Office of Medical Communications

The Northern New England Clinical and Translational Research Network has received a $20 million-dollar renewal grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue work to ensure residents in Vermont and Maine – and particularly the elderly, New American and Indigenous populations – receive greater support to address chronic and life-threatening diseases.

(AUGUST 9, 2022) Five high school students from Bennington County recently completed a MedQuest 2.0 program designed and delivered by first-year medical students from the Robert Larner College of Medicine to gain a richer understanding of health careers available to them in Vermont.

For students pursuing a degree in medicine, there’s no off-season. During a two-month break between their first and second years, many Larner College of Medicine medical students tackled projects to address unmet health needs, practice clinical skills, and immerse themselves in specialty clerkships with physician preceptors.

(AUGUST 5, 2022) A new survey by UVM’s Center on Rural Addiction — which is headed by Stacey Sigmon, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry — working with the University of Southern Maine’s Cutler Institute highlights challenges in access to medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorders in Maine’s rural areas.

Emergency medicine is relatively new; it began to take shape in the mid- to late-1960s, when the American Medical Association established an emergency medicine committee and the American College of Emergency Physicians was founded. However, it wasn’t until 1979 that the American Board of Medical Specialties finally recognized the field as a specialty.

Jason Botten, Ph.D., professor of medicine and associate director of the Vermont Biomedical Research Network, received a University of Vermont SPARK-VT grant to help commercialize his work to develop broad-spectrum antiviral therapeutics, following a faculty pitch competition held in June 2022.

University of Vermont Associate Professor of Psychiatry Robert Althoff, M.D., Ph.D., has been appointed chair of the Department of Psychiatry and health care service leader for psychiatry, effective August 1, 2022.

(AUGUST 1, 2022) After the World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global health emergency and the first case of the virus was recently confirmed in Vermont, Tim Lahey, M.D., M.M.Sc., professor of medicine, spoke with Vermont Public about what we need to know about the virus, and who’s at highest risk.

(AUGUST 1, 2022) Karen Lounsbury, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and director of foundations and preclinical assessment, is quoted in an article in “Social Work Today” on integrating service delivery by medical or physical health providers, behavioral health providers, and social service providers.

(JULY 31, 2022) In response to statistics showing that lung cancer kills more Vermonters than breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers combined, family medicine professor John King, M.D., and colleagues at the UVM and Dartmouth Cancer Centers are spearheading a new community education program called Vermonters Taking Action Against Cancer, the (Nashua, N.H.) Telegraph reported.

(JULY 29, 2022) Retired oncology professor Jerome Yates, M.D., spoke with Alexandria Carolan, a reporter with The Cancer Letter and associate editor of the Cancer History Project, about building a cancer center at the University of Vermont.

Associate Professor of Pediatrics and neonatologist Danielle Ehret, M.D., M.P.H., was invested as the inaugural Asfaw Yemiru Green and Gold Professor in Global Health in a formal ceremony held at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine on July 28, 2022.

(JULY 28, 2022) Sean Diehl, Ph.D., associate professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, spoke with CT Insider about an Omicron-specific mRNA vaccine developed by Yale scientists that creates a strong antibody response against subvariants BA.1 and BA.2.12.1.

(JULY 28, 2022) Rheumatologist Jeanne Gosselin, M.D., assistant professor of medicine, spoke with CreakyJoints about what monkeypox is and what people who are immunocompromised because of an autoimmune or inflammatory health condition or taking immunosuppressant medication need to know.

(JULY 27, 2022) Lauren MacAfee, M.D., associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences, commented to Seven Days on “blatant misinformation” dispensed at certain innocuously labeled “pregnancy resource centers.”

(JULY 27, 2022) A recent study by Timothy Plante, M.D., assistant professor of medicine, and colleagues found that so-called stiff-heart heart failure accounts for about half of all cases; in addition, most stiff-heart patients take beta-blocker medications despite unclear benefits from their regular use, according to Knowridge Science Report.

(JULY 27, 2022) Professor of Medicine Tim Lahey, M.D., M.M.Sc., said in a story on Vermont Public that "it’s just a matter of time" before the monkeypox virus is found in the Green Mountain State.

(JULY 27, 2022) In this summer of increasingly dangerous and even record-breaking heat waves, Associate Dean for Public Health and Health Policy Jan Carney, M.D., M.P.H., offered potentially life-saving guidance on how to prepare for and adapt to extreme heat in an article in “Health” magazine.

(JULY 26, 2022) Emily Bruce, Ph.D., assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, was one of several experts interviewed for a news story in the journal “Nature” on what scientists know so far about COVID-19 infectiousness.