital
UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care
UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care
George Washington University
OB / GYN
Sarah Czok
Rachel Spenward
Maine Medical Center
St. Luke’s Roosevelt
OPHTHALMOLOGY
Krista Haight
Penn State University
Virginia Commonwealth UHS
PATHOLOGY
CHILD NEUROLOGY ( PGY-3)
EMERGENCY MEDICINE
It’s all part of the medical school experience: Countless hours of studying, rigorous clinical training, United States
Medical Licensing Exams, residency
interviews and then, Match Day — the
annual event shared by fourth-year
medical students at 125 medical schools
across the country. At precisely noon on
Thursday, March 17, senior medical
students found out where they will serve
their clinical residencies following graduation.
At the College of Medicine, students gathered along the first-floor hallways of the
Given Medical Building in the late morning. Their whispers built to an expectant buzz by
11:55 a.m., when Associate Dean for Student Affairs, G. Scott Waterman, M.D., left his
office on the second floor to carry a stack of white envelopes to the mailroom. There,
Waterman, Dean Evans, and mailroom manager Pat Alberts worked quickly to place the
envelopes in each student’s mailbox by noon.
Senior medical student Miki Ford’s match to the Oregon Health & Science University
brought her a step closer to fulfilling the
pledge that she and four of her longtime
friends from Portland, Oregon, made to
open a maternal and children’s health
clinic in their hometown. Last December, Ford’s closest friend of the four,
Kate, was killed in a car accident, along
with her mother. Ford became the recipient of Kate’s life insurance policy,
investing the money in a fund that will
help bring their dream of opening a clinic to fruition.
Nathan Richardson
David Spar
Brian Tang
Gina Trachimowicz
University of Utah Affiliated Hospitals
UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care
University of Utah Affiliated Hospitals
UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care
UCLA Medical Center
Rhode Island Hospital/Brown Univ.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Oregon Health & Science University
Tulane University School of Medicine
UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care
Children’s Mercy Hospital
New England Medical Center
University of Washington
UC San Francisco
Hershey/Penn State
Walter Reed Army Medical Center
Georgetown University Hospital
UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
Rhode Island Hospital/Brown Univ.
North Shore – Long island Jewish
Health System
Yale – New Haven Hospital
Children’s Hospital Oakland
UMass Medical School
PSYCHIATRY
Carolyn Brenner
Katherine Brownlowe
Melanie Morin
Andrea Pliakas
University of Washington
Maine Medical Center
Walter Reed Army Medical Center
Massachusetts General Hospital
RADIATION ONCOLOGY
Gauravjit Singh
Su Smith
RADIOLOGY
– DIAGNOSTIC
Robert Congdon
Tejas Dalal
Jennifer Daly
Dana Dunleavy
Aaron Frodsham
Samir Kodsi
Brian Sorensen
SURGERY
Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles
University of Rochester/
Strong Memorial
UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care
Case Western/Univ. Hospital Cleveland
UC Irvine Medical Center
Johns Hopkins Hospital
Hospital of St. Raphael
New England Medical Center
University of Rochester/
Strong Memorial
– PRELIMINARY
Zechariah Gardner
Peter Lee
Richard Parent
UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care
Maine Medical Center
UC San Francisco – East Bay
UROLOGY
Tung-Chin Hsieh
Graham VerLee
George Washington University
UMass Medical School
S U M M E R
2005
7
COLLEGE NEWS
&
AWARDS
8
RECOGNITION
• Robert Johnson, M.D., professor of orthopaedics and
• Polly Parsons, M.D., professor of medicine, was lead
rehabilitation, received a lifetime achievement award
from the International Society for Safety in Skiing.
Johnson was recognized for his major contributions in
the area of ski injury and safety research, which has led
to a 90-percent reduction in ski-related fractures over
the last 30 years and has helped stabilize the rate of
knee injuries over the past 10 years.
• Burton E. Sobel, M.D., E. L. Amidon professor and chair
of medicine, was named president-elect of the Council
of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine
(SEBM) at their annual meeting in April. Founded in 1903,
the SEBM is a not-for-profit scientific society formed to
promote investigation in the biomedical sciences by
encouraging and facilitating interchange of scientific
information among disciplines. SEBM publishes the
journal Experimental Biology and Medicine. Sobel was
also recently elected a fellow of the International
Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences.
• Christopher Morris, M.D., associate professor of
radiology, was inducted as a fellow of the American
College of Radiology at a formal convocation ceremony
on April 10 during the organization’s 82nd Annual
Meeting in Washington, D.C.
• Ryan Vandrey, a pre-doctoral fellow in the department of psychology’s human behavioral psychopharmacology program, was lead author of a paper in the
May 9 issue of Drug and Alcohol Dependence titled
“Cannabis Withdrawal in Adolescent Treatment
Seekers.” Vandrey’s doctoral advisor is Alan Budney,
Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry.
• Second-year medical student Gulnar Pothiawala has
been accepted by the National Institutes of Health to
participate in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute/
NIH Research Scholars Program for 2005-06. Also
known as the Cloister Program, the HHMI/NIH
Research Scholars Program is designed to give outstanding students at U.S. medical schools the opportunity to receive research training at the NIH.
• Charles Irvin, Ph.D., professor of medicine and director of the Vermont Lung Center, has been selected to
serve on the molecular medicine faculty and respiratory physiology section of the Faculty of 1000. Faculty of
1000 is an online research service produced by Biology
Reports and published by BioMed Central that highlights and reviews the most interesting papers published in the biological sciences, based on the recommendations of a faculty of selected leading researchers.
author of a January 2005 Critical Care Medicine article
titled “Lower Tidal Volume Ventilation and Plasma
Cytokine Markers of Inflammation in Patients with
Acute Lung Injury.”
• A July 2004 Cancer Research article titled “Genotoxicity of Therapeutic Intervention in Children with
Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia” has been selected to be
abstracted in the 2005 Year Book of Oncology. Led by
2004 College of Medicine doctoral degree recipient
Sederick Rice, the study’s senior author was Barry
Finette, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pediatrics. Coauthors included Pamela Vacek, Ph.D. biostatistician
in medical biostatistics and research assistant professor of pathology; Alan Homans, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics; Terri Messier, senior researcher in
the Vermont Cancer Center; and Heather Kendall, a
graduate student in the department of microbiology
and molecular genetics. Article abstracts featured in
the Year Book of Oncology, which is published by
Elsevier, were selected from more than 500 journals
worldwide that reported the year’s breakthrough
developments in oncology.
• Senior medical students majoring in surgery presented scholarly projects and were recognized for their
work on May 5 at the Department of Surgery’s 35th
Annual Surgery Senior Major Scientific Program at the
College of Medicine. Zechariah Gardner received first
prize for his manuscript, titled “Evaluation of a
Protocol for Tight Blood Glucose Control in Critically Ill
Patients.” Christopher Lee received second prize for
his manuscript, titled “Pilot Design of Reproducible
Graded Traumatic Aortic Injury in a Porcine Model.”
Jacob Lilly and Nathan Richardson tied for third prize
for their manuscripts, respectively titled “PressureInduced Changes in Matrix Metalloproteinase and
Tissue Inhibitor of Matrix Metalloproteinase Ratios in
Coronary Artery Bypass Conduits” and “Three
Dimensional Comparison of Intramedullary Nail
Fixation of Supracondylar Femur Fractures in
Osteoporatic Bone.” Coordinated by Michael Ricci,
M.D. professor of surgery, the program is designed to
provide each student with the opportunity, through a
library search, a patient chart review and/or laboratory
investigation, to complete a scholarly project, assemble and prepare the data in the form of a scientific article acceptable for publication in a professional journal,
and to present this research at a scientific seminar.
V E R M O N T
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Medical Student Sees
Her Number Retired
Third-year
medical
student
Karalyn Church’s career has not yet
begun and she has already attended
her first retirement event.
Just before the tip-off of the
February 26 UVM Catamounts
basketball game in the Patrick
Gym, Church saw the #20 she wore
as a Catamount retired. Church,
who received her undergraduate
degree from UVM in 2000, was a
two-time America East Player of
the Year, two-time All-American,
and two-time Academic AllAmerican at Vermont. She led
UVM women’s team to its last
NCAA Tournament appearance in
2000, leading UVM to the America
East regular season and tournament titles that year.
She graduated as the all-time
leading scorer at UVM (2,317
points) and ranks fourth among alltime leaders in America East history. She also ranks among the top
ten leaders in nine statistical career
categories in the Vermont record
books. Following graduation,
Church was invited to the WNBA
Pre-Draft Camp and had a tryout
with the Canadian National Team
for the 2002 Olympic squad
that would compete in Sydney.
Church’s last game in a Vermont
uniform at Patrick Gym was versus
Maine in the 2000 America East
Championship Game. She led
Vermont to a 77-50 victory over
the Black Bears.
US NEWS RANKS COLLEGE OF MEDICINE 9TH IN PRIMARY CARE
The University of Vermont College of Medicine ranked ninth for quality in
primary care training among the country’s top 125 medical schools according to the latest U.S. News & World Report graduate school rankings. The
rankings appeared in the April 11 issue of U.S. News and World Report magazine and in the book America’s Best Graduate Schools, which also
appeared in April.
“We’re proud to have moved up to the top-ten for primary care education — an area that’s critical in the state of Vermont and across the country,” said College of Medicine Dean John Evans, Ph.D. “Our most important mission is to educate caring and compassionate physicians, so this
recognition of our school is especially gratifying.”
Each year, U.S. News ranks professional-school programs in business, education, engineering, law, and medicine, based on surveys of
nearly 1,300 programs and almost 9,600 academics and professionals conducted in fall 2004. The medical school rankings are based on assessments by medical
school deans and senior faculty, admission acceptance rates, test scores, faculty/student
ratios and other factors. The primary care rankings include assessment of the percentage of
medical school graduates who enter primary care residencies in family practice, pediatrics
and internal medicine.
WILLIAM DILILLO
S U M M E R
2005
9
F A C U LT Y V I E W
Haitian Reprise
Steven Shackford, M.D., chair of the Department of Surgery at the College, led a group
from his department on a medical mission to Haiti this past November — the second such
effort by the department in the last few years. His recollections reprinted here originally
appeared in the spring 2005 edition of UVM Surgery.
by steven
Weeks of preparation for out trip to Haiti trip were
finally over and Peter Cataldo, M.D., and I departed
Burlington on November 13, 2004 for Fort Lauderdale. At an airport motel, we convened our entire team
for a brief planning session and a light dinner.
Our team consisted of Peter Cataldo, Sean O’Brien,
Erika Fellinger, Belinda Laidley-Calais, Thomas Buley
and Patty Fisher, M.D., a primary care physician who
had been to Haiti multiple times. The following morning, we departed the motel for the Lynx Air Terminal
at approximately 5:15 am. There we waited patiently
while each of the 13 passengers was weighed (with
their luggage) to assure that the plane would not be
overloaded. Lynx operates the only air service to Cap
Hatien, our destination. The flight was uneventful and
soon Haiti appeared off our right wing tip through
broken clouds.
It appeared from the air that little had changed
despite the hurricanes, the political upheaval and the
overthrow of President Aristide. The Caribbean shore
was still azure blue and the mountains were still a lush
green. As we approached the airfield, we could see
goats and cows grazing just off the runway and children playing in the field immediately adjacent to the
runway. The airport had changed noticeably. The
“terminal” which had received us the previous year
had been destroyed during the violence in Cap
Hatien. It had been replaced by a newer cinderblock
building — an improvement. Sister Martha BarlaiKovach, the chief administrator of the Hôpital Sacré
Coeur, greeted us at the airport and hustled us
through immigration. Staff from the hospital tossed
our luggage into the back of two four-wheeled vehicles and we departed the airport. I sensed urgency.
Sister Martha explained that she had a busy afternoon
clinic planned for us. This was complicated by the
fact that she wanted to have her staff out before dark
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shackford, m.d.
because she had concerns for their safety, given the
recent violence.
We arrived in Milot by noon and stopped briefly at
our living quarters. We picked roommates (Pete
Cataldo and I roomed together) and we threw our bags
in the room and proceeded immediately to the hospital.
When we arrived at the clinic area of the Hôpital Sacré
Coeur, there was a huge crowd of patients waiting to be
seen. Two examining rooms were quickly made into
four examining rooms by using moveable partitions and
we each began to see patients. By 4:00 p.m., we had
seen and pre-opped (thanks to Dr. Fisher) enough
patients to fill the operating schedules of two rooms for
five consecutive days. The preoperative process was
expedited by Erika’s fluency in French and Patty
Fisher’s experience in Haiti and her skill as a clinician.
I mentioned to Sister Martha that the clinic was
busier this year than it had been previously. She told
me that the patient volume had increased after the hurricane and flooding had destroyed the hospital at
Gonaives. Even after filling our operating schedule,
there were still many patients in need of treatment.We
encountered a number for whom we could do nothing
other than provide empathy. It was not because their
diseases were not surgical; it was because there were no
resources available to manage them in Haiti. This is a
chronic frustration of First World physicians who work
in the Third World. We completed the clinic and got
the staff out of the hospital at dusk.
The rest of the week was a blur. We operated, provided postoperative care and saw emergency cases in
the clinic area. This was our daily routine. The pace of
our operative schedule was quickened by an incredibly
fast turnover time so that we were able to remain on or
ahead of schedule. One day, we even finished early and
had an opportunity to hike up to the Citadelle, a
fortress constructed by Henri Christophe in the 19th
Century. The Citadelle is
located at the top of a mountain, the summit of which is
approximately 2000 meters
above sea level. The path to
the Citadelle is paved with
stones and consists of multiple
“switch backs” constructed
because of the steepness of the
pitch. The hike was invigorating and the view from the top
was incredible. We were
accompanied all the way up
and all the way down by
Hatian guides. My guide was a
12-year-old boy who was fluent in German, French,
Creole, Spanish and English.
He was incredibly well-versed
in the history of the Citadelle. The Department of Surgery group in Milot, Haiti.
When I asked him what his
plans for the future were, he remarked that he wanted armored personnel carriers and motorized weapons sat
to continue to be a tour guide in Haiti. He was quite side by side with the backhoes and bulldozers. The UN
optimistic about the future of foreign travel to Haiti. It is doing a lot of home and public works reconstruction
was difficult for me to share his optimism given the fact in the Cap Hatien area.
that Haiti was still an “occupied” country. United
The flight back was uneventful. As we changed
Nation forces were required to maintain the peace and planes in Fort Lauderdale, we were all struck with the
to allow equitable distribution of food and water to profound differences between our country and Haiti.
those made homeless by the hurricane and recent The most poignant of these differences was not the
political upheaval.
obvious disparity in wealth, but rather the disparity in
Unfortunately, we had miscalculated the duration of attitude. The people in Haiti have little of the materithe trip down from the Citadelle and we returned to al things that seem to matter to many in our culture.
Milot well after dark. There are no street lights in Yet, they emanate happiness and good will. We saw
Milot and I was thankful for my guide. He, however, very little of that happiness or good will while waiting
appeared to me to be a little nervous. Perhaps he was in line at security.
nervous because he was guiding a “blanc” through the
We are already preparing for our next trip to Haiti.
darkened streets. There was a political rally going on We have been in contact with Sister Martha by email
in one of the churches north of the hospital. I knew and have made plans to provide the financial resources
that Milot and Cap Hatien had supported President to buy suction devices and IV poles. These financial
Aristide during both of his terms and briefly wondered resources are a result of donations to the Camillus
about how those at the rally felt about the role of the Society at the Newman Center at the University of
United States in Aristide’s most recent departure.
Vermont. In the future, it is our intention to take nursAlmost before we knew it, the week was over and we ing students, medical students, and surgical residents
were preparing to return. The trip to the aiport was with us to Haiti. The trip will provide them with an
shorter than expected and we had time to walk around opportunity to not only participate in the care of
in Cap Hatien. There we visited with some soldiers patients in the developing world, but also will provide
from Argentina who are part of the peacekeeping force them with an opportunity for service that is both gratin Haiti. We also walked by the UN compound where ifying and fulfilling.
PHOTO COURTESY OF STEVEN SHACKFORD, M . D.
S U M M E R
2005
11
medicine
in the line
of
fire
For some College of Medicine doctors, following the dictum of
“first, do no harm” has meant putting themselves in harm’s way.
f
or one doctor, it was the sound of “something like gravel” hitting the roof of his
armored Humvee in downtown Baghdad. For another, it was the feeling of five
medics throwing themselves on top of him to protect the only actual M.D. in their company
from a mortar attack somewhere in Iraq’s “Sunni Triangle.” For these physicians, and many
of the other alumni and faculty of the College of Medicine who have served in the armed
forces in time of war, these were moments when their profession acquired a new, frightening,
but necessary dimension, when the word “rounds” suddenly took on an alternate definition,
when healing injured and sick combatants and civilians meant putting their own lives on the
line, as soldiers by their nature are expected to do.
by edward
12
neuert
PHOTO BY AP PHOTO / JOHN MOORE
13
In the past century, College of Medicine physicians
have served in every theatre of war the United States
has entered. World War II saw many young graduates of the College join the Medical Corps. Some of
these just barely missed being called back to action
and joining their slightly younger fellow alumni in
the field when the Korean War began in 1950. Later,
alumni such as the late David Austin, M.D.’60
(whose obituary appears on page 42) served through
the Vietnam Era. Classes of the 1980s produced
graduates such as George Wrightman, M.D.’82,
who attained the rank of Brigadier General in the
U.S. Army in 2002, and others like Vito Imbasciani,
M.D.’85, who has treated soldiers and civilians in
both the Gulf War and the Iraq War. Sometimes the
wars these physicians have served in have been popularly supported, and sometimes they have been the
cause of great division in the sentiments of the
American people. But whatever the direction of popular opinion, “war by its very nature produces
14
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
wounded,” says Imbasciani. “And doctors need to be
there to treat them.”
The current conflict in Iraq, and the increased
role of reserve and National Guard members, has
meant that the community of Vermont’s academic
health center has been affected on a level not seen
in years. Not only alumni, but also faculty and staff
members have been called to active duty in the
Middle East.
5
On a sunny Friday morning this May, three old
friends, retired physicians, played a morning’s
round of golf at the Burlington Country Club. As
they worked their way across the links, they could
talk of many shared experiences — they’d been part
of the same community of doctors in the Burlington
area for more than sixty years as practitioners and
teachers; and they shared similar beginnings to their
careers. The youngest of the three, H. Gordon
PHOTOS COURTESY OF GINO TREVISANI , M . D. ’91
Page, M.D.’45, was just finishing his residency in
surgery at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington,
D.C., when the Korean War began. Page was swiftly activated, and within a short time was established
at a military hospital in Osaka, Japan, where he
would stay for the next year. “We were a large general hospital,” he says. “When there was a major
offensive going on, we’d work 24 hours on, then
have 24 hours off. We’d have eight or nine operating rooms going constantly.” Page notes that other
surgery colleagues including John Davis, M.D., and
David Pilcher, M.D., served notable tours of duty in
Korea and Vietnam, respectively.
Gino Dente, M.D.’41, had barely begun his
internship when World War II broke out. He soon
joined the medical corps of the 24th Infantry
brigade, and was sent off to Australia in 1942. For
the next three years, as Allied forces battled their
way island by island northward toward Japan, Dente
and his fellow medical corpsmen moved with them,
Above: Gino Trevisani, M.D.’91 in surgery in Afghanistan.
Left: Trevisani’s camp near the Pakistan border.
tending to the wounded just a few miles behind the
front lines. In 1945 he returned to Burlington to
finish his residency in anesthesiology and begin his
career as a practitioner and teacher.
The oldest member of the golfing party, Platt
Powell, M.D.’39, was halfway through his residency
in Burlington, married, and the father of two young
daughters, when news of the attack on Pearl Harbor
came over the family radio that Sunday afternoon in
December of 1941. “I must have sat there listening
to the bulletins all the rest of the day,” he recalls. “I’d
been in the reserves since 1936, and I knew this
meant life had changed.” A few months later Powell
was on board the liner Queen Elizabeth, which had
been outfitted as a troop ship, and within a week he
was in a medical encampment of 20 corrugated steel
huts in the East Anglia countryside in southeastern
S U M M E R
2005
15
England. The location was directly below the path
German planes took on their way to bomb London,
and Powell recalls more than one close call. “I came
out of a surgical hut one day, and saw a
Messerschmitt dive down toward us. I thought, my
gosh, he’s going to drop a bomb right on me! But he
was chased away by a fighter.” Powell came home on
the Queen Elizabeth in the summer of 1945, and
practiced urology in Burlington for many years.
5
Six decades later, in the wake of the attacks of
September 11, 2001, another generation of physicians was on the move. In July of 2003, Gino
Trevisani, M.D.’91, was called to active duty and
made commander of a 20-person army reserve
surgical unit from his hometown of Utica, N.Y.
Just three days before leaving for Afghanistan,
Trevisani’s wife gave birth prematurely to their
fourth child. Despite his family’s emergency, the
doctor and his unit were ordered to depart for the
active front on Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan.
16
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Above: Vito Imbasciani, M.D.’85, outside an Iraqi clinic.
Right: Dr. Imbasciani in surgery.
Trevisani’s unit served equal numbers of soldiers
and civilians. They treated brain injuries, gunshot
wounds, amputations, and a host of other conditions. Trevisani secured humanitarian funds to help
a local doctor at an old Taliban military hospital in
a nearby village get supplies, a generator, fuel, and
fresh water, and medicines. He also provided regular surgical training for the doctor and his nursing
staff. “When my unit left, we felt good,” says
Trevisani, who is back at his Fletcher Allen surgical
practice (and whose son is now a healthy toddler).
“We’d provided the local doctor and community
with good health care, training, and information.”
5
The war in Iraq has seen many College of Medicine
alumni, faculty, and staff mobilized. One of these is
Frederick Burkle, M.D.’65, who served in both the
Vietnam and Gulf wars and has more than two
PHOTOS COURTESY OF VITO IMBASCIANI , M . D. ’85
decades’ experience working in disaster
management and humanitarian assistance
(he is currently director of the AsiaPacific branch and senior scholar at the
Center for International Emergency,
Disaster and Refugee Studies at Johns
Hopkins). Within days of the start of the
conflict, Burkle was on the ground
in Baghdad as the senior medical officer
for the U.S. Agency for International
Development’s
Disaster
Assistance
Response Team, and served as the
Interim Minister of Health in Iraq. In
“Anatomy of an Ambush,” an article he
published in the Journal of Disaster Studies,
Policy and Management, he recounts a
tense meeting in Baghdad after which,
with a sound like scattered pebbles hitting
the plating of his Humvee, his convoy
came under insurgent fire. It was the first
of several assassination attempts Burkle
would survive in Iraq. (He receives the
Medical Alumni Association’s Award for
Service to Medicine and Community at
this year’s medical reunion.)
For Vito Imbasciani, M.D.’85, family
tradition helped guide him into the
reserves. “After I finished med school, my
father, who had been a reservist for 35 years, suggested I join,” he says. “He said if I joined early I’d probably never get called up, and I’d build rank.” The senior Imbasciani was halfway correct: his son is now a
Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. But he
has been called up in both the Gulf War, when he
served in a field hospital in Kuwait, and in the Iraq
War, where he left his Los Angeles surgery/urology
practice for assignment to an armored battalion stationed in several areas in the so-called “Sunni
Triangle” north of Baghdad. He has recounted his
time in Iraq in a series of short dispatches titled “The
Baghdad Diaries” that appear on his web site
(www.yovito.com).
“The Baghdad Diaries” trace Imbasciani’s experiences from his unit’s arrival on the ground in June
2004 after a gut-churning “tactical landing,” a steep
diversionary descent meant to deter antiaircraft fire,
through three months of providing medical care to
soldiers injured by insurgent rounds, and civilians
caught in the crossfire. Imbasciani’s most personally harrowing moment came during a nighttime
mortar attack on his compound, when several of the
medics who worked under his command did what
they were trained to do — they protected a vital
resource by throwing themselves on top of the only
highly-trained surgeon in the camp.
Like Trevisani in Afghanistan, Imbasciani feels
he was able in some way to mitigate the effects of
war on the surrounding populace through his care.
But he is loathe to overstate this effect. “Because we
couldn’t tell the friendly patients from the hostile,
we had to be armed at all times. And let’s face it, that
is a very, very unfortunate way to begin the doctorpatient relationship,” he says.
“The Baghdad Diaries” will likely have a sequel
online: Imbasciani has recently received word that
he will be returning to Iraq this summer. “There are
only 520 doctors in the entire National Guard, and
they have all gone once by now, so redeployment
was inevitable,” he says. “And there’ll probably be
more deployments in the future. Look, we’re soldiers first, and when a soldier’s told there’s a job to
VM
do somewhere, you go there and you do it.”
S U M M E R
2005
17
f
rom the moment a doctor walks into an exam room she has,
VCHIP participant Laura
Bellstrom, M.D.’89, clinical
assistant professor of pediatrics,
and a young patient at the
Fairfield (Vt.) Family Center.
on average, about ten minutes to work magic. Ten minutes to put a sick
patient on the path to wellness. Ten minutes doesn’t leave much time for anything
besides a flick of the stethoscope and peek at a chart. Certainly not enough for a sermon on healthy eating, an immunization check, or a screen for substance abuse. Such
preventive measures are a pie-in-the-sky dream for most doctors — they want to provide them, but lack of time and a systemized approach leave them with their hands tied.
“Quality-improvement people like to say the gap between what we don’t know and
what we know in healthcare is smaller than the gap between what we know and what
we actually do,” said Mort Wasserman, M.D., M.P.H., Professor of Pediatrics and one
of the founders of the Vermont Child Health Improvement Program (VCHIP). “We
Qua lity
know what we need to do. The system is just not set up to deliver it.”
a system of
The Vermont Child Health Improvement Program has become a national model for bringing academicians and pediatric practitioners together to improve children’s health care.
by rachael
moeller gorman
photography by natalie
18
stultz
19
In the early 1990s, Vermont began thinking seriously about how to fix this frustrating problem.
UVM College of Medicine physicians Wasserman,
Jeffrey Horbar, and Paula Duncan were working on
national projects to improve health care for children, and the Vermont Department of Health was
creating a single schedule of preventive standards
for Medicaid children, and then all children. But it
wasn’t until 1999 that anything substantial happened. That year, a California-based philanthropic
group called the Packard Foundation decided that
instead of giving money to a smattering of small
quality-improvement programs all over the country
as they usually did, they wanted something bigger.
That something became the National Initiative for
Children’s Health Care Quality (NICHQ), created
to improve children's health care across the country
by applying a program called the Breakthrough
Series (created by the Boston-based Institute for
Healthcare Improvement (IHI)) to pediatric practices. NICHQ began working on pilot programs in
North Carolina, but soon decided they wanted to
take their work to a grander scale — an entire state.
Very few states were small enough for such a
comprehensive program. Even fewer had the right
people already in place, a list of preventive standards ready to be implemented, and a strong spirit
of cooperation. Vermont did.
“We were ripe for something like this,” said
Wasserman. “Here, we had the integration of public health functions into the personal health care
system. We also have strong leadership from within
the Academy of Pediatrics and Academy of Family
Physicians Chapters — they pushed this idea.”
NICHQ’s original plan for Vermont included
only the Preventive Services Initiative to optimize
health care for children. The Vermonters had a bigger vision: Creating an entirely new program to
solve a broader range of children’s health care
issues. But they needed a strong, visionary leader to
achieve that goal. They found that mixture in Judith
Shaw, R.N., M.P.H., a veteran of Children’s
Hospital Boston. In January 2000, Shaw founded
the Vermont Child Health Improvement Program
(VCHIP).
5
The Breakthrough Series model is the frame on
which VCHIP hangs its efforts. It focuses not just
on education or a single chart audit, but on meas-
20
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
urement, goal-setting, collaborative learning,
action, and a final compilation of results.
“What we do is different — we go beyond chart
audits. We show them how they’re doing and how
they compare to other practices,” said Shaw. “Then
we work with them intensely to help improve their
system of care.”
VCHIP’s first project, the Vermont Preventive
Services Initiative (VPSI), set out their first year to
improve the preventive services of ten pediatric
practices. They soon discovered that the project was
far more popular than they had anticipated: 32 of
the 35 pediatric practices in the state wanted to join.
Soon, family practices were asking to be involved.
To accommodate them, VCHIP looked to the
Vermont Department of Health and Medicaid, who
provided additional funding.
VCHIP audited each practice’s charts to get a
baseline measurement of preventive services. They
looked at nine areas: immunizations, tuberculosis
risk assessment and screening, anemia risk assessment and screening, tobacco risk exposure, sleep
position risk identification and dental screening by
two years, blood pressure, dental and vision screening by four years, and lead screening. Based on how
well (or not well) they were doing, the practice
picked anywhere from one to all nine preventative
service areas to improve.
Then the Learning Sessions began. A Learning
Session consists of teams of physicians, nurses, and
administrative staff from all the different practices
coming together for an entire day. During that day,
they focused intensely on their problem areas, guided by VCHIP trained facilitators, and shared their
own solutions to problems.
“Everyone was encouraged to think critically
about how to improve, and they were quite creative,” said Shaw. “One practice recognized that
their lead screening rates were really low, and when
they went back to try to figure out why, they found
out that the families had to travel all the way to
Fletcher Allen to get their lead tests done. The families left the office and never did it. So the practice
implemented a system of finger sticks in their office
— their rates shot up.”
Three Learning Sessions occurred at four-month
intervals and, in between, VCHIP and the practice
communicated via regular conference calls. Then
came the final audit.
“The practices that chose an area as a goal versus
Judith Shaw, R.N., M.P.H., director of the Vermont
Child Health Improvement Program and the architect
of its success.
those who didn’t typically improved significantly in
that particular area,” said Shaw. “So what it tells you
is that education alone doesn’t make a difference. It
is the participation in the collaborative, focusing on
the goal, and taking a systematic approach to
improvement that really makes the difference.”
Laura Bellstrom, M.D. ’89, a pediatrician at
Franklin County Pediatrics who participated in the
program, agrees. “I think that looking at areas where
we are falling short was very helpful,” she said.
“VCHIP is an important program in Vermont.”
5
While working on the Preventive Services
Initiative, researchers realized that many of the
issues children were facing had their roots much
earlier — all the way back to the birthing center.
VCHIP decided to take their work to the hospitals.
All twelve Vermont birthing centers, including
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New
Hampshire, agreed to participate in the Vermont
Hospital Preventive Services Initiative (VHPSI).
Using the same approch, VCHIP worked with newborn nursery staff and focused this time on immunizations, nutrition, metabolic screening, hearing,
sleep position, smoke exposure, car seat safety, and
domestic violence, hyperbilirubinemia (characterized by jaundice), and discharge planning and follow-up. Again, VCHIP found that when a group
focused on a particular area identified during the
Learning Sessions, they improved.
“When we did these Learning Sessions, we mirror the standard nursing work day and we plan well
ahead — nobody can come with beepers, no
phones, we sequester the teams,” said Chuck
Mercier, M.D., associate professor of neonatology
and the faculty lead on VHPSI. “The opportunity
to work together to problem-solve — to see how
different approaches can be addressed within their
birthing centers — is probably the key experience
that a lot of the groups appreciated. And it showed
in their results.”
The program formed the basis for a new nationwide program run by NICHQ called Great
Beginnings, a series of webcasts for 70 hospital
teams all over the country. The program includes
S U M M E R
2005
21
listservs and chat rooms for both participants and
the experts. Mercier is the lead faculty for that program as well.
5
Because of Rule 10 — the Vermont regulation that
compels insurance companies to, among other
things, undertake quality improvement projects —
insurance companies such as Blue Cross Blue
Shield, the Vermont Health Plan, MVP, and
Medicaid soon came to VCHIP with a proposition
for improving the healthcare of older children.
“They decided it would be interesting if we all
worked on something together, rather than individually,” said Paula Duncan, M.D., clinical professor
of adolescent medicine and director of this project.
“We could come to a practice and tell them that all
of us have collaborated and found that this is the
best thing to do for kids eight to eighteen in terms
of health care.”
This time, the practices focused on physical
activity, nutrition, sex, drugs, safety, and mental
health.
Peggy Carey, M.D.’92, participated in a VCHIP project
at Milton Family Practice.
“These six behaviors account for the major causes of death and disease in adolescents — shouldn’t
kids be asked about them every time they come in
for a checkup?” said Duncan. “We put a sticker on
the chart that has these six words on it with a check
box next to it. We also focused specifically on substance abuse — the worst of the six problems in
Vermont.” VCHIP then set up an extensive referral
system for kids to get help if they did show signs of
a problem. Practices made great strides once the
system was in place.
“Here in Milton, we’ve been able to establish
some really good connections with counselors and
substance abuse people,” said Assistant Professor of
Famly Medicine Peggy Carey, M.D.’92, at the
Milton (Vt.) Family Practice, who worked on the
project.
VCHIP focused on protective factors. “If you
only have a few precious minutes to talk with
a young patient during a visit, wouldn’t it be
good to talk to them about building up their
strengths?” said Duncan. Strengths included
extracurricular activities, volunteering, good
grades, and talking often with their parents.
“Physicians thought that it really helped them
establish a sense of trust with kids, and, to tell you
the truth, kids and their parents love to hear
about all the things that are going right.”
5
The next issue VCHIP addressed was reducing the
risk of infant mortality. Shaw was awarded a grant
from the national March of Dimes to apply this
model to ten obstetric practices across the state.
“Preterm delivery is responsible for 70-75 percent of all morbidity and mortality in otherwise normal babies that we see,” said Peter Cherouny, M.D.,
associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and
lead faculty for the project. “And while we’ve looked
at many single elements to try to reduce the risk of
preterm delivery, they have been unsuccessful. We
thought that a global process improvement may
make a difference.” With help from experts in each
field, Cherouny and his associates decided to standardize the list of screens and how they should be
performed. They focused on diabetic screening,
nutritional counseling, smoking cessation, infectious
diseases, psychosocial/behavioral screening, genetic
and preterm risk assessment, and counseling. The
project is still in progress, but for the issues already
addressed, performance has improved dramatically.
The practices also came up with a few innovative
ways to address these issues.
“Domestic violence screening was very innovative
in many of the different practices, since the woman’s
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V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Peter Cherouny, M.D., has worked with VCHIP to
reduce the risk of preterm delivery.
significant other was often in the room,” said
Cherouny. “The Dartmouth group is using a information sheet that they are getting to the patient in the
bathroom when she is providing her urine sample.”
5
Just recently, Shaw learned that VCHIP has
received a Commonwealth Fund grant that will
allow her to package the VCHIP model so other
states can learn from Vermont’s experience.
“I get calls weekly from people around the country wanting to learn from us. The Commonwealth
Fund grant is going to allow us to describe in a
guide or toolkit how VCHIP operates,” said Shaw.
“We’ll take the VCHIP model of starting small,
working in partnership with public health and pediatricians, family practices, hospitals, and community organizations to improve the quality of children’s
health care.” Shaw is currently helping New Mexico
and Utah start their own versions of VCHIP.
“Oftentimes people in academia do their own
research in isolation of what’s going on around
them, but I think what we’ve done with VCHIP is
to connect the academicians, public health and the
healthcare providers together with a single goal —
improving the system so that all the children in
VM
Vermont get the best health care possible.”
S U M M E R
2005
23
Researcher Paul Newhouse, M.D.,
the
traces the good effects of a classically “bad” substance.
Chemistry
of
cognition
by jeffery
lindholm
For much of his career in medical research,
Paul A. Newhouse, M.D., has been studying the benefits of nicotine. The
very notion of nicotine having a “good” side may seem strange to many people. Nicotine, especially as it is present in tobacco products, is associated with
health risks, including cancer and emphysema. But researchers such as
Newhouse are increasingly showing benefits of specific doses and delivery of
nicotine in treating Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, depression, Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders, attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Tourette’s syndrome, and more.
People who suffer from these conditions seem to have instinctively realized nicotine’s beneficial effects. For instance, almost 90 percent of people
with schizophrenia smoke, three times more than in the general population.
Teenagers with ADHD are much more likely to smoke than are normal
teens. Newhouse suggests that both these groups of people are self-medicating — reaping the beneficial effects of nicotine, which really can help
people calm down and focus their thoughts.
“We’re increasingly knowledgeable about brain circuits involved in
attention, in provoking and maintaining reception,” says Newhouse, professor of psychiatry and director of the UVM Clinical Neuroscience
Research Unit. “We think that the nicotinic receptors are not the attention
system itself, but they can modulate the activity of that system.”
photography by andy
duback
25
Tracking other brain functions
Dr. Paul Newhouse’s work at the College of
Medicine into possible therapeutic benefits of nicotine has attracted national attention and funding.
Newhouse, professor of psychiatry and director of
UVM's Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit, is
working with other UVM scientists on a variety of
current projects.
ATTENTION DEFICIT
HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER
NICOTINE AND CHOLINERGIC RECEPTORS
Chemically, nicotine binds with receptors located
on the surface of neurons in the brain. These receptors, which modulate neuronal transmission, are
designed to bind with the naturally occurring neurotransmitter acetylcholine, but they will also
accept other substances, including nicotine. Similar
cholinergic receptors exist throughout the body,
controlling a variety of functions from sweating to
sexual activity. However, they play an especially
important role in the brain, where they have an
effect on learning, memory, and emotion.
Acetylcholine was one of the first neurotransmitters isolated and identified, but it does not lend
itself well to research. “It turns out that the transmitter is inactivated rather quickly so it’s been technically difficult to study,” says Newhouse. “It’s only
in the last fifteen, maybe twenty years, that a lot of
molecular and electrophysiological advances have
been made in understanding how these cholinergic
receptors work.”
In the late 1970s, the cholinergic system was
identified as one of the key systems lost due to
Alzheimer’s disease. Newhouse’s specific interest in
the system was also developing at the same time,
during his ten years as a U.S. Army psychiatrist.
26
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Newhouse and postdoctoral researcher Julie Dumas,
Ph.D., in the MRI lab at Fletcher Allen Health Care.
During a residency in psychiatry in Washington,
D.C., in the late 1970s, he worked on pharmacologic studies regarding the cholinergic system’s role
in movement, which sparked the interest that continues today. Soon after, he did a stint in a basic neuropharmacology laboratory at the Walter Reed
Institute for Research, studying how cholinergic
activation affected basic second-messenger systems
in cells. He returned to human research at the
National Institutes of Health and continued this
work when he came to UVM in 1988.
“By the late 80s we were fully into trying to
understand the cholinergic nature of cognitive
function,” say Newhouse. “We knew there was a
cholinergic story in Alzheimer’s disease. Those of us
who were interested in trying to explore this and
understand it were trying to think of ways to probe
the activity of the cholinergic system in humans.
The best way to do that at the time was to use
drugs.” For instance, if it is known that a certain
drug blocks nicotinic receptors and the drug affects
learning, memory, or motor skills, a researcher
might be able to conclude that nicotinic receptors
Newhouse and postdoctoral associate Alexia
Potter, Ph.D., are working to better understand the
effects of nicotinic stimulation on attention, motor
performance and delay aversion in adolescents
and young adults with attention deficit hyperactive
disorder.
One major aspect of the study is behavioral inhibition — the ability to stop a motor action once it
has started. People with ADHD are known to be very
impulsive and usually do not respond to cues such
as stern looks or verbal warnings. Results show that
nicotine seems to correct this deficit, as does the
drug Ritalin. However, while Ritalin speeds up stopping responses, it also speeds up other responses;
nicotine appears to have a more specific effect on
the deficit.
Other trials by Potter and Newhouse have shown
nicotine’s effectiveness in another core ADHD
deficit: delay aversion, which is a dislike for waiting.
Using a computer task in which subjects can collect
a small number of points quickly or a greater number through a longer process, subjects with nicotine
patches showed a greater ability or willingness to
wait for the greater reward than those not receiving
nicotine.
CHRONIC PAIN
Newhouse is interested in possible hormonal
manipulation to provide relief from chronic pain;
Magdelena Naylor, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor
of psychiatry, is working on behavioral manipulation to deal with pain. Together, they plan to use the
academic health center’s new functional MRI to
locate structures in the brain that are involved in
generating abnormal stress reactivity seen in both
chronic pain and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Together with Newhouse, Naylor has received a
grant from the National Institutes of Health to
study specific techniques to treat patients with
chronic pain to prevent relapse after they have
completed cognitive behavior group therapy.
Twenty patients will be enrolled in a pilot study.
Studies done at Harvard have shown exaggerated reactions of the amygdala, the part of the brain
that governs anxiety and fear, in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder — even when exposure to
stressful images is so quick they aren’t consciously
aware of the images. Naylor’s study will test
whether similar action is present in people with
chronic pain.
TAMOXIFEN AND COGNITION
Newhouse and post-doctoral associate Julie
Dumas, Ph.D., are focusing their efforts on the
effects of tamoxifen on cholinergic-induced
changes in cognition.
In some tissue systems, such as bone, tamoxifen
acts in a manner similar to estrogen and strengthens those systems. In others, such as breast tissue,
tamoxifen acts as an antiestrogen. “What we want
to address in our study,” says Dumas, “is what is it
doing in the brain — is it working like estrogen, for
which there’s some evidence that it improves cognition, or is it acting as antiestrogen, thereby blocking the benefits of estrogen and thereby causing
some impairment?’”
The study group will include 30 healthy postmenopausal women with no history of breast cancer. They receive tamoxifen or placebo for three
months, then undergo tests while taking a drug
that temporarily blocks cholinergic receptors for
memory and attention. “If we impair your memory
for two hours and you’ve taken estrogen, this
impairment should be less than if you haven’t taken
estrogen,” says Dumas. Newhouse and Dumas will
look at a wide range of cognition skills, including
spatial, verbal, and attention tasks as well as psychomotor speed.
S U M M E R
2005
27
are involved in the task of attention.
Newhouse has become known for trying to use
chemical and cognitive probes of the brain to help
discern the role certain chemical systems play in
cognition.
NICOTINE BENEFICIAL ?
So why, if nicotine has such a bad reputation, would
doctors want to use it as a treatment? The first and
strongest reason is because it works. The human
brain does not have receptors specifically designed
to accept nicotine. But, as Newhouse explains, “It
turns out that naturally occurring plant molecules
often have the same three-dimensional structures as
naturally occurring chemicals in our bodies.
Nicotine has a three-dimensional shape that somehow fits in cholinergic receptors, even though it’s
from a different source. The receptor doesn’t care
what comes along as long as it fits.”
NICOTINE AGONISTS
Synthetic drugs that mimic the effects of nicotine,
called nicotine agonists, might provide benefits
without nicotine-associated side effects such as
addiction and narrowing of blood vessels. They
Newhouse and research assistant Jessica Salerno
study participant Julia Bergerow’s reactions to tasks
on a computer model.
28
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
might also provide a more focused effect on specific receptor systems affected in different conditions.
For years, researchers have tested a variety of
novel nicotine-like molecules to see if they have
similar or better ways of activating the cholinergic
system without nicotine’s problems. In the late
1990s, Newhouse and his associates published the
first paper on the effect of a novel nicotine agonist
in humans, specifically, a small group with
Alzheimer’s disease. The condition is characterized
by the loss of both cholinergic neurons and nicotinic receptors in the basal forebrain. Compromise
of this system affects the regulation of cerebral
blood flow as well as cognitive performance.
Newhouse notes that, where Alzheimer’s disease
is concerned, a small effect on cognitive function is
a positive thing. “Even the best cholinergic drugs
now on the market produce quite small effects on
cognitive function,” he says. “No one pretends that
nicotine agonists are likely to produce a cure for this
disease, but I think they may form part of a therapeutic package.”
NICOTINE PATCHES
Of course, smoking is an extremely bad way to
attempt to trigger the benefits of nicotine. First and
foremost is the obvious cancer risk. Smoking also
delivers nicotine too quickly in the human body to
be lasting and beneficial.
the Newhouse file
Paul A. Newhouse, M.D.
Director, Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit
Professor, Department of Psychiatry
EDUCATION
B.S., 1974: Agriculture, magna cum laude, Kansas
State University
M.D., 1977: Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola
University
UVM PROFESSIONAL / CLINICAL POSITIONS
• 1994-Present: Director, Clinical Neuroscience
Research Unit, Department of Psychiatry,
University of Vermont College of Medicine
• 1993-Present: Research Director, Memory Center
of Vermont, Fletcher-Allen Health Care, University
of Vermont
• 1988-Present: Director, Geriatric Psychiatry
Service, Department of Psychiatry/ Fletcher-Allen
Health Care, University of Vermont College of
Medicine
PROFESSIONAL AND MILITARY EXPERIENCE
• 1977-1978: Categorical Intern, Loyola University
Medical Center, Maywood, Illinois
• 1978-1981: General Psychiatry Resident, Walter
Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C.
• 1981-1982: Division Psychiatrist, Third Infantry
Division, VII Corps, 7th U.S. Army, Schweinfurt,
West Germany
• 1982-1983: Chief, Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic,
Department of Psychiatry, 130th Station Hospital,
Heidelberg, West Germany
• 1983-1984: Chief, Community Mental Health and
Consultation Service, Assistant Chief, Department
of Psychiatry, 130th Station Hospital, Heidelberg,
West Germany
• 1984-1985: Medical Staff Fellow, Clinical
Neuropharmacology Section, Laboratory of Clinical
Science, National Institute of Mental Health,
Bethesda, Maryland
• 1985-1986: Research Ward Administrator, Clinical
Neuropharmacology Section, Laboratory of Clinical
Science, National Institutes of Mental Health,
Bethesda, MD. Executive Secretary, National
Institute of Mental Health Clinical Research
Review Board
POSTGRADUATE STUDIES
• 1977-1978: Categorical Psychiatry Internship,
Internal Medicine, Psychiatry, and Neurology,
Loyola University Medical Center
• 1978-1981: Psychiatry Residency, Walter Reed
Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C.
• 1980: Research Traineeship, Neuroendocrinology
and Neurochemistry Branch, Department of
Medical Neurosciences, Division of
Neuropsychiatry, Walter Reed Army Institute of
Research
• 1984-1986: Geriatric Psychopharmacology
Research Fellowship, Clinical Neuropharmacology
Section, Laboratory of Clinical Science, National
Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Md.
HONORS
• 2004: Excellence in Psychiatry Academic Teaching
Award, University of Vermont
• 2002: Profile of Courage Award, Assembly of the
American Psychiatric Association
• 2002: Exemplary Psychiatrist Award, National
Association for the Mentally Ill- Vermont (NAMI)
• 2000: Excellence in Psychiatry Teaching Award,
University of Vermont
• 1991: Army Achievement Medal, U.S. Army, for
Operation Desert Storm
• 1988: Meritorious Service Medal, U.S. Army
S U M M E R
2005
29
Nicotine patches, with their measured doses, are
one way to deliver the chemical. Studies done for
FDA approval and subsequent use of the patches
have shown that small doses of nicotine appear free
of major side effects and, very importantly, don’t
contribute to dependency.
Newhouse is now heading a multicenter study
looking at whether the use of transdermal nicotine
patches can improve attention and memory in people with mild cognitive impairment-a precursor of
Alzheimer’s disease. UVM is the lead center, working with Duke and Georgetown, a group in
England, and others. Newhouse also ran a pilot
study testing patches on fifteen patients with
Parkinson’s disease. This study suggested that nicotine could substantially improve movement and
relieve mental difficulties for such patients.
Newhouse and his colleagues recently published
a paper in the journal Pharmacology in which they
reported nicotinic stimulation directly improves a
type of inhibitional attentional failure in children
and young adults with ADHD. “This finding may
help answer several questions,” says Newhouse. “It
first contributes to the indirect question, why do
they smoke? It also gives us a clue to some of the
underlying neurobiological problems in this disorder, suggesting that this specific cognitive failure
that is so characteristic of ADHD seems to be modulated by nicotinic cholinergic receptors.” Studies
to understand further this aspect of ADHD continue. (See sidebar on page 27.)
FUNCTIONAL MRI
With Fletcher Allen Health Care’s new functional
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system,
Newhouse and his team are taking the next step,
beginning to locate the cholinergic systems associated with nicotine and estrogen receptors as the
chemical reactions happen, in real time. Other new
equipment has been added, including a new highfield magnet, and software to a medical MRI that
allows them to acquire 3-D, color, functional
images of brain activity. “At the end of the day it’ll
let us create brain slices incorporated with threedimensional reconstruction to see where the activity is occurring inside the brain during a particular
cognitive process,” says Newhouse. “We want to be
able to map out the circuitry.”
Newhouse has designed studies and applied for
funding to do this. “We’re also starting to look at
30
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
the cholinergic process related to the role estrogen
plays in cognition in postmenopausal women, and
we’re also going to be looking to how we can see if
nicotine may alter the processing of attentional
information in ADHD,” he says.
VIRTUAL REALITY
Newhouse and his associates are also interested in
exploring the basic mechanisms of cognitive performance that control spatial learning in children.
Newhouse embarked on this interest through the
work of Robert Astur, Ph.D., of the Olin Institute in
Hartford, Conn. Astur has a virtual reality lab in
which he’s designed environments that replicate a
standard task. A computer screen integrated into an
MRI apparatus allows subjects to maneuver through
the virtual environment while their brains are
scanned for cholinergic activity.
“Such a virtual reality system allows neuroscience
researchers to do work that we can’t do in a standard
laboratory,” says Newhouse. “We want to understand whether spatial navigation is affected by particular drugs and these receptors. The advent of
enhancement of pure technology and imaging allows
us to do a lot more with interrogating the brain in
terms of helping us understand the activity of these
chemical systems on cognitive performance.”
HALL A
P R E S I D E N T
C L A S S
’
S
C O R N E R
N O T E S
D E V E L O P M E N T
N E W S
O B I T U A R I E S
3
3
3
4
2
3
5
2
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.
LOOKING FORWARD
“I’m blessed to work with a wonderful group of colleagues,” says Newhouse. “It’s been very gratifying to
work with the students, post-docs and other faculty
members in this department and other departments,
as well as the General Clinical Research Center. With
the new MRI system, we have a great collaboration
with the Department of Radiology. They are allowing
us to graft onto their equipment. Also, we have great
cooperation with Fletcher Allen’s Information Services Division. It’s been a pleasure working with everyone to get this research off the ground.”
Newhouse maintains an enthusiasm for his work,
no matter where it leads him. “Our program is really quite broad-based in the sense that we span the
range from very focused human studies of normal
volunteers and trying to understand the cognitive
operations better to clinical trials looking at treatment of memory disorders,” says Newhouse. “One
of the fun things about this work is that we can ask
questions all the way from the most basic questions
VM
of human cognition to treatment.”
S U M M E R
2005
31
M.D. CLASS NOTES
PRESIDENT ’S CORNER
H A L L A
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT
COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
DEVELOPMENT &
ALUMNI RELATIONS OFFICE
ASSISTANT DEAN
rick blount
DEVELOPMENT OPERATIONS MANAGER
“The University of Vermont College of Medicine is like a
family where you can always find a friendly person who can
ginger lubkowitz
DIRECTOR , MAJOR GIFTS
manon o ’ connor
help you, or at least point you in the right direction at
DIRECTOR , MEDICAL ANNUAL GIVING
every turn during your journey through medical school.
DIRECTOR , MEDICAL ALUMNI RELATIONS
The faculty is not only academically and clinically outstanding, but also very
accessible, concerned with student learning, and open to student feedback.
Alumni involvement with the College not only means financial support. Alumni
also serve as mentors in the Doctoring in Vermont program, are intimately
involved with the future direction of the College, and serve as important
sarah keblin
“I’ve found that at UVM, I can continue with extra-curricular activities
that I am passionate about and through which I am able to give back to the
community.”
“Most of all, I have been thoroughly impressed by the truly supportive
nature of everyone at UVM COM — from the students, to the faculty, administration, and alumni.”
DEVELOPMENT OFFICER
erin douglas
ASSISTANTS
jane aspinall
lisa denton
elyzabeth massucci
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT
MEDICAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
ALUMNI EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
2004–2005
OFFICERS
TERMS )
( TWO -YEAR
PRESIDENT
charles b. howard, m.d. ’ 69
(2004-2006)
PRESIDENT- ELECT
The above represents a few excerpts from a recent letter written by a grateful student at our alma mater, a student who received financial aid thanks to the
alumni. Many students at the College of Medicine are in great financial need
and require significant, often crucial, financial assistance. The alumni have
marvin a. nierenberg, m.d. ’60
(2004-2006)
TREASURER
patricia fenn, m.d. ’65
(2004-2006)
SECRETARY
ruth a. seeler, m.d. ’62
become a source of this much needed assistance, first by becoming aware of the
(2004-2006)
need, and then by working with the administration toward a common goal of
john tampas, m.d. ’54
fulfilling that need to the best of our abilities. Perhaps the most important function of the alumni is to support the institution through which we, the alumni,
received our training. The single best way we can offer support is via continued
EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
( ONGOING )
MEMBERS - AT- LARGE
( SIX-YEAR TERMS )
james c. hebert, m.d. ’77
(2000-2006)
and increased financial aid to students; such vital support is best funneled
paul b. stanilonis, m.d. ’65
through the Medical Alumni Association.
carleton r. haines, m.d.’43
I am pleased to read the news reported in this issue that our College is
ranked in the Top Ten medical schools in the nation for primary care by U.S.
News and World Report. It’s wonderful to have the validation of that national
(2000-2006)
don p. chan, m.d. ’76
(2002-2008)
leslie s. kerzner, m.d. ’95
(2002-2008)
ranking; and it’s even more satisfying to know that our own students rank us so
high for the support we offer them on their road to becoming competent, car-
mark allegretta, ph.d. ’90
ing physicians. With the ongoing support of all of us alumni and friends, we’ll
mark pasanen, m.d.’92
(2004-2010)
naomi l. rice, m.d.’00
(2002-2008)
(2003-2009)
(2004-2010)
Charles Howard, M.D.’69
32
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
1946
John S. Poczabut
62 Doral Farm Road
Stamford, CT 06902
(203) 322-3343
J. Bishop McGill
152 Sanborn Road
Stowe, VT 05672
(802) 253-4081
[email protected]
1943
Francis Arnold Caccavo
(M.D. Dec. 1943)
51 Thibault Parkway
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-3841
h. james wallace iii, m.d. ’88
(2004-2010)
S. James Baum
1790 Fairfield Beach Road
Fairfield, CT 06430
(203) 255-1013
[email protected]
1944
1949
Wilton W. Covey
357 Weybridge Street
Middlebury, VT 05753
(802) 388-1555
James Arthur Bulen
P.O. Box 640339
Beverly Hills, FL 34464
(352) 746-4513
[email protected]
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
UPCOMING EVENTS
August 3
Simon Dorfman
8256 Nice Way
Sarasota, FL 34238
(941) 926-8126
Chuck Miller writes: “Mary
and I hope to attend the
55th 1950 class reunion in
the spring. We hope that
there is a good turnout!”
Joseph C. Foley
32 Fairmount Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-0040
[email protected]
Richard E. Pease
P.O. Box 14
Jericho, VT 05465
(802) 899-2543
Edward S. Sherwood
24 Worthley Road
Topsham, VT 05076
(802) 439-5816
[email protected]
Fourth Annual Peter A. Martin
Brain Aneurysm Golf Tournament
Champlain Country Club,
Saint Albans, Vt.
August 5
Medical Education
Center Preview,
UVM Campus
Brewster Davis Martin
Box 128
362 VT RT 110
Chelsea, VT 05038
(802) 685-4541
1948
1945
1950
George H. Bray
110 Brookside Road
New Britain, CT 06052
(860) 225-3302
Harry M. Rowe
(M.D. March 1943)
65 Main Street
P.O. Box 755
Wells River, VT 05081
(802) 757-2325
[email protected]
’ 0 5
’ 0 5
1952
Porter H. Dale
5 McKinley Street
Montpelier, VT 05602
(802) 229-9258
R E U N I O N
R E U N I O N
1947
Carleton R. Haines
(M.D. Dec. 1943)
88 Mountain View Road
Williston, VT 05495
(802) 878-3115
(2004-2006)
frederick mandell, m.d. ’64
continue to be there for them in the years ahead.
1941
kelli shonter
resources and models of how to successfully achieve a career in medicine and
maintain a strong commitment to the community.”
Class agents are listed at the beginning of each
year’s notes. If you have news to share, please
contact your class agent or the alumni office at
[email protected] or (802) 656-4014.
August 6
Madi’s Fund for Hydrocephalus
& Associated Neurosurgical
Research Annual Fundraiser
Summit Lodge, Killington, Vt.
September 17
1953
Academic Health Center
Grand Opening, Burlington, Vt.
Richard N. Fabricius
17 Fairview Road
Old Bennington, VT 05201
(802) 442-4224
[email protected]
September 21
An Evening in Celebration
of UVM, American Museum of
Natural History, New York, N.Y.
1954
October 8
John E. Mazuzan, Jr.
366 South Cove Road
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 864-5039
[email protected]
Burlington, Vt.
R E U N I O N
College of Medicine Family Day
For updates on events see:
www.med.uvm.edu/medalum
’ 0 5
1955
Stanley L. Burns
27 Colonial Square
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-6205
[email protected]
1956
Ira H. Gessner
1306 Northwest 31st Street
Gainesville, FL 32605
(352) 378-1820
[email protected]
Douglas Black writes:
“Still enjoying working
full-time. Also on city
council. Our office in
Concord, N.H., has mentored a record number of
Dartmouth medical students over the past 35
years and two of them are
now partners.”
S U M M E R
2005
33
M.D. CLASS NOTES
H A L L A
1957
1963
Larry Coletti
34 Gulliver Circle
Norwich, CT 06360
(860) 887-1450
[email protected]
John J. Murray
P.O. Box 607
Colchester, VT 05446
(802) 865-9390
[email protected]
1958
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]
’ 0 5
1960
Marvin A. Nierenberg
6 West 77th Street
New York, NY 10024
(212) 874-6484
[email protected]
Melvyn H. Wolk
Clinton Street
P.O. Box 772
Waverly, PA 18471
(570) 563-2215
[email protected]
1961
Wilfrid L. Fortin
17 Chapman Street
Nashua, NH 03060
(603) 882-6202
[email protected]
1962
Ruth Andrea Seeler
2431 North Orchard
Chicago, IL 60614
(773) 472-3432
34
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
1964
Anthony P. Belmont
211 Youngs Point Road
Wiscasset, ME 04578
(207) 882-6228
[email protected]
1959
R E U N I O N
H. Alan Walker
229 Champlain Drive
Plattsburgh, NY 12901
(518) 561-8991
[email protected]
Tony Belmont reports:
“Daughter Katie, age 33,
to be married at Sebasco
Estates in Maine over
Labor Day weekend. Katie
is our youngest child and
the last one to be married.
Linda and I are looking
forward to this final trip of
the “gravy train”! We continue to enjoy life in
Maine.”
R E U N I O N
’ 0 5
1965
George A. Little
97 Quechee Road
Hartland, VT 05048
(802) 436-2138
george.a.little@
dartmouth.edu
Joseph H. Vargas, III
574 US RT 4 East
Rutland Town, VT 05701
(802) 775-4671
[email protected]
Fred Lippert retired
September 1, 2004 from
the Navy after 23 years of
service. He previously
spent twenty years in the
Department of Ortho-
paedics at the University
of Washington. Dr.
Lippert has “no plans for
part-time practice due to
malpractice costs.” Sharon
Hostler tell us she is currently the McLemore
Birdsong Professor of
Pediatrics and Senior
Associate Dean for Faculty
Development at the
University of Virginia
School of Medicine. Steve
Stetson reports: “I moved
to Atlanta, Ga. to direct a
refractive surgery laser
center. Am also busy
building a comprehensive
ophthalmology practice.
Living just minutes from
friend Ian Greenwald,
M.D.’99. Cheers!”
1966
Robert George Sellig
31 Overlook Drive
Queensbury, NY 12804
(518) 793-7914
[email protected]
G. Millard Simmons
2101 Calusa Lakes Blvd.
Nokomis, FL 34275
(941) 484-6418
[email protected]
Chester Boulris writes: “I
am medically retired due
to a heart attack and massive stroke following
bypass surgery in August
2001.”
1967
John F. Dick, II
P.O. Box 60
Salisbury, VT 05769
(802) 352-6625
Albert Lorbati is a psychiatrist at the Windham
Center for Psychiatric
Care in Bellows Falls, Vt.
His wife, Louise, volun-
teers at the Springfield
Family Center. Ursel
Danielson “just returned
from California where I
babysat my three grandchildren (ages 16, 14, 9)
for two weeks. Am so
happy to be able to do that
now since I am retired.
Am grateful to have leisure
time and can recommend
retirement highly!”
1968
David Jay Keller
4 Deer Run
Mendon, VT 05701
(802) 773-2620
[email protected]
SUPPORTING A REVITALIZED CURRICULUM AND CAMPUS
This fall, the College of Medicine and Fletcher Allen Health Care will be physically linked as never before, when
construction of the Medical Education Center and the Ambulatory Care Center is completed. In the Medical
Education Center, a new medical library will serve students, faculty, residents, staff, and the community, while
two floors of classrooms in the Medical Education Pavilion will support large and small group learning with
facilities that are wired for the latest in educational technology.
Alumni and friends of the College who have supported the Dean’s Strategic Initiatives Fund will be recognized with Pavilion classrooms named in their honor.
“Together, these families, individuals, and groups serve as a great illustration of the ‘culture of giving back’
that is so alive at our institution,” said Dean John Evans. Besides the gift from the late Eva R. Sargent M.D.’35
and her family noted in the last issue of this magazine, these groups and individuals will also be honored:
THE FITZGERALD FAMILY
Timothy John Terrien
14 Deerfield Road
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 862-8395
1969
Charles B. Howard
256 Bridgepoint Road
Belle Mead, NJ 08502
(908) 359-6161
[email protected]
Susan Pitman Lowenthal
75 Blue Swamp Road
Litchfield, CT 06759
(860) 597-8996
susan_w_pitmanlowen
[email protected]
R E U N I O N
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
’ 0 5
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]
This family of alumni has connections to the College
and the University that go back more than five
decades. John R. Fitzgerald, M.D. earned his medical
degree from the College in 1955, and was for many
years chair of the Department of Medicine at Fletcher
Allen Health Care. He is a retired clinical assistant professor of internal medicine at the College. Mrs.
Fitzgerald and all of their seven children held UVM
degrees, two from the College. John M. Fitzgerald,
M.D., is a member of the Class of 1975. He practices cardiology in Colchester, Vt., and is a clinical assistant
professor of medicine at the College. Joseph R.
Fitzgerald, M.D., received his medical degree from the
College in 1988. He is an anesthesiologist at Fletcher
Allen Health Care and an assistant professor of anesthesiology at the College.
THE HAINES FAMILY
Another family of Vermont doctors with deep roots in
the College of Medicine, the Haines family has been
intimately involved with the school since the early
1940s. Carleton Haines, M.D.’43 is an emeritus associate professor of surgery at the College, and has served
the Medical Alumni Association (MAA) for many years.
He currently volunteers his time as a member-at-large
of the MAA Alumni Executive Committee (AEC). Gerald
Haines, M.D., Carleton’s brother, is a member of the
College’s Class of 1944, and is a retired executive director of the Neurological Society of the state of New
York. Stephen Haines, M.D.’75, son of Gerald, is the Lyle
A. French Chair and head of the Department of
Neurosurgery at the University of Minnesota Medical
School. Carleton’s son Peter Haines, M.D.’79, is an asso-
ciate professor at the Center for Plastic Surgery in
Columbia, South Carolina.
WILLIAM PENDLEBURY, M.D.,’76
AND MARY CUSHMAN , M . D. ’89
The Pendlebury/Cushman room recognizes the family
of two noted local physicians and College faculty
members. William Pendlebury, M.D.’76 is a professor of
medicine, neurology, and pathology and has been a
faculty member since 1979. Mary Cushman, M.D.'89
joined the faculty in 1992 and is an associate professor
of medicine.
PATRICIA FENN , M . D. ’65
Dr. Fenn has been an enthusiastic supporter of her
medical alma mater for years, and currently serves as
treasurer of the Alumni Executive Committee of the
MAA. She receives the A. Bradley Soule Award at this
year's medical reunion for her career-long dedication
to the school. Dr. Fenn is a rheumatologist/internist in
Bryn Mawr, Pa.
JAMIE JACOBS , M . D. ’65
Now in his fortieth reunion year, Dr. Jacobs recently
retired from practice as a cardiologist in the
Lexington, Kentucky area. He has for many years been
a faculty member of the University of Kentucky
College of Medicine.
SHERATON BURLINGTON HOTEL
& CONFERENCE CENTER
For four decades one of northern Vermont’s premier
meeting and lodging places — and the site of countless
medical seminars and conferences — the Sheraton
recognizes its commitment to supporting the work of
the College through new educational space.
S U M M E R
2005
35
M.D. CLASS NOTES
H A L L A
2005
ALUMNI RECOGNITION AWARDS
For nearly 40 years, the College’s Medical Alumni Association (MAA) has recognized the achievements of its members with a series of awards. The first, the Distinguished Service Award, was instituted in 1966; in 1984 this honor
was renamed the Distinguished Academic Achievement Award. The second honor, established in 1973, was the
Physician Alumnus of the Year Award, which was renamed the Award for Service to Medicine and Community in
1984. In 1983, the MAA instituted the A. Bradley Soule Award to honor exceptional loyalty and dedication to the
College, much like those qualities shown throughout his life by Dr. Soule, a graduate of the Class of 1928 and a
faculty member for decades. The newest recognition, the Recent Alumni Award, was established in 2000 to honor
service, scientific or academic achievement of alumni in the first fifteen years of their careers. The 2005 award
recipients receive their honors at a ceremony during Reunion 2005 in June. Current and past recipients are
recognized on the College’s awards display in the Given building.
A . BRADLEY SOULE AWARD
Patricia A. Fenn,
M.D.’65
For her outstanding loyalty and dedication to
the College of Medicine,
service on the Medical
Alumni Executive Committee since 1997 and previous tenure on the Medical Planned
Giving Committee; for her tireless
dedication to generations of
patients in her Pennsylvania community; and for her generous support of the University of Vermont, as
a Wilbur Society member, consistent annual donor, and for establishing the Patricia A. Fenn, M.D.’65
Medical Scholarship Fund.
RECENT ALUMNI AWARD
Allyson Miller Bolduc,
M.D.’95
For her dedication to the
College of Medicine, service on
the Curriculum Task Force and
as a Class Agent for the Class of
1995; for her excellence in
teaching residents in the
College’s family medicine program, as well as the compassionate care she gives her
patients; and for her active
role as a volunteer and board
36
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
member at the Lund Family Center.
Christopher D.
Pilcher, M.D.’90
For excellence in
research focusing on
the diagnosis and
treatment of acute
and chronic HIV infection, including the
development of novel strategies for
case identification and characterization of the relationships between
sexual transmission, HIV disease
stage, and viral burden in infectious
body fluids, efforts which have
earned Dr. Pilcher such honors as
the Research Career Development
Award (K23) from the NIH and the
UNC Center for AIDS Research
Developmental Award.
AWARD FOR DISTINGUISHED
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Patrick M. Catalano, M.D.’75
For his impressive research focusing
on women with diabetes in pregnancy, for his attainment of international recognition as an expert in
the area of maternal
metabolic adaptations
during pregnancy; for
authoring
nineteen
book chapters and
editorials, publishing
over 90 articles in peer-review journals, and having several hundred
abstracts and presentations to his
credit; and for leadership as chair of
the American Diabetes Association’s Pregnancy and Women’s
Health Council and as a NIH grant
reviewer, as well as being an editorial board member for two professional journals and a reviewer for
numerous scientific journals.
AWARD FOR SERVICE TO MEDICINE
AND COMMUNITY
Frederick M. Burkle, M.D’65
For his extraordinary work in disaster management and
humanitarian assistance, including consulting on numerous
emergencies throughout the world including in Asia, Africa, and
Eastern Europe and
serving as an International Health
Delegate to the Red Cross, activities
which have earned Dr. Burkle such
recognition as the Gorgas Medal
and the Humanitarian Award from
the International Federation of
Emergency Medicine; and for his
exemplary military service, completing combat tours in the Vietnam
and Persian Gulf Wars and, in recent
years, serving as the senior medical officer in
Iraq on the Disaster Assistance Response Team
for the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance,
USAID, and as the interim minister of health in
Iraq.
Marshall Forstein, M.D.’80
For his pioneering work in the mental health aspects of HIV/AIDS, training mental health providers, primary care providers and residents
both nationally and internationally;
and for his leadership on numerous
major national, regional, and institution-based committees relating to HIV and/or
mental health, including the Massachusetts
Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian
Youth and current service as chair of the
American Psychiatric Association’s Commission
on AIDS.
Katherine S. Pope, M.D.’85
For recognizing a desperate need
for affordable and accessible
hospice care in her local Maine
community, and providing the
clinical knowledge and leadership necessary to create “Hospice of Southern Maine,” a nonprofit organization designed to bring together
existing but fragmented and underutilized hospice services in the State of Maine.
Joseph H. Vargas, M.D. ’65
For his career–long commitment and dedication to serving
the patients in his hometown of
Rutland, Vermont, where he
founded Mid-Vermont Orthopedists and has long provided care
to a highly uninsured population; for donating his time as a team doctor to
numerous high school teams and a nearby ski
school; and for educating and influencing many
UVM medical students as a clinical associate
professor and faithfully serving the Class of
1965 as their class agent.
1971
1976
Wayne E. Pasanen
117 Osgood Street
North Andover, MA 01845
(978) 681-9393
wpasanen@lowell
general.org
Don P. Chan
Cardiac Associates of
New Hampshire
Suite 103
246 Pleasant Street
Concord, NH 03301
(603) 224-6070
[email protected]
1972
Bob Backus continues to
practice family medicine at
Grace Cottage Hospital,
Vermont’s only hospital
staffed by family M.D.s.
He is also still editing The
Vermont Family Medicine
Newsletter and is the Board
Chairman of The Amazon
African Aid Organization.
Bob does volunteer work
in the Brazilian Amazon,
with The Fundacao
Esperanca in Santarem,
state of Para, Brazil.
F. Farrell Collins, Jr.
205 Page Road
Pinehurst, NC 28374
(910) 295-2429
1973
James M. Betts
715 Harbor Road
Alameda, CA 94502
(510) 523-1920
[email protected]
Philip L. Cohen
483 Lakewood Drive
Winter Park, FL 32789
(407) 628-0221
[email protected]
1977
Victor Pisanelli is “still
practicing general surgery
in Rutland, Vt.”
1974
Douglas M. Eddy
5 Tanbark Road
Windham, NH 03087
(603) 434-2164
[email protected]
1978
Cajsa Schumacher
441 Church Hill Road
Morrisville, VT 05661
(802) 888-1799
[email protected]
R E U N I O N
Mark A. Popovsky
22 Nauset Road
Sharon, MA 02067
(781) 784-8824
mpopovsky@
haemonetics.com
’ 0 5
1975
Ellen Andrews
195 Midland Road
Pinehurst, NC 28374
(910) 295-6464
[email protected]
Paul McLane Costello
Essex Pediatrics, Ltd.
89 Main Street
Essex Junction, VT 05452
(802) 879-6556
1979
Sarah Ann McCarty
1018 Big Bend Road
Barboursville, WV 25504
(304) 691-1094
[email protected]
S U M M E R
2005
37
M.D. CLASS NOTES
H A L L A
R E U N I O N
CONTINUING MEDICAL EDUCATION
2005 CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
How to Build a Tele-trauma Program:
Linking ER, Ambulances and Trauma Centers
August 14-15, 2005, University of Vermont Conference
Center at the Sheraton Hotel, Burlington, Vt.
ALS — Update in the New Millennium
August 15-16, 2005, Sheraton Harborside,
Portsmouth, N.H.
Dermatology Update for the Primary Care Physician
September 8-11, 2005, Samoset in Rockport, Maine
Third Annual Northern New England Critical Care
September 18-20, 2005, Stoweflake Resort, Stowe, Vt.
Neurology for the Primary Care Physician
September 25-27, 2005, University of Vermont Conference Center at the Sheraton Hotel, Burlington, Vt.
27th Postgraduate Course in Obstetrics and
Gynecology
September 26-28, 2005, University of Vermont Conference Center at the Sheraton Hotel, Burlington, Vt.
New England Cardiac Catheterization
September 30-October 1, 2005, The Equinox in
Manchester, Vt.
19th Annual Imaging Seminar
September 30-October 2, 2005, University of Vermont
Conference Center at the Sheraton Hotel, Burlington,
Vt.
Back Pain for the Primary Care Physician
October 28-29, 2005, University of Vermont Conference Center at the Sheraton Hotel, Burlington, Vt.
Addiction Medicine
November 18, 2005, Burlington, Vt.
College of Medicine alumni receive a special 10% discount
on all UVM Continuing Medical Education conferences.
For more information contact:
Continuing Medical Education
Farrell Hall
210 Colchester Avenue
Burlington, VT 05405
(802) 656-2292
http://cme.uvm.edu
38
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
’ 0 5
1980
Richard Nicholas Hubbell
80 Summit Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-5551
rich.hubbell@
vtmednet.org
Stuart Rice reports:
“Unfortunately, due to
family health issues and
previous family commitments, we will be unable
to attend the 25th
Reunion. My wife Cindy
graduated UVM undergrad and my two sons
Spencer and Nathan (13
and 10) would love any
excuse to visit Burlington.
I truly feel disappointed
we’ll miss the gathering.”
Linda Hermans reports:
“Approaching my 20th
year at the Richmond
(Maine) Area Health
Center. I am holding on to
what I love about medicine and I care for a community I have grown to
love. My beautiful family
nourishes my soul even as
my son threatens to unseat
me as Queen of Ping Pong
and my daughter takes me
to task on the tennis court.
I have been blessed.”
1981
Craig Wendell Gage
5823 Interbay Blvd.
Tampa, FL 33611
CraigGage@
alumni.uvm.edu
Congratulations to
Michael Kilgannon.
Michael was named one of
Connecticut’s “Top Docs”
in the April 2005 issue of
Connecticut Magazine.
Physicians across the state
were surveyed to name
colleagues to whom they’d
send a loved one in need
of medical care, and
Michael was recognized in
internal medicine. He currently practices at
Windham Medical Group
in Willimantic.
R E U N I O N
1982
1986
Linda Hood
4 Cobbler Lane
Bedford, NH 03110
(603) 471-2536
[email protected]
Darrell Edward White
29123 Lincoln Road
Bay Village, OH 44140
(440) 892-4681
[email protected]
Fred Schlussel reports: “I
am keeping busy practicing gastroenterology here
in L.A. Partner physician
at Kaiser Permanente
since 1987. My wife Gita
and two daughters Tara
and Lauren keep me
honest and young. I would
love to hear from my
classmates.”
1983
Diane M. Georgeson
2 Ravine Parkway
Oneonta, NY 13820
(607) 433-1620
[email protected]
Anne Marie Massucco
15 Cedar Ledge Road
West Hartford, CT 06107
(860) 521-6120
1984
Richard C. Shumway
34 Coventry Lane
Avon, CT 06001
(860) 673-6629
rshumway@
stfranciscare.org
’ 0 5
1985
Vito D. Imbasciani
1915 North Crescent
Heights Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90069
(323) 656-1316
[email protected]
1987
Davidson Hamer writes: “I
moved from Tufts-New
England Medical Center
after fourteen years to the
Center for International
Health and Development
at Boston University in
July 2004. I am directing
portfolios of applied
research on neonatal survival, malaria (malaria in
pregnancy, malaria case
management, and antimicrobial drug resistance),
and community-based
interventions to decrease
mortality rates of children
under five years in
resource-poor countries”.
1988
H. James Wallace, III
416 Martel Lane
St. George, VT 05495
(802) 872-8533
james.wallace@
vtmednet.org
Lawrence I. Wolk
5724 South Nome Street
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
(303) 771-1289
lawrence.wolk@
cigna.com
Larry Wolk is still running
clinics for Rocky Mountain
Youth in Colorado but has
a new job as chief medical
officer for HMS
HealthCare, Inc, a holding
company responsible for
managing multiple physician networks around the
country. Michael Rousse
reports: “Ginger and I
have moved back to Vermont. We completed a sixteen-year “term” in Massachusetts in April 2004. I
have given up academic
medicine to be a country
doctor in Lyndonville.
Ginger is heading up a
mental health agency here
in the Northeast Kingdom.
We are settled into a log
home on the side of the
Kitridge Hills in North
Danville….and loving it.”
1989
Peter M. Nalin
13216 Griffin Run
Carmel, IN 46033
(317) 962-6656
[email protected]
R E U N I O N
’ 0 5
1990
Barbara Angelika Dill
120 Hazel Court
Norwood, NJ 07648
(201) 767-7778
barbrichanddillon@
earthlink.net
1991
John Dewey
15 Eagle Street
Cooperstown, NY 13326
[email protected]
MARK BRANN, PH.D.’84 RECEIVES
GRADUATE ALUMNI AWARD
The College of Medicine Medical Alumni
Association (MAA) has announced the
first recipient of the newly-created MAA
Graduate Alumni Award: Mark R. Brann,
Ph.D.’84.
The Graduate Alumni Award was instituted this year to honor an alumnus/a of
the College’s Ph.D. or M.S. programs who
has demonstrated outstanding achievement in basic clinical or applied research,
education, or outstanding commitment
to the college of Medicine community.
In 1993 Brann founded Acadia Pharmaceuticals, a company that develops treatments for central nervous system disorders, and since then has served as the company’s president
and chief scientific officer. Since 1997 he has also served as a
member of the board of directors of the San Diego-based
company.
After earning his doctoral degree, Brann was a postdoctoral fellow at the Laboratory of Cell Biology at the National
Institute of Mental Health. He later worked at the Metabolic
Diseases Branch of the National Institute of Diabetes,
Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and at the Laboratory of
Molecular Biology at the National Institute of Neurological
Disorders and Stroke. From 1991 to 1996 he was an associate
professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the College of
Medicine.
Brann will accept the award at a reception at the College
later this fall.
1992
1993
Mark Eliot Pasanen
1234 Spear Street
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 865-3281
mark.pasanen@
vtmednet.org
Jennifer Woodson tells us:
“We are moving to
Naples, Italy! We will be
there for at least two
years. My husband will be
working in the ED. We
can’t wait! Email if you
want to stop by: [email protected].
Joanne Taplin Romeyn
22 Patterson Lane
Durham, CT 06422
(860) 349-6941
Christina Hammerman
Atkin writes: “I just wanted others to know, who
might be interested, that I
remarried recently and my
son will graduate from the
UVM College of
Medicine in 2009!” Lynn
Wickberg reports: “Am in
my fourth year of working
in community mental
health. My two young
S U M M E R
2005
39
M.D. CLASS NOTES
H A L L A
children from medical
school days are now
Timothy — a sophomore
at RPI and Laurel —
graduating (valedictorian)
from high school! Bob
started a new job as information systems director at
a local high school which
he really enjoys.”
1994
Holliday Kane Rayfield
P.O. Box 819
Waitsfield, VT 05673
(802) 496-5667
[email protected]
R E U N I O N
’ 0 5
1995
Allyson Miller Bolduc
252 Autumn Hill Road
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 863-4902
allyson.bolduc@
vtmednet.org
Betsy Perez writes:
“Living in South Hero
with my daughters, now
ages 14 and 17. I’m working with Green Mountain
Urology. If anybody needs
a place to stay for the
Tenth Reunion — please
call.” Brian Levine tells us:
“Life is good here in little
Delaware. Enjoying academic emergency medicine. Recently won a proposal to author the next
antibiotic guide for the
Emergency Medicine
Residents’ Association.”
Patti Paris writes:
“Another change of
address for Dan and I.
After I completed my four
years in Anchorage,
Alaska, we moved back to
Maine. We missed Alaska
and so we are moving back
and I will return to working in the emergency
department at the Alaska
Native Medical Center.
This spring, Dan and I
have just returned from
Antarctica where we were
both working at McMurdo
Station for the last five
Alumni Gather at “Pelican’s Nest”
College of Medicine alumni from the Gulf Coast region of
Florida joined Dean John Evans and Department of Surgery
Chair Steven Shackford, M.D., for a golf outing and reception
on March 7 at the Pelican’s Nest Golf Club in Bonita Springs,
Fla. At the reception Dr. Shackford gave a presentation entitled “How, Then, Shall We Live? A Personal View of Service.”
months. It was an interesting experience and adventure.”
1996
Anne Marie Valente
4616 Dolwick Drive
Durham, NC 27713
(919) 806-8110
Patricia Ann King, M.D., Ph.D.
832 South Prospect Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-7705
patricia.king@
vtmednet.org
Kristin Sparks Bradford
writes: “We have moved to
the small (5,000 people)
but wonderful town of
Willits, California in
Mendocino County. I’m
working at the local community clinic and hospital
as a family practitioner.
Curtis and Davis are
enjoying kindergarten and
helping Jason put in our
organic garden and
orchard. We can’t wait to
get baby chicks next
month! Hello to everyone
wherever you are!” Amy
Roberts McGaraghan
reports: “Neil and I are
living in Lexington, Mass.
I have started a new job at
the Center for Women at
Mount Auburn Hospital in
Cambridge. We have two
wonderful little boys —
Jack (2 years old) and Leo
(1 year old).”
1997
Julie Clifford Smail
3094 Mt. Baker Circle
Oak Harbor, WA 98277
(360) 240-8693
jsmail@
fidalgomedical.com
Elizabeth Callahan
40
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
reports: “In early 2005, I
opened a solo dermatology
practice, Skin Smart
Dermatology, between
Bradenton and Sarasota,
Florida. I specialize in
Mohs skin cancer surgery
and cosmetic dermatology.
My business address is:
7978 Cooper Creek Blvd.,
Bradenton, FL 34201.”
1998
Halleh Akbarnia
4700 Bromley Lane
Richmond, VA 23226
(804) 204-2595
[email protected]
1999
Everett Jonathan Lamm
18 Roberts Drive
Hampton, NH 03842
(603) 929-7555
[email protected]
Deanne Dixon Haag
4215 Pond Road
Sheldon, VT 05483
(802) 524-7528
R E U N I O N
’ 0 5
2000
Jay Edmond Allard
USNH Yokosuka
PSC475 Box 1757
FPO, AP 9L350
[email protected]
Michael Jim Lee
Apt. 413
2300 Overlook Road
Cleveland Heights, OH
44106
(216) 229-7799
michael_j_lee1681@
yahoo.com
Naomi Leeds Rice, M.P.H.
Apt. 5, 38 Grove Street
Boston, MA 02114
(617) 771-8060
[email protected]
Jenny and Dave Lisle report
that they are in their last
year in Syracuse. Dave will
do his sports medicine fellowship with the University of Connecticut Huskies starting in July.
Afterwards, Jenny will do
her orthopaedics oncology
fellowship at the University
of Washington in Seattle.
They had their first child
(Ethan David) in June 2003
and are expecting their second this September. “Life
has been busy and we’re
both excited to be done
with all the training. It
looks like we’ll miss the
class reunion in June due
to Jenny’s orthopaedics residency graduation. We
hope to see everyone at
some point in the future
when we settle down somewhere in northern New
England.” Malcolm
Schinstine writes: “I will be
finishing my cytopathology
fellowship at the National
Cancer Institute in June
after which my family and I
will be moving to Oklahoma. I accepted a position
at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences
Center in Oklahoma City.
Anyone wanting a big steak
and wishing to see a tornado is invited. In addition,
our daughter, Victoria
Sakae, is 27 months old
and talking up a storm. We
won’t be at the reunion,
but I will be thinking of
everyone.” Jamie Ruth
Schumacher Wood writes:
“Unfortunately, Fred and I
will be unable to come to
the reunion. It is the same
weekend as the ADA conference in San Diego and I
have to be there. We are
living in Boston — Roslindale to be exact — and I
am finishing up my second
year of pediatric endocrinology fellowship at Children’s Hospital. Our big
news is that we had a baby
in May of 2004, Olivia Jane
Schumacher, and she is the
best thing that has happened to us. Fred has been
the stay-at-home Dad and
will be heading back to
work to start his post-doc
at the Harvard School of
Public Health in July. We
are very sad that we can’t
come home for the
Reunion Weekend, it
sounds like it is going to be
great! I miss you guys!”
2001
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, The Sophian
Plaza
4618 Warwick Blvd.
Kansas City, MO 64112
(816) 753-2410
[email protected]
2002
Jonathan Vinh Mai
15 Meadow Lane
Danville, PA 17821
(570) 275-4681
[email protected]
2003
Omar Khan
33 Clearwater Circle
Shelburne, VT 05482
STERN GIFT HELPS FOSTER
SUCCESSFUL LEARNING
Earning a spot in a class at the UVM College
of Medicine requires sufficient academic
achievement and skill at test-taking and
interviewing to stand out among some
5,000 applicants. Still, each year some students struggle with medical coursework
and with the National Board exams. Now a
generous donation offers these students a
chance to receive financial assistance to
seek help at the Stern Center for Language
and Learning.
The gift is an ongoing pledge of $12,500
per year from Margie and Peter Stern,
M.D.’81. The Stern Center is a non-profit
educational organization located in
Williston dedicated to helping students of
all ages reach their learning potential. It is
named for Peter Stern’s parents, Bernice
and Milton Stern.
“The Stern Center has for several years
performed diagnostic evaluations of students who encounter academic difficulty
and has helped students with skills such as
studying and test-taking,” said Scott
Waterman, M.D., associate dean for student
affairs. “Realizing that getting this help can
be an expensive thing, the Sterns and the
center’s president, Dr. Blanche Podhajski,
came to us with ideas to create a program
to ensure that our students can get the help
they need.”
Waterman is working with a committee
to shape the program and promote it
among faculty and students. He has already
offered this assistance to students who
have failed board exams or have struggled
in class during the past year. The new program will also support broader efforts to
educate all medical students about learning
styles, studying skills, and maximizing their
potential.
(802) 985-1131
[email protected]
Scott Goodrich
13 Mountain View Blvd.
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 864-7787
scott.goodrich@
vtmednet.org
Kathryn Masselam is
doing her residency training in ophthalmology at
NYU. She won the “Best
Poster” award at a recent
conference (CLAO) in San
Diego.
S U M M E R
2005
41
OBITUARIES
H A L L A
HOWARD H . JACOBS , M . D. ’43
Dr. Howard H. “Jake“ Jacobs, M.D.,
a well know physician in the St.
Albans, Vt. Area, died Oct. 23, 2004,
in the Vermont Respite House in
Williston. He was born in Enosburg,
Jan. 5, 1920, the son of the late Alfred
A. and Elizabeth (Lafley) Jacobs. On
June 2, 1945, in Allentown, Pa., Dr.
Jacobs married Margaret Keeney,
who predeceased him on June 11,
1981. Following graduation from the
University of Vermont College of
Medicine in 1945, Dr. Jacobs moved
to Saint Albans, where he had a general practice of medicine until 1950.
He then became an anesthesiologist
for the next 36 years, retiring in
January of 1986.
HENRY TULIP, M . D. ’47
Dr. Tulip died on Friday, October 22,
at the Northwestern Medical Center
in St. Albans, Vt. He was born in
Salem, N.Y., on January 1, 1923, to
George Thomas and Mary (Roche)
Tulip. He grew up in Salem with his
two younger sisters. He finished his
undergraduate studies with honors at
the University of Vermont in 1944.
He graduated from the College of
Medicine, also with honors, in 1947,
before interning and completing his
residency in urological surgery in
Burlington in 1951. During World
War II he served as a corporal in the
U.S. Army. He did tour of duty in the
Air Force during the Korean conflict
as a captain, stationed predominantly
in Alaska. Recently he reached the
rank of colonel in the Vermont State
Guard. Dr. Tulip married Madalyn
42
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Hunt in 1949. After brief stays in
Anchorage Alaska and Shrevesport,
LA, they established their permanent
home in Vermont’s Franklin County
in 1954. He practiced urology there
for thirty-five years before retiring in
1989.
ROBERT SMART, M . D. ’67
Dr. Smart died Oct. 23, 2004 in
Ithaca, N.Y. He was born in St.
Albans, Vt., May 26, 1933, the son of
Louis and Florence Cooke Smart.
His wife Marjorie Nelson Smart survives him. Dr. Smart earned a B.A.
from Cornell University in 1957 and
M.D. from University of Vermont in
1967. He served in the U.S. Marine
Corps in Korea and as an urologist in
the U.S. Navy, retiring as Commander with twenty years active duty.
He practiced urology in Norwich,
N.Y. and Sharon, Pa. and was an
active volunteer with the American
Cancer Society before retiring to
Hartland, Vt., then Ithaca, N.Y.
DAVID A . AUSTIN ,
M . D. ’60
Dr. Austin died Thursday,
Nov. 4, 2004, at Rutland
Regional Medical Center.
He was 70. Born in
Brattleboro, Vt, he was
the son of James A. and
Euretta (Fuller) Austin. A
graduate of St. Michael’s
High School in Brattleboro, he received his B.S.
from St. Michael’s College before
earning his M.D. from the College of
Medicine. Following an Internship at
Milwaukee County Hospital, he
received his commission as a Naval
Medical Officer. Graduating from
the Naval Deep Sea Diving School in
Washington, D.C., and the School of
Submarine and Undersea Medicine
in New London, Conn., he subsequently spent ten years of active duty
service as Medical Officer to the
Undersea and Submarine Service.
His assignments included serving as
an instructor in the treatment of
decompression illness, deep-diving
problems related to prolonged submergence and escape techniques
from crippled submarines. Following
completion of his residency in
Internal Medicine at the St. Albans
Naval Hospital in New York, Dr.
Austin opened his medical practice in
Rutland in 1970. Over the years Dr.
Austin held a number of offices in the
Vermont State Medical Society and
served as President of the Rutland
Regional Medical Center’s Staff from
1989-1990. He has served as Medical
Director of Eden Park Extended
Care Facility. As a
mark of respect for
his dedication to
his patients, his
colleagues in the
medical community honored him
with the Physician
of the Year Award
in April of this
year. This was one
of his most treasured moments. During his Naval
service, he rose from Ensign to
Captain. Recalled during the First
Gulf War, he twice went to Bahrain.
In 2002, Rear Admiral R.I. Nolan
presented Captain Austin the
Presidential Meritorious Service
Medal for outstanding service during
the period February 1989 through
October 2000.
ARNOLD CLIFFORD TAYE , M . D. ’57
Dr. Taye died at home in North Salt
Lake, Utah on Nov. 29, 2004, at the
age 98. He was born on Jan. 14, 1906
near Volga, South Dakota to John
Andersen Taje and Nora Amelia
Nelson Taje. After high school he
moved to Minnesota and received
B.A. and D.D.S. degrees in 1932
from the University of Minnesota.
He practiced dentistry in Minneapolis until 1941. He married Zelda
Lorraine Melander on April 14, 1940
in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1941
he was called to serve on active duty
as an officer in the US Army Dental
Corps. He participated in the US
landing near Oran, North Africa in
Nov. 1942. While stationed in North
Africa in 1943 he injured a nerve in
his right arm during an air raid blackout. Despite treatment, the injury
was permanent so he was unable to
continue dentistry, and he received a
medical discharge in 1944. He later
returned to school and received a B.S.
degree in 1955 from the University of
North Dakota and his M.D. degree
from the University of Vermont in
1957. He interned and served his residency in Internal Medicine at LDS
Hospital in Salt Lake City from
1957-60, followed by a fellowship at
Charity Hospital at Tulane Univer-
sity in New Orleans in 1960-61. He
began medical practice in 1961 at the
age of 55. After one year in private
practice he began service with the
Veterans Administration, first in
Spokane, Washington, then in Miles
City, Montana, where he was Chief of
Medicine. In 1965 he transferred to
the VA Hospital in Salt Lake City.
JAMES P. BURKE , M . D. ’51
Dr. Burke died February 14, 2005 at
the Lahey Clinic in Burlington,
Mass. He was 78. Born in Barre, Vt.,
he received his bachelor’s degree
from the University of Vermont in
1948 before going on to earn his
M.D. from the College. He served an
internship at Presbyterian Hospital
in Philadelphia, and a residency at a
Greenwich, Ct. hospital. For many
years he was an internist on the medical staff of the Lahey Clinic. Dr.
Burke retired from practice in 1995.
charged with the rank of Captain. He
began his family practice in Jewett
City in 1949, and relocated to
Norwich in 1959. During his years as
a family doctor he delivered more
than 2000 babies. In 1984, he was
named Family Doctor of the Year by
the Academy of Family Physicians.
The Academy praised him as a “family man who practices medicine with
quality and dignity.” In 1998, he was
named by the Academy as a “Super
Hero of Family Medicine.” He
retired from family practice in 1989.
He was named Connecticut Family
Doctor of the Year in 1984, and
served as president of the College of
Medicine’s Medical Alumni Association in 1985, and as a class agent for
many years. The College honored
Dr. Barrett with the A. Bradley Soule
Award in 2001.
FREDERICK C . BARRETT, M . D. ’46
Dr. Barrett died Saturday, April 23,
2005, in the W.W. Backus Hospital in
Norwich, Conn. He was 83. He was
born in Milton, Vt., July 24, 1921,
the son of the late Lawrence and
Irene (Hammel) Barrett. Dr. Barrett
graduated from Milton High School,
St. Michael's College before entering
the College of Medicine. He completed his residency at Cambridge
City Hospital in Cambridge, Mass.,
and served six years of active duty in
the U.S. Army, from 1943-1949, as a
physician practicing anesthesia, dermatology, and internal and general
medicine. He was honorably dis-
S U M M E R
2005
43
partnering for tomorrow’s cures
april 16, 2005
9:30 a.m.
Six months from now, this will be a place filled with the activity of healing and teaching, but on an
April morning the sunlight playing against the walls of the new Ambulatory Care Center finds only the
members of the Medical Alumni Association’s Alumni Executive Committee touring the construction site.
photograph by Gordon Miller
44
V E R M O N T
M E D I C I N E
Peter Martin never knew George Wellman, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmacology, but the two
now share a special link. Peter was a Shelburne, Vt. resident who died in 1999 at the age of 39 from
a subarachnoid hemorrhage as a result of a brain aneurysm — a weak, bulging area in the wall of a
brain artery. Today, Dr. Wellman works in his lab and with UVM/Fletcher Allen neurosurgeons to
better understand and treat brain aneurysm.
“About 1 percent of the general population has cerebral aneurysms,” he explains. “These aneurysms
rupture in 30,000 to 50,000 people each year.” The Martin Family established the Peter Martin Brain
Aneurysm Endowment to help researchers like Dr. Wellman find new ways to help aneurysm patients.
They are joined in this effort by the Ray and Ildah Totman Medical Research Fund, which for more
than fourteen years has supported cerebrovascular research, as well as by major grants from the National
Institutes of Health.
To learn more about how you can help further crucial research at the College of Medicine through outright or
planned gifts, or for more information about this summer’s Peter A. Martin Golf Tournament, contact us at:
medical development and alumni relations office
(802)656-4014 [email protected] www.med.uvm.edu/giving
THE COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
A helpful extended family
Kelly Huynh ’07, her parents, and eight siblings came to
the United States from Vietnam 25 years ago. She has received
scholarship support and, in the summer after her first year of medical school, a Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship —
both funded by the College of Medicine’s Annual Fund.
For eight weeks, Kelly studied antibiotic use, prescribing methods, and the emergence of antibiotic resistance at Binh Dan Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City. “The experience was incredibly meaningful,” says Kelly. “I
was able to see first-hand the state of the health care system in Vietnam, and the dire medical needs of the
country’s poor. In addition to helping pay for books, instrumentation, and living costs, the grant allowed me
to set aside some money to plan for a future elective rotation during my fourth year, when I will have more
knowledge and clinical experience to help take care of patients in Vietnam.”
“The College of Medicine is like a family,” says Kelly, “where you can always find a friendly person who
can help you or at least point you in the right direction. The support of alumni plays a vital and integral role
in supporting the education of current students.”
You can continue and strengthen the assistance offered to all medical students in need by giving to the
Medical Annual Fund. If you haven’t already done so, please contribute to this year’s Annual Fund
as soon as possible. The fiscal year ends on June 30. Today’s students depend on your support!
medical development and alumni relations office
(802)656-4014 [email protected] www.med.uvm.edu/giving
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