Jason Sanders, M.D., M.B.A., has been appointed to fill three critical executive leadership roles – senior associate dean for clinical affairs at the UVM Larner College of Medicine, president and CEO of the UVM Health Network Medical Group, and Network executive vice president for clinical affairs. He will begin his work for the College and the Network in February 2022.

Mitchell Wolfe, M.D., M.P.H., chief medical officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a Class of 1995 Larner alum, returned to campus for a personal visit on December 13 for the first time since receiving his medical degree here 26 years ago.

New research from U.S. Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium (BCSC) members, including several University of Vermont researchers, found that from March to September 2020, breast biopsies and detected cancers at U.S. BCSC facilities dropped sharply, compared with the same span a year earlier.

Researchers at the University of Vermont recently received a $5.5 million, five-year grant to participate in the Phase II portion of the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study, an initiative focused on gathering data on brain development from birth through early childhood.

With $3 million in support from a longtime major supporter of the University of Vermont Cancer Center, Randall F. Holcombe, M.D., M.B.A., was invested as the inaugural J. Walter Juckett Chair in Cancer Research in the Larner College of Medicine on November 3.

The Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont has been awarded continued accreditation for a full eight-year term by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), the accrediting body for all M.D. degree programs in the U.S. and Canada.

Linked to occupational asbestos exposure, malignant mesothelioma (MM) is an aggressive cancer arising primarily from the outer lining of the lungs with a dismal five-year survival rate of only five to 10 percent. Since 2004, only two therapies have been approved for the treatment of MM, which affects about 3,000 people a year in the United States. Now a promising new therapy for mesothelioma and metastatic cancer, arising from laboratory investigations at the University of Vermont, is about to enter a Phase I clinical trial.

Tis the season for coats – white coats that is! On Friday, October 15, the University of Vermont Neuroscience Graduate Program (NGP) hosted its annual White Coat Ceremony in the Livak Ballroom of the UVM Davis Center. While often associated with medical education, the White Coat Ceremony for new graduate degree students has its own history, dating back to 1989, according to Haley Olszewski, NGP program administrator. The ceremony is a rite of passage for many graduate students, she says, both “marking the transition of graduate students, particularly in the sciences, from the early, largely course-based phase of their education to the more research intense phase of their training.” The event also serves to “emphasize the relationship between the student and their mentor,” she adds.

Lewis First, M.D., M.S., professor and chair of pediatrics, has announced the appointment of Rachel Garfield, M.H.S., Ph.D., as the next executive director of the Vermont Child Health Improvement Program (VCHIP) and an associate professor pediatrics at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine.

Two members of the Larner College of Medicine community--Nick Lemon, information systems technical support staff member, and Katherine Strotmeyer, communications and community outreach director for the University of Vermont Cancer Center--were among the UVM stafff members who received a 2021 Our Common Ground award.