On Thursday, March 27, 2025, the University of Vermont Department of Surgery held the 55th Annual Surgery Senior Major (SSM) Scientific Program in the University of Vermont Medical Center’s Davis Auditorium. Coordinated by Alia Aunchman, M.D., scholarly research project program director and assistant professor of surgery; Hannah Kooperkamp, M.D., director of the SSM Resident Readiness course and assistant professor of surgery; Patrick Forgione, M.D., director of surgery student education and associate professor of surgery; Katelynn Ferranti, M.D., associate surgery education director and assistant professor of surgery; and Lisa Washburn, program coordinator, the event showcased the scholarly work of UVM Larner College of Medicine students who will be specializing in surgery following their graduation in May.

The objective of the event, according to the Department of Surgery, is “to provide [students] with the opportunity—through a library search or quality improvement project, a patient chart review, and/or laboratory investigation—to complete a scholarly project, assemble and prepare the data in the form of a scientific article acceptable for publication in a professional journal, and present this research at a scientific seminar.”

This year, presentations were given by three students from the Class of 2025. At an awards luncheon following the program, they were recognized for their outstanding scientific projects and received Senior Surgery Major Awards:

Third place - Chellie Nayar, for her project “Time to Fundoplication: An Analysis of a Single Network’s Referral Patterns” (research mentor: Conor O’Neill, M.D., assistant professor of surgical oncology)

Second Place - Annabelle Feist, for her project “Exercise Prehabilitation in Abdominal Surgical Oncology: A Systematic Review and Meta Analysis” (research mentor: Conor O’Neill, M.D., assistant professor of surgical oncology)

First Place - Elizabeth O’Neill, for her project “Personality-trait-like Individual Differences of Residents and Medical Students: Implications on Surgical Training & Medical Specialization” (research mentor: Wasef Abu-Jaish, M.D., associate professor of general surgery)

Anne Brisson Morris, M.D., associate professor of family medicine, has been appointed associate dean for primary care at the Larner College of Medicine, succeeding Charles MacLean, M.D. Morris will assume her new leadership role on May 1, 2025.

Morris, who joined the Larner faculty in 2014, currently serves as residency program director in the Department of Family Medicine. She has served as chair of the Family Medicine Credentials Committee, a member of the Family Medicine Faculty Leadership Advisory Council and the Family Medicine Senior Leadership Council, and she is active in the Recruitment, Research, Scholarship, and Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure Committees. A valued leader in medical advocacy, she is a board member for the Vermont Academy of Family Physicians, where she currently serves as immediate-past president, and a board member of the Vermont Medical Society. She is a delegate for the State of Vermont at the American Academy of Family Physicians National Congress of Delegates. In addition to her roles at Larner, Morris is a family physician at Milton Family Practice, where she has worked for more than 10 years. 

Morris received her medical degree from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and completed her family medicine residency training at the University of Vermont, where she served as chief resident. She has presented scholarly work both regionally and nationally, with a focus on graduate medical education, including curriculum, development, and residency wellness. She is currently involved in three medical education scholarly projects focused on, respectively, assessing the impact of AI ambient virtual scribe technology on residents; using individualized learning plans to integrate competency-based medical education into individualized resident electives; and an app-based evaluation to complete real-time direct observation assessments.

Encouraged by the Vermont Legislature, the Larner College of Medicine established the Office of Primary Care (OPC) in 1993 to focus its commitment to primary care in Vermont. The OPC and Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) Program is focused on improving the health of Vermonters through developing, recruiting, and retaining a high-quality health care workforce. The AHEC Program Office at the Larner College of Medicine works collaboratively with two independent non-profit regional centers—the Northern Vermont AHEC and the Southern Vermont AHEC—which bring the voice of the community to our college, and vice versa.

Morris succeeds MacLean, who will step down as associate dean for primary care after serving in this role since 2008. During his tenure, MacLean has collaborated with faculty and staff to create and grow the AHEC Scholars Program, develop Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes), and expand outreach to our community. He has supervised many medical student projects, often resulting in presentations and publications. He has also helped develop the research capabilities of colleagues through mentoring, faculty development programs, and his work with the Northern New England Clinical and Translational Research program. Throughout his 35-year tenure in the UVM Health Network he has also served as a primary care physician in Essex.

Class of 2028 medical student leaders of the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) and the Art Together SIG at the Larner College of Medicine spearheaded Kindness in Bloom in March to facilitate the spread of thoughtful and motivational notes among their fellow medical students.

Madi Cohen, Kripa Harper, Sabrina Herzberg, and Ashley Sharma, the leaders of AMWA, and Harper and Clara Loftis, the leaders of the Art Together SIG, were inspired by the warmer weather and looming exams to spread kindness in the Larner community. On the first day of spring, March 20, during Women’s History Month, they held an event to decorate paper bags for medical students to hang on their lockers, and note cards were available in class throughout the week so people could create and deliver encouraging and kind notes in one another’s bags.

“We chose to have this event on the first day of spring to highlight the natural beauty we’re surrounded by here at LCOM and also to celebrate Women’s History Month,” Cohen says. “We wanted to create a space for our peers to interact, especially with those they don’t normally get a chance to chat with, and we created this bag-on-lockers system to facilitate the spread of thoughtful and motivational notes to one another.”

The American Medical Women’s Association is the oldest multispecialty organization dedicated to advancing women in medicine and improving women’s health.

The Art Together SIG is a student-led extracurriculars / student health and well-beingstudent interest group dedicated to fostering creativity, connection, and community among medical students through the power of art.

For Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month in March, the University of Vermont’s Across the Fence program featured UVM Cancer Center Director Randall Holcombe, M.D., M.B.A., Larner professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology. Holcombe spoke with Across the Fence host Joleil Whitney about colorectal cancer, its risk factors, treatments, and prevention—especially early detection through colonoscopy screenings. The interview aired on April 1.

Across the Fence is a daily 15-minute television program co-produced by UVM Extension and WCAX-TV informing viewers about activities being conducted by University of Vermont faculty, staff, and students that benefit viewers and their communities. The longest running farm, home, and community television program in the country, Across the Fence airs weekdays at 12:15 p.m. on WCAX-TV Channel 3.

Watch Dr. Holcombe on Across the Fence

For national Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) Awareness Month, the March 17, 2025, episode of the University of Vermont’s Across the Fence program featured University of Vermont Medical Center hematologist Karlyn Martin, M.D., M.S., associate professor of medicine at the Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine. Martin spoke with Across the Fence host Keith Silva about DVT, its risk factors, symptoms, preventive measures, and treatments.

Across the Fence is a daily 15-minute television program co-produced by UVM Extension and WCAX-TV informing viewers about activities being conducted by University of Vermont faculty, staff, and students that benefit viewers and their communities. The longest running farm, home, and community television program in the country, Across the Fence airs weekdays at 12:15 p.m. on WCAX-TV Channel 3.

Watch Karlyn Martin, M.D., on Across the Fence

Karine Sahakyan, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of radiology at the Larner College of Medicine and a diagnostic radiologist at the University of Vermont Medical Center, has been nominated and inducted into the 2024–25 Council of Early Career Investigators in Imaging of the Academy for Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research.

The Academy Council is a network of more than 200 imaging investigators from 50 academic research departments. Its purpose is to recognize and encourage early-career achievements, engage researchers in advocacy for research funding, create cross-institutional educational programming, and facilitate diverse networking opportunities.

Kyle Bergeron, Molly Burke, Aldi Chan, Finn Davis-Batt, Jordan Hacker, Jesus Mendoza, Alexander Nissenbaum, Ayda Oktem, Michael Sabbaj, and Julia Solowey from the Larner Class of 2028 have been selected to serve as mentors for the Governor’s Institutes of Vermont (GIV) summer 2025 Health and Medicine Institute. The Health and Medicine Institute is led by the Northern Vermont Area Health Education Center (AHEC) on the Vermont State University (VSU)–Lyndon campus and by Southern Vermont AHEC on the VSU–Castleton campus. 

Each Health and Medicine Institute is a week-long residential program for 70 high school students, providing health career exploration and hands-on experiences as part of AHEC’s early pipeline workforce development. Larner medical students act as educators and mentors, leading interactive trainings and activities designed to spark participants’ interests.

Last summer, 11 Larner medical student volunteers from the Class of 2027—Lajla Badnjević, Jeremiah Bates, Shannon Bennett, Alison Chivers, Aaron Dees, Lindsey Gleason, Ian Kent, Taylor Krause, Elizabeth Medve, Chloe Ruscilli, and Eli Zettler—served as AHEC student mentors.

Kent joined a recent information session for Class of 2028 medical students to outline the benefits of the opportunity. “GIV is a great opportunity for folks who enjoy teaching and sharing their love of health care/scientific disciplines with others,” he said. “The students were incredibly brave and ambitious. I was proud to see students try new things, like the heart and brain dissections sessions I led. We had the opportunity to provide sessions around topics we felt strongly about.”