Division of Pulmonary Disease & Critical Care Medicine

Department of Medicine

On July 11, E.L. Amidon Chair and Professor of Medicine Polly Parsons, M.D., began the transition to her new role as President and CEO of the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM). We sat down with Dr. Parsons to reflect on her 16 years at the helm of the department, review her accomplishments and consider the department’s growth, struggles and triumphs.

Anne Dixon, M.A., BM BCh, professor of medicine, has been named one of four 2022-2023 University Scholars.

(MARCH 3, 2022) David Kaminsky, M.D., professor of medicine, who is leading a study investigating so-called long-haul COVID, was quoted in a story broadcast on WOWT-TV and elsewhere.

(FEBRUARY 22, 2022) Pulmonologists David Kaminsky, M.D., professor of medicine, and Katherine Menson, D.O., assistant professor of medicine, spoke with Mike Dougherty of VTDigger for a story titled “Vermonters with ‘Long Covid’ Still Face Barriers to Care.”

Investigators from across the globe came together virtually July 12-15, 2021 for the University of Vermont-hosted ninth biennial "Stem Cells, Cell Therapies, and Bioengineering in Lung Biology" conference to share the latest research in the field and set priorities for their work in the future.

The University of Vermont (UVM) is participating in a major national research effort to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of varying types of blood thinners to treat adults diagnosed and hospitalized with COVID-19—the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2.

Over the last three weeks, a team of scientists, engineers and doctors at the University of Vermont, including Professor of Medicine Jason Bates, have developed a new design—and built a working model—for a simple, inexpensive ventilator.

​Charles Irvin, Ph.D., received the inaugural W. Fred Taylor PhD Award in recognition of his significant contributions to enhance the impact of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Program at the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR)/Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Coalition and Foundation Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. on February 24, 2020.

​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.

The Larner College of Medicine's fourth annual "Celebrating Excellence in Research" series featured two days of presentations and recognition designed to highlight research performed by junior faculty, senior faculty, postdoctoral trainees, and graduate students at the College.

Anne Dixon, M.A., BM BCh, professor of medicine and division chief of pulmonary disease & critical care medicine at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont, has been named the new director of the Vermont Lung Center.

(OCTOBER 15, 2019) Several news outlets recently covered a research study on flavored e-cigarettes and asthma published in Nature Scientific Reports by Larner faculty and trainees, including senior author and Professor of Medicine Charles Irvin, Ph.D. The study was funded through UVM's Tobacco Center on Regulatory Science (TCORS) grant.

(AUGUST 7, 2019) Prema Menon, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine and director of the Interstitial Lung Disease Clinic at the University of Vermont Medical Center, was featured in a WCAX-TV Channel 3 segment about the Medical Center's new designation from the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation as a member of their Care Center Network.

Interim Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education and Associate Dean for Students Christa Zehle, M.D., recently announced the appointments of Shaden Eldakar-Hein, M.D., M.S., associate professor of medicine, and Prema Menon, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine, as interim assistant deans for students in the Office of Medical Student Education.

Twenty years ago, a small local chapter of the American Lung Association took on the daring task of bringing an Airways Clinical Research Center (ACRC) to Vermont. On February 28, clinicians, patients, donors, staff and board members gathered to celebrate two decades of lung disease treatment research in the only ACRC in a rural area - the Vermont Lung Center at UVM's ACRC, part of the nation’s largest not-for-profit network of clinical research centers dedicated to asthma and COPD treatment.

Three innovative projects spanning the fields of regenerative medicine, electrophysiology, and infectious diseases were selected to receive SPARK-VT research funding following a June 22 proposal presentation meeting at which University of Vermont faculty applicants pitched ideas to a panel of consultants from the biomedical and biotech arena. The awardees include UVM Larner College of Medicine Department of Medicine faculty members Daniel Weiss, M.D., Ph.D., Jason Botten, Ph.D., and Peter Spector, M.D.

New translational research led by UVM Professor Yvonne Janssen-Heininger, Ph.D., demonstrates a novel biological therapeutic candidate for regressing pulmonary fibrosis in a difficult-to-treat preclinical model of the disease, providing much-needed hope for the roughly 150,000 Americans suffering from this devastating condition.

More than 50 percent of asthmatics have a body mass index (BMI) of greater than 30, and the majority of these patients have severe asthma that doesn’t respond well to traditional medication.

Screening presents a dilemma for lung and cancer specialists: Only about four percent of abnormal spots found on patients’ lungs during preventative CT screening turn out to be cancer, yet lung cancer is one of the deadliest types of cancer and usually progresses rapidly, so catching it early is particularly important.

Matthew Poynter, Ph.D., knows that a scientist’s work can influence public policy. In his lab at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, he focuses on the environmental factors that trigger the immune system’s development of asthma.