With Vermont’s vaccination levels at well over 80 percent and Delta variant-related cases rising, the 124 members of the Larner College of Medicine’s medical Class of 2025 began their journeys to becoming physicians during a completely new and different academic year that started on August 9.

Patricia King, M.D., Ph.D., UVM professor of medicine and former chair of the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB), led and created the Workgroup on Physician Sexual Misconduct, which conducted a deep review of all available U.S. sexual misconduct disciplinary data, and state medical board physician sexual misconduct laws, policies and procedures might be contributing to this dire problem. Their findings were reported in 2020 and featured in an April 27, 2021 JAMA Viewpoint article.

On Monday, August 2, the familiar quieter campus scene encountered by Larner College of Medicine researchers, educators and staff members over the past seventeen months of the pandemic grew to an audible hum of activity as more employees returned to in-person work in the Given, Health Science Research Facility, Stafford and Medical Education Center buildings and, indeed, across the entire UVM campus.

VCBH Director Stephen T. Higgins spoke with Health Check’s Claudia Hammond about the evidence supporting the use of incentives for vaccination adherence in this brief 5-minute podcast.