Department of Family Medicine

The phrase “keep your distance” has taken on a whole new and deeply important meaning in the era of COVID-19 and even Match Day, the annual senior medical student rite of passage, was not “immune” to honoring this behavior. On March 20, 2020, members of the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont’s Class of 2020 went virtual to ensure social distancing while celebrating the news of where they will be spending the next three to seven years training as residents following graduation.

With new funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, UVM Associate Professor of Medicine Halle Sobel, M.D., and Elly Riser, M.D., UVM clinical instructor in medicine, are working to bring training on treating opioid use disorder as a chronic condition to physicians at the beginning of their careers – during medical school.

​The Teaching Academy at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont held its annual Snow Season Education Retreat on January 15-16, 2020 in the College’s Medical Education Center and UVM Davis Center. Highlights included an Induction Ceremony for 2019 new members and advanced members, the presentation of the annual Teaching and Education Awards, and the first annual Snow Season Debate, moderated by Professor and Chair of Pediatrics Lewis First, M.D.

(DECEMBER 9, 2019) News about a study on machine learning and end-of-life conversations led by Robert Gramling, M.D., D.Sc., Miller Chair in Palliative Medicine, and published in the journal Patient Education and Counseling, was picked up by several online news outlets.

(NOVEMBER 19, 2019) Coverage of the U.S. News & World Report's Healthcare of Tomorrow conference in Washington, D.C., included quotes from Alicia Jacobs, M.D., vice chair and associate professor of family medicine, who served on a panel addressing the opioid crisis and how hospitals and healthcare providers are approaching this epidemic. Jacobs discussed how the University of Vermont Medical Center began to address the opioid crisis and what steps they are taking to help the crisis. Read more at U.S. News & World Report and on the American Hospital Association website.

Researchers at the University of Vermont’s Vermont Conversation Lab, including Miller Chair of Palliative Medicine Robert Gramling, M.D., D.Sc., have used machine learning and natural language processing to better understand what conversations surrounding life-threatening and serious illnesses look like, in order to help healthcare providers improve their end-of-life communication. Their work was published December 9 in the journal Patient Education and Counselling.

The UVM Health Network is partnering with Invitae and LunaPBC on a pilot project to offer Genomic DNA Testing to patients as part of their clinical care. The pilot program is the beginning of an effort to increase the integration of genetic disease risks into routine medical care, which holds promise for providing Vermonters with valuable information to guide their health decisions.

(NOVEMBER 9, 2019) A study led by John McPartland, D.O., M.S., clinical assistant professor of family medicine, suggests that while cannabis is generally believed to have evolved in Asia and later dispersed to Europe by people, the plant was most likely indigenous to Europe long before humans were present.

(OCTOBER 7, 2019) A story about the University of Vermont’s Conversation Lab, “which uses machine learning to develop algorithms designed to optimize clinician-patient discussions of serious illness, palliative care and end-of-life care," led by Robert Gramling, M.D., associate professor of family medicine and Miller Chair in Palliative Medicinewas featured in Hospice News.

The Larner College of Medicine Global Health Program hosted three events during the week of September 23 that focused on the topic of migrant healthcare. Presenters included Jonathan Melk, M.D., CEO and chief medical officer for the Chiricauhua Community Health Centers in Douglas, Ariz., Darlene Melk, M.D., medical director of the Southern Arizona Children's Health Project and director of community pediatrics, and Naomi Wolcott-Maccausland, migrant health coordinator of Bridges to Health in UVM Extension.

(AUGUST 27, 2019) A long feature story published in Mosaic and The Atlantic focuses on research led by Bob Gramling, M.D., D.Sc., Miller Chair in Palliative Medicine, and colleagues about conversations between clinicians and dying patients.

Teaching Academy Director Kathryn Huggett, Ph.D., and the Frymoyer Scholars Program Review Committee have announced that five faculty projects were selected to receive 2019 Frymoyer Scholarship funding.

The Larner College of Medicine’s Class of 2019 Honors Night on May 13 was all about celebrating achievements. Medical students, leaders, faculty members, family and friends gathered for the event in UVM’s Davis Center to honor the recipients of individual student awards, faculty awards, a staff award, and a department award, as well as recognize the new student inductees for the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and Gold Humanism Honor Society.

(APRIL 30, 2019) A new study, published Miller Chair of Palliative Medicine Robert Gramling, M.D., D.Sc., in the journal Psycho-Oncology, details how a seriously ill patient’s optimism can impact a clinician’s survival prognosis in palliative care conversations.

The 18th annual Cultural Awareness Conference at the University of Vermont on February 20, 2019 focused on “Opioid Use Disorder: What is Our Role in Building a Humanistic Response?”

On July 18, 2018, UVM Larner College of Medicine clinical department chairs issued a letter to the community.

New interdisciplinary research conducted by University of Vermont researcher Jane Nathan, Ph.D., and colleagues, has found that the Benson Henry Institute’s (BHI) evidence-based Stress Management and Resiliency Training (SMART) is a valuable model to use with health professionals to enhance their well-being.

Robert Gramling, M.D., associate professor of family medicine at the UVM Larner College of Medicine, speaks about communicating honestly with cancer patients about their prognosis in a June 9 USA Today article.

UVM College of Medicine faculty members James Hudziak, M.D., professor of psychiatry, pediatrics and medicine and director of the Vermont Center for Children, Youth & Families, and Jon Porter, M.D., clinical assistant professor of family medicine and director of the UVM Center for Health & Wellbeing, are featured in an article about UVM’s Wellness Environment (WE) program on NBCNews.com.

Patricia Fisher, M.D., UVM assistant professor of family medicine, was featured in a story on local CBS affiliate WCAX-TV about the struggles recovering opiate addicts in Vermont face in finding aftercare treatment.