Office of Medical Communications

The University of Vermont Pathology Student Fellowship Program is in its 60th year, and we wanted to take this opportunity to celebrate the success of the program.

The program was established in 1956 by ROBERT COON, M.D., then department chair, and has since graduated over 120 fellows. JOHN LUNDE, M.D., current director of the Pathology Student Fellowship Program and himself a student fellow in 1980, attributes the success of the program to the quality of experiences fellows have during their fellowship year, including in-depth learning, the expectations of research and clinical responsibilities, and the polishing of presentation skills, that have a lasting impact throughout the career of the fellows. For added value, Dr. Lunde noted, successful completion of the one-year fellowship leads to awarding of a master’s degree in pathology, which has been the case for the earliest student fellows in the program. Overall, about a third of the pathology student fellows choose a career in pathology, but the educational experience is valued by all fellows, regardless of their eventual specialty.

Past and present pathology student fellows comment that the additional year of their medical school training in pathology has shaped and inspired their careers and lives as clinicians, teachers, and pathologists. UVM Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Professor Emeritus BRUCE MACPHERSON, M.D., was a student fellow from 1965 to 1966. He recalls opportunities for experiential learning and research enriched by collegiality that were instrumental in defining his career path. ELIZABETH WILLIAMS, M.D., another program alumna, describes finding her calling in pathology during her fellowship year, doing work “that gave as much back to me as I put in.”

Pathology student fellows who followed career paths outside of pathology, including neonatologist LAURA MADORE, M.D. ’09, and hospitalist HEATHER SMITH, M.D. ’00, still report stronger understand ing of the pathophysiology of disease processes and sharpened clinico pathologic skills because of their fellowship experiences. As described by TIM PLANTE, M.D. ’11: “Although I ultimately opted to pursue a career in internal medicine, my year in pathology instilled in me many of the core values of pathology: scholarship, academic rigor, professionalism, as well as the importance of peer-to-peer relationships in medicine.”

DEBRA LEONARD, M.D., PH.D., current chair of the department, felt an urgent need to ensure the sustainability of this outstanding educational experience for future generations of medical students. Working with the UVM Foundation, she established the Pathology Student Fellowship Endowment Fund in 2015, with a total goal of $2 million for the endowment to support the stipends and other costs of the fellowship. The department made a significant contribution to establish the endowment fund and WILLIAM PENDLEBURY, M.D., now Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Emeritus, gave a generous contribution to the fund that established the named William W. Pendlebury Pathology Student Fellow that will be selected annually by Dr. Pendlebury. At this point we have $563,000 in the endowment fund, which is already being used to defray the costs of the fellowship.

This year, CHRISTINA LITSAKOS ’18 was named the 2016 William W. Pendlebury Pathology Student Fellow and began the fellowship on July 1, 2016. She was attracted to the Pathology Student Fellowship Program for the quality of education to be gained from pathologists, who she describes as exceptional teachers who have an unparalleled commitment to providing the best patient care possible. Ms. Litsakos is still developing her plans for the research that she will do during her fellowship, but the clinical and educational experiences are already exceeding her expectations, especially her responsibilities as an acting intern in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.

As we celebrate the first 60 years of our highly successful Pathology Student Fellowship Program, we look forward to many more years of sharing the pathology experience with medical students. The impact of our Pathology Student Fellowship Program goes beyond pathology to strengthen the relationships and understanding between pathologists and all other medical specialists.