LCOM & Department News

Virtual Online Foundations Celebration Honors Medical Class of 2023, Faculty, Staff

January 29, 2021 by Jennifer Nachbur

Members of the Larner College of Medicine’s medical Class of 2023, leaders, medical educators, and staff gathered virtually January 28 to celebrate the students’ achievements and recognize the faculty and staff who have supported them during an online Foundations Celebration event.

A collage of video screen images of Larner Medical Class of 2023 Student Council members (clockwise, from top left) Vinh Le, Lud Habtu, Cyrus Thomas-Walker, and Kyle Kellett.

Members of the Larner College of Medicine’s medical Class of 2023, leaders, and medical educators, and staff gathered virtually January 28 to celebrate the students’ achievements and recognize the faculty and staff who have supported them during an online Foundations Celebration event.

A special Foundations Celebration event web site launched January 28 at 3:30 p.m. and featured videotaped remarks from Dean Richard L. Page, M.D., Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education Christa Zehle, M.D., Interim Associate Dean of Students Lee Rosen, Ph.D., Foundations Director Karen Lounsbury, Ph.D., and Level Director for the Core Clinical Clerkship Elise Everett, M.D. The event provided an opportunity for leaders to congratulate Class of 2023 medical students on their achievements and completion of the Foundations level of the Vermont Integrated Curriculum and recognize the challenges they navigated while taking courses during an unprecedented pandemic.

Student Council representative Vinh Le delivered the Class of 2023 Foundations Ceremony speech, highlighting the students’ collective accomplishments over the past 18 months of their medical school careers.

“As we prepare to begin this next stage, let's take a moment to reflect on how far we've come: Over the past 18 months, we, as a class, have attended 100s of sessions, conquered 49 TBLs, taken 306 readiness quizzes, and completed 34 major exams . . . and served our community on local and national levels during this pandemic," said Le. “We have to remember that our calling is to care for one another as much as we would for our patients . . . Our strength as a community hinges on every member feeling cared for, valued, and understood."

Le and Class of 2023 Student Council representatives Lud Habtu, Alex Jenkins, Kyle Kellett, and Cyrus Thomas-Walker, presented the following awards from the Class of 2023:

  • AMWA Gender Equity Award: A. Evan Eyler, M.D., M.P.H., Professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine. This award honors a male or female faculty member who promotes a gender-fair environment for the education and training of physicians and gender diversity in the field.
  • The Dean Warshaw Integration Award: William Raszka, M.D., Course Director, Attacks & Defenses, and Professor of Pediatrics. This award recognizes the faculty member whose teaching best captured the spirit of the VIC.
  • The Silver Stethoscope Award: Nicholas D’Alberto, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Neurological Sciences. This award recognizes the faculty member who had few lecture hours, but made a substantial contribution to students’ education.
  • Above and Beyond Award: Nicholas D’Alberto, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Neurological Sciences. This award recognizes the faculty member who went above and beyond the call of duty to help the students in their learning objectives.
  • Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award: Sean Meagher, Class of 2021. This award recognizes the teaching assistant who was the most helpful in teaching and facilitating within a Foundations course.
  • Best Support Staff (Non-teaching) Award: Julie Chiappinelli, Curriculum Coordinator, Foundations. This award recognizes the staff member who best supported students in areas besides teaching.
  • Standardized Patient Award: Nicole D'Elisa. Standardized Patients play an integral role in the education of Larner College of Medicine medical students. They foster an environment in which students can practice interviewing and examinations skills and receive honest feedback. The ability of a physician to develop rapport with a patient, perform a focused examination, and gather an accurate history are vital skills that Larner College of Medicine students are fortunate to practice early and often. The Standardized Patients share their experience, knowledge, and time with students during both Foundations and Clerkship years.
  • Foundations Course Director Award: Andrew Hale, M.D., Course Director, Cardiovascular, Renal and Respiratory Systems, and Assistant Professor of Medicine. This award recognizes the foundations course director who showed the highest degree of dedication to the successful design and implementation of their course curriculum.
  • Foundations Teaching Award: Ronald Bryant, M.D., Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. This award is presented to the faculty member who provided the most outstanding teaching activities within the Foundations curriculum.
  • Curriculum Innovation Award: Jesse Moore, M.D., Director of Active Learning and Associate Professor of Surgery. This award is present to a faculty member in recognition of contributions to new curriculum development.

Students and faculty members presented the following awards to members of the Class of 2023:

  • B. Albert Ring, MD, Memorial Grant Award for best exemplifying compassion, humor, humility, and devotion to family and friends, and intellectual curiosity – presented by Dr. Lounsbury to Class of 2023 students Isaac Adams, Sydney Chatfield, Kisha Kalra, and Sean Muniz.
  • CVRI Summer Research Fellowship Merit Award – presented by Cardiovascular Research Institute of Vermont (CVRI) Director and Professor of Medicine David Schneider, M.D., to Samuel Short ’23 (mentor: Mary Cushman, M.D., M.Sc.).
  • Durwood Smith Award for Excellence in Pharmacology – presented by Dr. Lounsbury to Joel Feier ‘23
  • Ephraim Woll Award for Excellence in General Pathology – presented by Rebecca Wilcox, M.D., associate professor and vice chair for education in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine to Jennifer Risi ’23
  • Exemplary Clinical Exam Skills Award – presented by Shirley McAdam, Standardized Patient educator, to Class of 2023 students Anna Corbalan, Aggie Forstein, Catrina Hood, Stellar Levy, and Alexy Novelli.
  • Helen and Phyllis Wasserman Phorplus Prize for excellence in the Basic Sciences – presented by Dr. Lounsbury to Class of 2023 students Delaney Sztraicher, Joel Feier, and Sydney Chatfield.
  • Summer Research Fellowship Merit Awards – presented by Renee Stapleton, M.D., Ph.D., director of medical student research and professor of medicine, to Class of 2023 students Dana Allison (mentor: Marilyn Cipolla, Ph.D.), Valerie Braddick (mentor: Bader Chaarani, Ph.D.), and Emma Dunne (mentors: Stas Amato, M.D., and Gary An, M.D.).
  • Wellness Award: presented by Class of 2023 Wellness Committee members Jesse Naumann and Aggie Forstein to classmate Vinh Le ’23.

 

Past Department Highlights

Congratulations to Anne Stowman, M.D., assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, on accepting the position as Network Vice Chair for Anatomic Pathology. (3/2024)  

Congratulations to Ashley Volaric, M.D., assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, on receiving a Physician-Scientist Pilot Award through the Translational Global Infectious Disease Research (TGIR Group) for her research on Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) epigenetics of diffuse large B-cell lymphomas in sub-Saharan Africa. (3/2024)

Congratulations to Rebecca Wilcox, M.D., associate dean for faculty affairs, and professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, on receiving The Polaris Award for Outstanding Mentorship, and Dr. Yvonne Janssen-Heininger, Ph.D., on receiving the Gender Equity Outstanding Achievement in Medicine & Science Award at the 5th Annual Celebration of Gender Equity in Medicine and Science Awards. This award honors a Larner College of Medicine faculty or staff member who provides outstanding formal or informal mnetorship for women or gender diverse** college community members. Dr. Wilcox was nominated by Andrea Green, Julie Dumas, Alexandra Kalof, and LE Faricy. (2/2024) **Gender diverse refers to those who identify with a gender outside of the she/her, he/him binary   

Congratulations to Dr. Brian Cunniff, Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, the team in the Cunniff Lab, and industry partner , RS Oncology, on having their novel therapy enter Phase 2 Clinical trials. Read more here Milestone for UVM-developed cancer drug. (2/2024)

During the annual Larner College of Medicine's Foundations Award Celebration, Amer Abu Alfa, M.D., assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine received The Dean Warshaw Integration Award recognizing the faculty member whose teaching best captured the spirit of the Vermont Integrated Curriculum. Congratulations. Christina Wojewoda, M.D., professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and vice chair for education pathology, presented the Ephraim Woll Award for Excellence in General Pathology to John Rustad. (2/2024) 

Congratulations Dr. Bei Zhang, M.D., M.S., Ph.D., MLS(ASCP)CM, on January 17, 2024, is to receive the Educational Scholarship Award from the Teaching Academy Awards for Teaching and Educational Excellence. This award recognizes an individual who has demonstrated a record of Quality, Quantity, and Engagement in medical education scholarship. Dr. Zhang, M.D., M.S., Ph.D., MLS(ASCP)CM, has been advanced to Distinguished Educator by the Teaching Academy at LCOM. Congratulations also to Bronwyn Bryant, M.D., for advancing to the level of Master Teacher and Agnes Balla, M.D., on being inducted as a Member. (1/2024)

Congratulations to University Scholar Mary Cushman, M.D., M.Sc., professor of medicine and pathology and laboratory medicine, on being ranked #90 in the U.S. and #144 in the world as one of the Best Female Scientists in the World, by Research.com. Also, Dr. Cushman, M.D., M.Sc., recently delivered the Robert Reneman Lecture at the Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht (CARIM)'s 2023 symposium in The Netherlands. The tile of her talk was "Stroke and Cognitive Impairment in a Biracial U.S. Cohort: The REGARDS Study." (1/2024)

In a recent Nature Methods paper, Doug Taatjes, Ph.D., Director of the Microscopy Imaging Center, and the Center for Biomedical Shared Resources at the Larner College of Medicine, together with colleagues from the international consortium QUAREP-LiMi, proposed a set of standardized community-developed checklists to assist researchers, reviewers, and journal editors with the goal of increasing the clarity and reproducibility of image figures and their analyses. The hope is that many journals will adopt these guidelines as part of their “Instructions for Authors”—providing a succinct and easy to use checklist for authors when compiling images for reproduction and descriptions of image analyses performed. (11/2023) (from the LCOM Newsletter)

Congratulations to some of our residents and our fellowship student on having their abstracts accepted for the upcoming 2024 USCAP annual meeting in March. "Unexpected Cardiac Amyloidsis: Demographics, Histology, Distribution and Clinical Significance: A Review of 15 Autopsy Cases." (Jesse Mostoller, Neel Hedge, Nick Taylor). "GATA3 Positive Malignant Spindle Cell Neoplasm Involving the Liver Diagnosed as Metastatic Sarcomatoid Chromophobe Renal Cell Carcinoma at Autopsy." (Rae Nusapan). "Long Term Outcome in a Case of Tetralogy of Fallot Surgically Treated with Palliative Shunts: Findings from an Adult Autopsy." (Dore Guptil, Heather Giguere). (11/2023)

Mark_FungCongratulations to Dr. Mark Fung, M.D., PhD., Professor Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, on receiving the 2023 College of American Pathologists (CAP) Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Fung is a nationally recognized expert in transfusion medicine. (10/2023) 

Congratulations to Jessica Crothers, M.D., Assistant Professor Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, on achieving the Notice of Special Interest Team Science award from NIAID for: "Effects of the gut microbiota on oral vaccine response in adults and children." (10/2023)

Nicole BouffardCongratulations to Nicole Bouffard on being awarded the "Scientific Research Staff Award" for 2023. This was presented to Nicole at the September 21, 2023, LCOM Research Excellence Award Ceremony. This is a great honor for Nicole and the Department of Pathology and recognizes her contributions and importance to the department and MIC. (10/2023)

Congratulations to Brian Cunniff, Ph.D., Assistant Professor Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, on being awarded a $1.6 million R01 grant by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to study the role of mitochondrial trafficking in regulating cell migration, a key feature of metastatic tumors. (9/2023)

Congratulations to Yvonne Janssen-Heininger, Ph.D., Professor Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, on becoming a University of Vermont Cancer Center Program Co-Leader, Cancer Cell. (9/2023)

Congratulations to the following pathology members on receiving research support funds in April 2023. Recipients were: John Kennedy, M.D., $6520 for morphologic and immunohistochemical re-evaluation of renal cell carcinomas exhibiting papillary architecture, with emphasis on tumors demonstrating "type 2" morphology. Yvonne Janssen-Heininger, Ph.D., $15,000 for a joint initiative between RBP, UVM Cancer Center, and faculty in the Department of Chemistry. Megan Tarte $745 for Stem Cells, Cell Therapies, and Bioengineering in Lung Biology and Disease Conference. Albert van der Vliet, Ph.D., $14,400 for Redox processes in macrophage activation in IPF. (9/2023)

Congratulations to the following faculty members on their promotions: Vikas Anathy, Ph.D., to Professor with tenure, Bronwyn Bryant, M.D., to Associate Professor, John DeWitt, M.D., Ph.D., to Associate Professor, Sarah Nowak Ph.D., to Associate Professor, and Christi Wojewoda, M.D., to Professor. (6/2023)

Bei Zhang, M.D., M.S., Ph.D., MLS(ASCP), associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, did an educational scholarship session titled "Activate Students Learning Outside Classroom." at the 8th International meeting of the Association of Biochemistry Educators. Dr. Zhang also conducted two additional workshops with other ABE members titled "Linking Clinical Presentations to Their Biochemistry: A novel ABE Clinical-Biochemistry Curricular Treat Mapping Educational Tool.", and "Getting to Clerkship and Beyond: Crafting Biochemistry Learning Objectives that Connect and Integrate Basic Science Concepts with Clinical Application." (5/2023)

Congratulations to Dr. Maureen Harmon, M.D., associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and Dr. Amer Abu Alfa, M.D., assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine for being recognized by medical students for their professionalism. Dr. Harmon was recognized for social responsibility and Dr. Abu Alfa was recognized for compassion. (5/2023)

Congratulations to Mary Cushman, Ph.D., M.Sc., professor of medicine and pathology and laboratory medicine, on being named a University Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Hematology/Oncology Division, and Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. (5/2023)

View the story Mammograms of a study by Sarah Nowak, Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and researchers at the UVM Cancer Center showing data that fewer women being screened for breast cancer. (4/2023)

vandervliet-habibovic420x280A new study by Albert van der Vliet, Ph.D., professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and a team of University of Vermont (UVM) researchers is honing in on why people with asthma often have worse symptoms if they are obese. This new research demonstrates that the gene DUOX1 likely contributes to the connection between obesity and asthma.  The research was published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology and was highlighted as an APSselect article for March 2023. Albert van der Vliet, Ph.D., was the senior author on the paper, along with department of pathology and laboratory medicine coauthors Aida Habibovic, lab research technician;Litiele Cruz, Ph.D., visiting scholar; Vikas Anathy, Ph.D., associate professor; University Distinguished Professor Yvonne Janssen-Heininger, Ph.D.; and additional team members and authors from UVM. Read the full LCOM News story LCOM News (4/2023)

Congratulations to Bronwyn Bryant, M.D., Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, for having your proposal, Consequential Validity of Entrustable Professional Activities in Pathology Residency Training selected to receive a Frymoyer Scholars Program project of $48,000 to be funded July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2025. (4/2023)

Congratulations to Martin Chang, M.D., Ph.D., on accepting the new role as Vice Chair for Faculty Affairs. (4/2023)

Congratulations to Joanna Conant, M.D., on becoming the new Pathology Student Fellowship Director starting July 1, 2023. (4/2023)

Congratulations to The Cunniff Lab, on receiving funding to support research focused on malignant mesothelioma. The funding was from The Butler Family Foundation Fund for Cancer Research at the University of Vermont Cancer Center. The Butler Fund was established by the Butler family in memory of two loved ones lost to mesothelioma. (03/2023)