The Department of Pediatrics has announced the 2023 winners of the annual Jerold and Ingela Lucey Early Career Investigator Prize for Innovations in Infant or Child Health (aka “The Lucey Prize”). This award honors the late Jerold Lucey, M.D., professor emeritus of pediatrics, who was a pioneer and champion of innovations to improve the survival and health of preterm babies. 

The Lucey Prize is awarded to medical students, residents, and fellows who are exploring new horizons in neonatology and/or other areas of pediatrics. The following 2023 awardees, and their respective projects, will be honored at Pediatric Grand Rounds on May 31 at 8 a.m.:

• Samuel Aldous, Class of 2024 medical student - “Expanding the Reach of Awake Spinal Anesthesia (SA) in Neonates and Infants to Improve Perioperative Safety”
• John Rustad, Class of 2026 medical student - “Neonatal NET-inhibitory Factor-mediated Neutrophil Extracellular Trap Inhibition Requires Neutrophil Proteinase 3 Expression”
• Amara Heard-Stittum, M.D., Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine fellow, UVM Children’s Hospital - “Effect of a Video Teaching Tool Combined with Helping Babies Breathe Training”

Pictured at left: Jerold Lucey, M.D.

Resident physicians in the Department of Medicine’s Division of Dermatology brought home the crown in the Dermoscopy Bowl held during the annual American Academy of Dermatology meeting in New Orleans on March 17. Clinical Instructors Nathan Bombardier, M.D., Nadeem Marghoob, D.O., Hannah Porter, M.D., M.B.A., M.S., and Santana VanDyke, M.D., participated in this fast-paced competition at which residency programs vied to provide the correct diagnosis based on dermoscopic images displayed on a screen. In sudden-death overtime during the finals, the Larner team correctly identified a lichen planus-like keratosis. The winners were awarded four dermatoscopes and a $5,000 educational grant provided by 3Gen/DermLite. The funds will go to the Larner dermatology division’s residency fund.

Pictured at left (left to right): Tournament host Konstantinos Liopyris, M.D., dermatologist at Andreas Sygros Hospital for Cutaneous and Venereal Diseases, with Drs. VanDyke, Porter, Bombardier, and Marghoob, and John Bottjer, M.B.A., DermLite president .

Class of 2025 student Kae Ravichandran won the inaugural nonbinary division of the 2023 Boston Marathon, running a time of 2:38:57 to beat the field by over 10 minutes. To prepare, Ravichandran focused on incorporating hills into her daily runs and raced a half marathon last month as a tune-up. She ran around 70 to 80 miles a week during the height of her training cycle — all while being a medical student here.

Pictured at left: Kae Ravichandran

The Comprehensive Pain Program (CPP) at UVM Medical Center was recognized for its novel approach to pain management by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont, winning the organization’s 2023 Blue Cross Provider Innovation Award for the PATH (Partners Aligned in Transformative Healing) program. PATH is a 16-week support program that integrates allopathic medicine with evidenced-based complementary and alternative therapies addressing the physiological, mental, and emotional aspects of each patient’s well-being. Patients can access therapies including acupuncture, yoga, Reiki, culinary medicine cooking classes, physical therapy, and mindfulness meditation. Assistant Professor of Family Medicine Jon Porter, M.D., founding medical director of CPP, said this innovative approach was born from a desire to support both patients and providers, re-imagine how physicians think about treating chronic pain, and support participants in optimizing agency and success in managing their pain: “The traditional medical approach has been to treat [chronic pain] as an ongoing symptom,” said Dr. Porter. “The goal of our program is to understand and address the entirety of an individual’s experience with their pain, support them in developing strategies to move forward in the experience, and provide access to therapies that can be highly effective but for which they have not had insurance coverage.”

Pictured at left (left to right): Dr. Porter, Tom Weigel, M.D., M.B.A., chief medical officer of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont

Haorui Sun, a graduate student in UVM’s biomedical engineering Ph.D. program, is a co-author on a study titled “A highly replicable decline in mood during rest and simple tasks” published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour on February 27. David Jangraw, Ph.D., assistant professor of electrical and biomedical engineering and graduate student advisor, is first and corresponding author on the paper. Read the research abstract.

Pictured at left: Haorui Sun

Class of 2025 medical students Jasmine Bazinet-Phillips and Ashwini Sarathy partnered with Fletcher Free Library, along with several local child support organizations, and were awarded a $2,500 Co-op Seedling Grant from City Market on March 24. The grant will help amplify community resources to ensure that all families have access to an age-appropriate library and prenatal nutrition at home, and that there is food equity for all in our community. The students also plan to host panels over the summer at which local pediatricians and obstetricians and gynecologists will speak to New American families about pregnancy and early childhood.

Pictured at left (left to right): Kristina Sweet, assistant director of the State of Vermont Agricultural Development Division, Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets; Bazinet-Phillips; Jonathan Chapple-Sokol, Fletcher Free Library president; Sarathy; John Tashiro, City Market general manager.