Dear Larner Community: I am writing to provide further updates on the Larner College of Medicine during these changing and challenging times. For the first time, this is being written at home, as I adhere to our Governor’s order and good public health practice in this difficult time. Medical Education: The education of the next generation of physicians, continues unabated. We just finished our third week of entirely remote classroom education, for which we were well prepared by our commitment to active learning. For the time being, and consistent with AAMC recommendations, all medical student participation in clinical care has been suspended. For our M1 students this means only that “Doctoring in Vermont” is on hold. The M2 class has a delay in initiating clerkships, made up for by the choice of a few non-clinical courses including Medical Spanish and a new public health project, “Pandemic Response: Understanding COVID 19”. Our M3 students just finished a two-week non-clinical course “Prep 4 Practice”, delivered with synchronous (Zoom) and asynchronous teaching methods. And our M4 students, coming off the heels of a successful virtual Match Day event and anticipating graduation in May, are completing non-clinical duties to fulfill their graduation requirements; any modifications of our curriculum will undergo review by our Medical Curriculum Committee, consistent with guidance from the AAMC and LCME.

Gary Ward, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the UVM Larner College of Medicine has been working to make scholarly research available to those who would benefit from the information. In a story published in Vermont Medicine, Dr. Ward recounts the precise moment he decided to champion for change in scientific publishing. Read more about his story here from Vermont Medicine Fall 2019 edition.

(MARCH 26, 2020) Joshua Farkas, M.D., associate professor of medicine in the Division of Pulmonary Disease & Critical Care Medicine, was quoted in a New York Times article, titled "‘The Other Option Is Death’: New York Starts Sharing of Ventilators."

(MARCH 24, 2020) James Hudziak, M.D., professor of psychiatry and pediatrics, chief of child psychiatry, and director of the Vermont Center for Children, Youth, and Families, provides advice to coaches on how to continue working with their teams using virtual sessions in a Washington Post article.