April 23, 2020 | Volume II, Issue 8
Delivering Curriculum During the COVID-19 Pandemic
With clinical rotations for all medical students suspended and classroom learning on hold during this phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty have pivoted to remote learning–and have rapidly developed several new elective courses–to ensure students receive the education they deserve and acquire the necessary skills to become physicians.
Karen Lounsbury, Ph.D., director of the Foundations level of the Vermont Integrated Curriculum, says faculty have stepped up to the challenge the pandemic has presented, working with the College’s curriculum and IT teams to transition to remote instruction. Although entry into clerkships has been delayed, a COVID-19 reading month and remote clerkship orientations and Bridge Weeks are ensuring students are ready to hit the ground running when they can enter the clinical environment again. Read more
Pictured above: Students in the Class of 2022 participate in a remote learning session with Professor of Pediatrics William Raszka, M.D., and Associate Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences Elise Everett, M.D., during the Public Health Reading Month portion of their curriculum. (Photo from Emerson Wheeler ’22.)
We are starting to see signs that our efforts at physical distancing are making a difference. The number of new cases being hospitalized may have reached the peak. Here in Vermont, the peak of our surge is modeled to have either just passed
or will be coming up soon. As covered in this newsletter, online medical education continues, as well as clerkship preparation. Forty-nine medical students opted for graduation on April 20, which enables them to head to residencies early if possible.
An online graduation for the Class of 2020 will be held on May 17. Look for a link on the College’s home page to view the event.
Essential research, including research related to COVID-19, continues at the College. Faculty and staff, led by Debra Leonard, M.D., Ph.D., played a crucial role in building Vermont’s supply of COVID-19 testing materials.
Read more about their work in the latest issue of Larner Medicine.
Our staff and faculty have pitched in to help in this crisis in many ways. Our own Eric Gagnon, director of facilities administration and projects, and Gino Trevisani, M.D., associate professor
of surgery, both serve as colonels in the Vermont Army National Guard. The two were recently activated, and each played a major role in designing, building (in four days) and staffing a 400-bed State of Vermont Alternate Healthcare Facility located
at the Champlain Valley Exposition Center in Essex Junction. This effort has been featured nationally in The Atlantic.
Look to the Larner COVID-19 Stories web page for information about these and other efforts of the Larner community rising to
the challenge of the pandemic.
Larner Scientists Assemble Thousands of COVID-19 Test Kits for VT
An impressive accomplishment by a team of Larner College of Medicine scientists— assembling materials for 4,000 COVID-19 test kits—got a nice shout-out from UVM President Suresh Garimella during Vermont Governor Phil Scott’s press conference on April 15. The collaborative effort by the College, UVM Medical Center and the Vermont Department of Health has allowed for expanded testing across the state. Coordinated by Vaccine Testing Center technicians Marya Carmolli, Josephine Lenski, Forida Nazib, and Cassandra Ventrone, multiple Larner laboratories contributed the transport media needed for COVID-19 specimen collection, and members of the UVM Medical Center Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine assembled the kits. Deborah Leonard, M.D., Ph.D., chair of pathology and laboratory medicine, and Beth Kirkpatrick, M.D., chair of microbiology and molecular genetics and Vaccine Testing Center director, discussed the initiative in an April 19 Rutland Herald/Times Argus article.
VT Lung Center Researchers' Expertise Runs Deep
Lungs—and the ability to breathe—are critical to ensuring quality of life. Now, in the era of COVID-19, that is more apparent than ever. It’s a fact that faculty members affiliated with the Vermont Lung Center have been dedicated to for nearly half a century. Since its founding in 1972, the Center has brought together scientists from the Departments of Medicine, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Engineering, and beyond UVM, to collaboratively study a wide range of lung diseases.
From 1999 until late 2019, Charlie Irvin, Ph.D., led the Center and established the only American Lung Association Airways Clinical Research Center in New England and brought the first Center of Biomedical Research Excellence grant to UVM. Anne Dixon, M.A., BM BCh, took over the helm six months ago and had just launched a new National Institutes of Health Adult Cohort for Lung Disease project when the coronavirus outbreak began. Now, she and her pulmonary and critical care colleagues are at the front line, caring for patients, while Lung Center colleagues like Jason Bates, Ph.D., Sc.D., are helping create new technology like the Vermontilator to address ventilator shortages.
Read more in the full “Deep Breadth” article featured in the spring issue of Vermont Medicine.
Pictured above: Dr. Irvin, left, and Dr. Dixon. (Photo by Andy Duback.)
The Vermontilator: A Trip to UVM's IMFLabs
Want to learn how the Vermontilator was developed and works? Watch this video to learn about the work of Professor of Medicine Jason Bates, Ph.D., Sc.D., and his colleagues and view what’s happening in the University of Vermont’s IMFLabs.
Larner Medicine Students Tap Community to Help Frontline Workers
In currently closed dental offices, nail salons, and other businesses around Vermont, personal protective equipment (PPE) is sitting unused, yet is in short supply in hospitals due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Clinical Instructor in Anesthesiology Vivek Chittineni, M.D., and
three Larner College of Medicine students have spearheaded a drive to stockpile PPE, some of it for UVM Medical Center (UVMMC). To build up a store of PPE, Dr. Chittineni, Amy Lynn Teleron, M.D., assistant professor of medicine,
McKenna Lee, senior project manager for supply chain services at UVVMC, and medical students Madeline Fritz ’22, Micaila Baroffio’23, and Carolyn Geraci ’22
launched a PPE donation drive. Read the full story.
Pictured above: Ms. Geraci (left) and Ms. Baroffio collect donations at the Larner College of Medicine Given loading dock. (Courtesy photo)
Celebrating Student Research
More than one dozen Larner College of Medicine medical, doctoral and master of public health students recently presented their research alongside hundreds of peers from across the University of Vermont during UVM’s first-ever virtual Student Research
Conference. Instead of a day-long event in the Davis Center, visitors to the conference could view posters and leave questions and comments for presenters online from April 16 to 23. Read more and view the full list of presenters.
[Mr. C] will always have a place in my heart. And whether he knows it or not, he will be my silent warrior and guide as I take care of every patient, COVID or not. He will fuel me until the day I hang up my stethoscope. ”
~Excerpted from a Facebook post by alumnus Halleh Akbarnia, M.D. '99, that quickly went viral and was re-printed as an op-ed by the Los Angeles Times. (Read the full Facebook post.)
Although we are seeing fewer patients per shift, there is an acute, ever-present sense of the need for constant vigilance. Donning, doffing, hand washing, and preparation to return home take incredible mental energy as the desire to prevent the spread of infection – to ourselves, our patients, and our families – has become paramount.
~Excerpted from a UVM Larner Med blog post by alumnus, assistant professor of surgery, and UVM Medical Center emergency medicine physician Katie Dolbec, M.D. '10. (Read the full blog post.)
Top photo: Dr. Akbarnia with her patient, Mr. C.
Bottom photo: Dr. Dolbec in the emergency department at the UVM Medical Center
Accolades & Appointments
James Stafford, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurological sciences and member of the UVM Cancer Center, has recently been awarded two distinct grants supporting research aimed at improving outcomes for diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), a hard-to-treat type of brain tumor that largely affects pediatric patients. The Michael Mosier Defeat DIPG Foundation and ChadTough Foundation have jointly awarded Stafford a two-year New Investigator Grant to build on early clinical studies showing potential for use of the drug ONC201 in treatment of DIPG. The St. Baldrick’s Foundation has also awarded Stafford a summer fellowship grant, aimed at engaging the next generation of scientists in pediatric cancer research. Dr. Stafford, in collaboration with UVM Cancer Center neuro-oncologist Alissa Thomas, MD, will be mentoring undergraduate student Tatiana McAnulty, the beneficiary of the summer fellowship.
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The Larner College of Medicine
at The University of Vermont
Copyright 2020