Teaching tomorrow's surgeons

In collaboration with the University of Vermont Health Network, the Department of Surgery strives to recruit and retain the best faculty members to train our medical students.  The Department provides surgical services and training at the University of Vermont Health Network and is proud to be an integral part of this high quality, cost efficient health care center.  Our mission is to provide excellent patient care, superb resident and medical student training, and to foster research and innovation.   

Faculty and student practice microsutures

Education

From the entering novice medical student to the most experienced practitioner, the educational contribution of our department significantly and positively impacts the quality of care throughout Vermont and the areas throughout the country where our graduates practice. The major focus of our educational programs lies in Medical Student Education, Resident Education, Continuing Medical Education and Skills Labs.

Physicians in the skull base lab

Research

A broad spectrum of activities are directed toward improving the quality of our patient care and toward developing novel, innovative therapies. Through investigator-initiated trials, as well as national cooperative group, and industry-funded trials, department faculty are able to offer our patients access to cutting-edge treatments not otherwise available.

Department Highlights

Brian Sprague, PhD, Division of Surgical Research, was awarded a Health Services Research Pilot Grant from the Larner College of Medicine, for his proposal, “Evaluation of a cancer risk assessment questionnaire to guide cancer screening decision-making in primary care.”

Bruce Leavitt, MD (Cardiothoracic Surgery) and a team of 10 from UVM, are part of Team Heart, a nonprofit focused on bringing cardiac care to people in Rwanda.  Watch the WCAX segment. 

Departmental News

2019 Frymoyer Scholar Recipients and Projects Announced

June 24, 2019 by Jennifer Nachbur

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.

Clockwise from top left: Bronwyn Bryant; Richard Wasserman and Rebecca Bell; Rebecca Wilson; Leah Pryor, Christina Harlow, and Rebecca Nagle; and Iris Toedt-Pingel and Stephen Berns.

Investing in outstanding medical education and promoting teaching that emphasizes the art of patient care is what the Frymoyer Scholars Program is all about. Recently, Teaching Academy Director Kathryn Huggett, Ph.D., and the Frymoyer Scholars Program Review Committee announced that five faculty projects were selected to receive 2019 Frymoyer Scholarship funding.

The Frymoyer Scholars Program is funded through the John W. and Nan P. Frymoyer Fund for Medical Education, which supports physicians and nurses who are actively engaged in teaching University of Vermont medical and nursing students and who embody the best qualities of the clinician teacher. The program is an investment in outstanding medical education and promotes teaching that emphasizes the art of patient care.

2019 Scholars and their respective projects include

  • Department of Pediatrics faculty members Rebecca Bell, M.D., M.P.H., Thomas Delaney, Ph.D., and Richard "Mort" Wasserman, M.D., received a Frymoyer Scholarship for their project proposal, titled “Firearm Injury Prevention Screening and Counseling.” The group aims to develop and assess innovative active learning modules to increase health care providers’ knowledge and confidence in screening and counseling patients and their families on firearm safe storage and firearm injury prevention.
  • Bronwyn Bryant, M.D., assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, received a Frymoyer Scholarship for her proposal, titled “Validating Entrustable Professional Activity-Based Assessment to Determine On-Call Competency in Pathology Residents,” which aims to implement and validate Entrustable Professional Activity (EPA) -based assessments to help train pathology residents in their common On-Call duties. EPA-based assessments are a step towards competency-based training, providing opportunities for true graduated responsibilities for pathology residents, as well as training in providing timely and individual care to their patients. 
  • Department of Surgery residents Fuyuki Hirashima, M.D., Nicholas Bedrin, M.D., Serena Murphy, M.D., and Stephen Ranney, M.D., along with surgical intensive care nurse Rebecca Wilson, R.N., were selected to receive a Frymoyer Scholarship for their proposal, titled “Establishing UVMMC as a Training Institute & Center of Excellence for Cardiac Surgery Unit Advance Life Support.” This team’s goal is to train surgical staff to be cardiac surgical unit advanced life support (CSU-ALS) certified and to eventually become a training center for other hospitals across the Northeast. CSU-ALS expands upon and tailors the American Heart Association’s Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) algorithms to provide best practice resuscitation specifically for arrest in post-cardiac surgery patients.
  • Rebecca Nagle, M.S.N., A.P.R.N., clinical instructor in nursing; Christina Harlow, D.N.P., FNP-BC, A.P.R.N., clinical assistant professor of nursing; Leah Pryor of the University of Vermont Medical Center’s food services program; Emily Clairmont, R.D., clinical nutritionist at the UVM Medical Center; and Jana Lichtenfeld, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics, received a 2019 Frymoyer Scholarship for their proposal, titled “Integrative Nutrition Teaching Kitchen and Inter-professional Community Service Learning Curriculum.” The program aims to provide graduate nursing students with a connection to food and health, and help them address the barriers patients and families face when adopting healthy eating habits for prevention of disease. The project will also provide the students with interprofessional community service learning opportunities.
  • Iris Toedt-Pingel, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics; Kaitlin Ostrander, M.D., clinical instructor in pediatrics; and Stephen Berns, M.D., assistant professor of family medicine, were awarded a scholarship for “TalkVermontPEDS: Creating an Interprofessional Pediatric Advanced Communication Course.” This project will create an innovative pediatric version of the TalkVermont advanced communication skills program. The evidence-based and nationally renowned VitalTalk program, on which TalkVermont andTalkVermontPEDS are founded, trains providers in a method that is culturally sensitive, interprofessional, and oriented around patient values using engaging, hands-on teaching methods. The goal is to improve outcomes for seriously ill pediatric patients and their families as well as to increase provider satisfaction and well-being.

Learn more about the Frymoyer Scholarship.

(Content for this article was provided by the Teaching Academy at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont.)

Upcoming Events

Surgery Grand Rounds is held every Thursday during the academic year (September - June) in the Davis Auditorium from 7:30-8:30 am followed by M&M Conference from 8:30-9:30 am.

Visit the detailed department calendar >>