Community Engagement

Over the past few weeks, Larner College of Medicine students have sought out and initiated impactful volunteer projects to help address a growing variety of needs presented by the novel coronavirus pandemic. Seeing the need for a centralized model to coordinate these various efforts, Christa Zehle, M.D., senior associate dean for medical education, and Nathalie Feldman, M.D., director of the learning environment, convened the LCOMCares Service Corps – COVID-19 Task Force.

When commercial flight cancellations jeopardized the transport of COVID-19 specimens - and same-day test results for patients - from Burlington to Mayo Clinic Laboratories, a group of fast-acting health care administrators and business leaders sprang into action to find a solution.

The Wellness Committee, Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society, and Gold Humanism Honor Society at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine hosted the second annual “StorySlamRX – Voices in Medicine” event on January 23 from 6:30 to 9 p.m. in the Hoehl Gallery in the Health Science Research Facility.

Once a week, second-year medical students Noorin Damji and Kristina Valentine drive north to rural communities in Franklin County, Vt., in a well-stocked mobile outreach van to deliver free packs of sterile hypodermic syringes, fentanyl testing strips, and Narcan to people who inject drugs. This effort is known in public health as harm reduction.

Steve Firestone, M.D.’69, has been an annual donor to the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine since the 1970s, and in the early 2000s, donated artwork to help enhance the students’ learning environment. When plans began to take shape for a new biomedical research facility at the College, Firestone was inspired to step forward with his first major gift to the University. And, as over two hundred attendees learned in a ceremony held at the Larner College of Medicine earlier this month, that gift is an important one.

The Larner College of Medicine Global Health Program hosted three events during the week of September 23 that focused on the topic of migrant healthcare. Presenters included Jonathan Melk, M.D., CEO and chief medical officer for the Chiricauhua Community Health Centers in Douglas, Ariz., Darlene Melk, M.D., medical director of the Southern Arizona Children's Health Project and director of community pediatrics, and Naomi Wolcott-Maccausland, migrant health coordinator of Bridges to Health in UVM Extension.

The University of Vermont's Larner College of Medicine and UVM Medical Center kicked off the fall 2019 series of Community Medical School with a presentation on September 10 by Assistant Professor of Psychiatry Pamela Swift, Ph.D., on "Solving the Mystery of Sleep: Patterns, Habits, & Tools."

(SEPTEMBER 9, 2019) A VTDigger article, titled "NEK social services group paid fines for asbestos, other violations," featured comments by UVM Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Arti Shukla, Ph.D., regarding the link between asbestos and lung disease.

On Wednesday, September 11, Leo Anthony Celi, M.D., M.S., M.P.H., presented the Annual Stetson Lecture in Technological Advances in Medicine.

​Gordon Jensen, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine and senior associate dean for research at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine, has been appointed to a parallel role as University of Vermont Health Network Director of Research by John Brumsted, M.D., CEO of the UVM Health Network.