In a few short months, seven members of the College’s Class of 2019 will embark on the College’s first Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships. A total of seven students will be placed in primary care practices connected with two UVM clinical training affiliates – Hudson Headwaters Health Network, headquartered in Queensbury, N.Y., and Eastern Maine Health System, headquartered in Bangor, Maine.

Meg Klepack and Cori Polonski will complete LICs in Waterville, Maine. Brendan Kinsley and Julia McGinty will go to Bangor, Maine, and Khaled Al Tawil, Holly Bachilas, and Sunit Misra will go to Hudson Headwaters Health Network-affiliated primary care practices in the Adirondacks region of New York.

Several Larner College of Medicine faculty members and residents participated in LICs during medical school. UVM neurologist Timothy Fries, M.D., completed an LIC at a community clinic/family practice in St. Peters, Minn., while a student at the University of Minnesota Medical School in the late 1970s-early 1980s. He followed his own patients and got credit for internal medicine, family medicine, and obstetrics/gynecology. “It was my best year of medical school,” says Fries, who adds that “It put all of my didactic education following that year in a different perspective.”

Hudson-Headwaters LIC coordinator and family physician Colleen Quinn, M.D., was the first student to participate in an LIC at Lake Placid Hospital while she was studying at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, N.Y. During her LIC, she was embedded in a primary care practice and followed patients over the course of the year, with significant experiences in surgery, surgical specialties and obstetrics and gynecology. “The independence prepped me for residency,” says Quinn.

First-year UVM Medical Center general surgery resident Stephen Ranney, M.D., completed an LIC in Norway, Maine at a 25-bed critical access hospital while he was a student at Tufts University School of Medicine. “There were 40 students across eight or nine sites,” says Ranney, who chose his location in the western part of the state based on its established reputation for incorporating students into the hospital’s day-to-day activities. “The hours were long, but never wasted,” says Ranney, who adds that “as a third-year, it was a daunting responsibility, but then you’re really ready.”

Class of 2019 student Sunit Misra is hopeful he’ll gain similarly impactful experiences. “The freedom to explore the parts of medicine that interest me most, and the ability to personalize my medical education is what I am really looking forward to,” he says.

His classmate Meg Klepack hopes the LIC opportunity will help her to really engage in patient-centered medicine. "In addition to learning every bit as much medicine as my classmates doing the traditional clerkships, I believe the year will allow me to develop meaningful relationships with patients and really see the health care system through their eyes."

Maine native Julia McGinty '19 will be doing an LIC in the Bangor area, and is "excited about making long-term relationships with patients, and getting a really hands-on experience in primary care."

Khaled Al Tawil, who is proud to be one of the pioneers in the LIC, says "It's a personalized program to provide care to the rural parts of our nation, and serving these populations is the goal of my career in medicine."