Living Healthy Together

Only 10% of physicians practice in rural areas – and just one percent of graduate medical training programs are located in rural communities, meaning many, if not most, providers-in-training aren’t exposed to rural health care at all.  

We explore two residency programs that buck this trend: the Family Medicine Residency Programs at University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, Vt. and Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in Plattsburgh, NY. 

Learn how the next generation of physicians are thinking about practicing medicine in rural America, and dive into how these programs have found success in both attracting medical students and keeping physicians in our communities after they graduate. 

Nearly 15 years ago, a kitchen grease spill at home left Aaron Blair with burns on his foot so severe that he needed skin grafts and months of recovery. What Aaron could never have predicted at the time was that his traumatic injury would also begin a years-long struggle with opioid use disorder. Before Aaron knew it, he was taking 15 Percocet a day – along with oxycontin and other prescription painkillers. 

Join us as we follow Aaron’s journey through opioid use disorder and meet the mental health and substance use clinicians, peer recovery coaches and primary care physicians who have built a unique regional system of treatment, care and support that has served thousands of people across our region – and is now being replicated in other states. 

Somdeb Chatterjee and Valerie Hunter have both accomplished something extraordinary: losing and then regaining their ability not just to walk but move all of their extremities. For Somdeb, the journey began with an international trip during which he contracted a rare and mysterious condition called Gillian-Barre syndrome. For Valerie, it as a trip-and-fall accident while feeding her horses that resulted in a traumatic spinal cord injury. Their stories could not be more different, but they both walked the same path to recovery: through the inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation programs at University of Vermont Health – University of Vermont Medical Center. There, robotic technology called the Vector is making an impact on the treatment and recovery of individuals dealing with complex neurological conditions and injuries. Join us as we speak with Somdeb and Valerie about their medical journeys, and with the expert physical therapists who are supporting neurological patients, developing programs and leveraging technology to give themselves and patients like Somdeb and Valerie an edge as they work to regain functionality and independence.

At barely four months old, Weston Bird faced a life-threatening battle with Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) that kept him in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of Golisano Children’s Hospital at University of Vermont Health for weeks. This week, we follow Weston’s journey back to health through the eyes of his mother, Kristen Bird, a pediatric provider in Burlington, and learn about medical advances that are changing the risks of respiratory disease season for children, parents and senior citizens. As respiratory disease season ramps up, join us as we talk with leading experts from across UVM Health and explore what this season means for communities across Vermont and northern New York.

From influenza, COVID and RSV vaccines to public health guidance and rural health care challenges, experts in public health, pulmonary

and critical care, and pediatrics share trusted insights, actionable advice and perspectives to help individuals and families stay healthy.

Resources:

• Vermont DOH – Flu, COVID & RSV Vaccines
• NYS DOH – Respiratory Viruses
• American Academy of Pediatrics - RSV
• American Academy of Pediatrics – COVID
• American Academy of Pediatrics – Flu
• American College of OB/GYN – Flu
• American College of OB/GYN – Maternal RSV Vaccine

Palliative care isn’t about end-of-life. It’s about living your best, even in the face of serious illness. As Jayne Dobrin’s health declined in 2024, her husband, Steve, and adult daughters faced difficult conversations and emotional challenges. That’s when Steve and Jayne connected with the palliative care team at UVM Health – University of Vermont Medical Center, who helped guide them through some of the most complex and difficult moments of their lives.

Follow Jayne and Steve’s story, as Steve shares how support from a team of compassionate nurses, social workers, physicians and other health care professionals helped his family navigate medical transitions, coordinate care and find peace during Jayne’s final days. And hear from experts across UVM Health about the importance and impact of palliative care – and how early conversations with loved ones and your medical team can make a lasting difference.

Jayne and Steve’s story highlights the true purpose of palliative care: a holistic approach to helping patients and families live well, even in the face of serious illness.

For more than three years now, Cash Rich has lived life from a wheelchair – the result of severe medical conditions, including degenerative disc disease, stemming from a lifetime of mental and physical trauma, substance misuse and addiction, and a self-destructive lifestyle he says was rooted in childhood abuse.

In 2021, alcoholism, one of the few constants in Cash’s life, became an urgent and life-threatening medical crisis. Drinking had damaged Cash’s pancreatitis and left him needing life-saving treatment – but to the frustration and confusion of his medical team, the 58-year-old refused.

Join us as we follow Cash’s journey, meet the people behind a unique program called WRAP (Working to Reduce Admissions Program) designed to support the highest utilizers of health care services and learn how WRAP social worker Kathrine Acus uncovered the real reasons Cash was resisting life-changing care.

Since being diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 13, Kathy Johnson of Williston has lived an extraordinary medical odyssey. From pediatric cancer to cardiac crisis, the 65-year-old Williston resident has approached a lifetime’s worth of serious medical issues, diagnoses and treatments with an irrepressible, take-on-all-comers attitude.

In 2025, Kathy and her care team faced a new challenge: How to make the risky and complex heart procedures she desperately needed possible at all. Damage to Kathy’s heart from cancer treatment decades ago not only gave her coronary artery disease – it had calcified her aorta along with her arteries, making many conventional and minimally-invasive surgeries impossible.

Join us as we follow Kathy’s story of resilience through the years and meet the surgeons and interventional cardiologists who planned and performed a first-of-its-kind procedure in the catheter lab at University of Vermont Medical Center – where they used an advanced form of life support called Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) to sustain Kathy and repair major damage to her heart.

When Trent Campbell suffered a series of strokes beginning in 2018, he and his wife, Nikki Juvan, knew their lives would change forever. Less than a decade later, in January of 2025, Montpelier resident David Goodman suffered a life-threatening stroke and made a complete recovery in about 30 hours.

For stroke survivors, time is brain. Join us this week as we explore the regional system built on technology and neurocritical expertise that is reshaping how leading-edge stroke care is delivered in rural communities.

We’ll follow Tent, Nikki and David on their journeys as stroke survivors and caregivers, and speak with experts in neurocritical care, stroke care and vascular neurology who helped create a rural system of stroke care that brings advanced subspecialty care to communities across a rural region of more than 1 million people.

Resources

Stroke Patient & Family Education

Stroke Awareness Vermont

Stroke Caregiver Guide

StrokeNet (Clinical Trials Information)

Pediatric Neurology

WDEV Airdate: 10/3/2025

Imagine having to shave your head after a hospital stay, because the team caring for you wasn’t able to properly care for your hair. 

Hair care in the hospital can be challenging – especially for people of color.  Join us this week as we sit down with the multidisciplinary team of nurses and other health care professionals at UVM Medical Center who discovered and developed the hospital’s Hair Equity Program, and the leaders whose support helped launch an innovative approach to advancing health equity and improving health outcomes. 

Created in partnership with patients and members of the community, the hospital’s leading-edge approach to holistic patient care attempts to move the needle on one of the most scrutinized measures of success in health care: patient experience and satisfaction. 

We’ll discuss mental health at home and in the classroom, the current state of chronic absenteeism and its impact on wellbeing and scholastic achievement and rural access to care. We’ll also highlight community-based support services that help students and families respond to challenges as they arise.  

Pediatric experts in public health, youth mental health and absenteeism share real-world solutions. They discuss new research that’s deepening our understanding of what students need to succeed, and they reflect on the back-to-school experience for parents and caregivers. 

Join Dr. Keith Robinson, Dr. Heidi Schumacher, and Dr. Steven Schlozman for an in-depth look at how to set students up for success this year.