Office of Medical Communications

Learn about your state’s cancer plan, core priorities, and target populations, their approach for facilitating cancer prevention and control actions, examples of collaborative activities, and plans for recovering, sustaining and accelerating the momentum in cancer prevention.

Opioid use disorder (OUD) has been declared a public health crisis in the northern New England states for years, and one population requires particular care: pregnant patients. In 2018, only about half of pregnant persons were receiving consistent treatment, while another quarter had inconsistent treatment. Increasing these numbers would be essential to supporting pregnant patients with OUD, and Drs. Katherine Ahrens of USM and Marjorie Meyer of UVM aim to do just that.

In 2018, telemedicine was not at the forefront in medicine for many, but some knew that for our rural communities, it could make a world of difference. Drs. Susan Miesfeldt of Maine Medical Center/MaineHealth and Nan Solomons of the University of New England assessed whether cancer genetic services were equally effective via telehealth consults as in-person appointments from the patient’s point of view. Their study highlighted both the need and benefits of telemedicine for remote patients far before the pandemic came into play.

The Larner College of Medicine Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion hosted the third annual Celebration of Gender Equity in Medicine and Science on March 3, 2022.

Undergraduate students strive to understand COVID-19 vaccines in a UVM lab under Larner College of Medicine surgery professor Dr. Dev Majumdar. Students of each graduating class work in the lab. Split into two components, half of the researchers work on mRNA vaccine development and half learn as much as they can about how COVID-19 works, Majumdar said.

In recent years, total neoadjuvant treatment—a potent new therapy for advanced colorectal cancer—has emerged as the standard of care. But the treatment can be harsh, impacting quality of life for many patients. A new study published in Clinical Colorectal Cancer by a team of researchers affiliated with the University of Vermont Cancer Center highlights a variety of new colorectal cancer treatments that take into account both a patient’s likely health outcome and quality of life factors.

(FEBRUARY 24, 2022) Vermont Chief Medical Examiner Elizabeth Bundock, M.D., Ph.D., clinical assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, spoke about the importance of accuracy in death certificate records in a news story in the Providence Journal.

A heart attack struck 44-year-old Sara Rutledge during her daily run. Thanks to the competence and care of a team of clinicians at Central Vermont Medical Center and UVM Medical Center, she received a diagnosis for spontaneous coronary artery dissection - or SCAD - has had a successful recovery, and is back to doing her favorite activities.

(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.”

(FEBRUARY 18, 2022) Associate Professor of Radiology Christopher Anker, M.D., a radiation oncologist at UVM Medical Center, discussed his and colleague's study in the journal Clinical Colorectal Cancer on local CBS affiliate WCAX-TV.

Frances Carr, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont and UVM Cancer Center member, has been elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows Class of 2021.

University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine faculty, leaders, and colleagues gathered virtually for the Teaching Academy’s 2022 Snow Season Education Retreat January 20-21. Highlights of the two-day event included a plenary session by representatives of the Kern National Network for Caring and Character in Medicine, the Induction and Award Ceremony, and an in-person poster session.

In a ceremony held February 7, 2022, Melissa Davidson, M.D., a faculty physician leader at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine, was invested as the inaugural holder of the Howard Schapiro, M.D.’80 and Janet Carroll, M.S.N., M.P.H., Green & Gold Professorship in Anesthesiology.

(FEBRUARY 8, 2022) A contingency management program developed by psychologist Stephen Higgins, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, to treat patients with addictions was mentioned in The Guardian.

UVM Cancer Center researchers contributed to the establishment of a breast pre-cancer atlas, which establishes the molecular and cellular properties of early-stage breast cancer and is the result of a six-year, National Cancer Institute-funded, collaborative initiative.

Cardiac remodeling, chronic kidney disease, brain cell energy generation, hypertension and stroke risk, and socioeconomic status and cardiac rehabilitation outcomes, were the topics presented at the Cardiovascular Research Institute of Vermont’s annual Viridis Montis Early Career Investigator Challenge on February 2, 2022.

Richard Rawson, PhD, professor of psychiatry and co-director of the Collaboration, Dissemination, and Education Core at the Vermont Center on Behavior and Health, and senior advisor, best practices core at the University of Vermont Center on Rural Addiction was notified by the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) that he was chosen to receive the ASAM Presidential Award.

In a new study in the journal PNAS, a team of University of Vermont and University of Washington scientists discovered that – based on clinical samples from infected individuals – the Delta variant had a higher infectivity than the Alpha variant of COVID-19.

Kalev Freeman, MD, associate professor of surgery and pharmacology, received a $1.95 million, five-year R35 Maximizing Investigator’s Research Award from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

Becoming bat-man: comparative computational modeling between bats and humans to discover bat-inspired treatment for acute viral infections.