Original content from: Vermont Business Magazine
A growing partnership between University of Vermont Medical Center and the Vermont Professionals of Color Network (VT PoC) aims to help people of color adjust to life in Vermont and build the personal and professional relationships community leaders say are crucial to both individual wellbeing and keeping residency students in the state after they complete their clinical training.
“During my 20 plus years here, I have heard from so many black and brown people about how difficult it can be to adjust to life in Vermont – and this goes for medical residents too,” said Tino Rutanhira, co-founder and co-executive director of VT PoC. “Many people feel alone and isolated, missing community, their favorite ethnic foods or struggling with the winter. Without support, many of these professionals decide to leave Vermont at a time when our state desperately needs young, skilled and diverse people to help it grow.”
VT PoC’s Newcomer Nexus program offers that support, helping people of color to build early personal and professional connections in Vermont. Newcomer Nexus will soon be available to a growing number of medical residents at UVM Medical Center.
Each year, hundreds of aspiring clinicians come to Vermont to continue their medical education at UVM Medical Center. The region’s only academic medical center offers more than 17 residency programs and 25 fellowships. Many of these residents stay in Vermont – contributing to a physician workforce that is in high demand and recruited aggressively and competitively by hospitals and health systems across the county. Approximately 30% of physicians practicing at UVM Medical Center were once medical residents within University of Vermont Health Network, and 40% of the hospital’s nurse practitioners graduated from the University of Vermont College of Nursing and Health Sciences.
Through its expanded partnership with VT POC, UVM Medical Center’s residency programs for anesthesiology, emergency medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry and psychology will provide funding for residents of color who wish to participate in VT PoC’s Newcomer Nexus program, which is voluntary.
“The program offered a supportive, collegial and positive connection that has helped me to immediately immerse myself in the community,” said Mark Gordon, UVM Health Network’s chief operating officer and an early participant in the Newcomer Nexus program. “Helping people to build these early relationships and connections is crucial to enabling professionals of all kinds to thrive here, while helping Vermont to grow.”
The program has two pieces. First, a virtual panel discussion open to any individual interested in pursuing their residency or fellowship at UVM Medical Center. The panel discussion, hosted by VT PoC, offers a forum for local people of color to share their perspective on life in Vermont and field questions from prospective residents.
Once new residents are matched with a UVM Medical Center residency and arrive in Vermont, the program matches residents of color with peers, or ambassadors, who have lived and worked in Vermont for a longer period of time. The ambassadors help incoming residents settle in, build connections through personal and professional networks and navigate cultural and practical nuances within the local and regional community.
“We are thrilled to nurture this important relationship with VT PoC and to help more clinicians feel at home and thrive in Vermont during their medical residencies,” said Marissa Coleman, PsyD, vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion and patient experience for UVM Medical Center. “Programs like these are vital to the long-term sustainability of our state, helping to attract the skilled professionals that we need and more clinicians of color to help care for our increasingly diverse community. It’s good for our patients, it’s good for our staff and it’s a win for our state.”
Building Connections, Enriching Communities
When Gary Scott first relocated from Texas to join University of Vermont Health Network as the senior vice president of facilities, real estate, construction and support services, he found himself on the verge of giving up on his move because he felt isolated.
However, after meeting at a volunteer vaccination clinic, Scott and Rutanhira became close friends, which helped Scott to settle, develop more relationships and find a sense of community. Rutanhira says that their friendship and shared efforts to connect with fellow professionals of color in the region helped inspire the Newcomer Nexus program.
“Relationships with fellow professionals of color made such a difference in my own journey to feel at home in Vermont,” said Scott. “Formalizing these kinds of support networks through VT PoC will be a tremendous asset to everyone in the region, especially people of color interested in living and working here.”
UVM Medical Center’s official partnership with VT PoC began with a conversation between Rutanhira and Courtney Fleisher, PhD, ABPP, UVM Medical Center’s lead inpatient pediatric psychologist. Fleisher approached VT PoC at the UVM Health Network Health Equity Summit to discuss ways to help clinicians of color matched with the hospital’s psychology residency to feel more supported and at home in Vermont, which is among the least-diverse states in the country.
“Coming from working on the south side of Chicago, I missed the racial, cultural and ethnic diversity and knew that many of our residents felt isolated,” said Fleisher. “Collectively, our psychology department recognized that we needed to do more to help our residents of color. We know that diversity is a driver of clinical excellence, and we felt it was important to prioritize that.”
The psychology residency program worked with VT PoC for the first time in 2024, attracting a dozen prospective residents to the Newcomer Nexus panel discussion. While no people of color were matched with the psychology residency later that year, the program’s early learnings were instrumental in motivating other residency programs to join the partnership. Earlier this year, nearly 30 prospective residents for UVM Medical Center programs attended the VT PoC zoom discussion.
“As a newcomer to Vermont and an alumnus of Newcomer Nexus, I know how valuable these early connections can be in convincing newcomers to stay and work in Vermont,” said Carla Carten, PhD, senior vice president, chief diversity and inclusion officer for UVM Health Network. “It has given me a sense of real comfort and joy, and I’m confident that it will help our residents of color to see a bright future here in Vermont.”
About the University of Vermont Medical Center
The University of Vermont Medical Center is a 499-bed tertiary care regional referral center providing advanced care to approximately 1 million residents in Vermont and northern New York. Together with our partners at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont and the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, we are Vermont’s academic medical center. The University of Vermont Medical Center also serves as a community hospital for approximately 150,000 residents in Chittenden and Grand Isle counties.
The University of Vermont Medical Center is a member of The University of Vermont Health Network, an integrated system established to deliver high-quality academic medicine to every community we serve.
For more information visit www.UVMHealth.org/MedCenter or visit our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blog sites at www.UVMHealth.org/MedCenterSocialMedia.
About the Vermont Professionals of Color Network
The Vermont Professionals of Color Network is a nonprofit organization that works to advance the social and economic prosperity of the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) community in Vermont. Through various programs and initiatives, VT PoC strives to create a more inclusive, equitable and prosperous community by providing resources, fostering connections, and advocating for systemic change. For more information, visit www.vtpoc.net
About The University of Vermont Health Network
The University of Vermont Health Network is an integrated system serving the residents of Vermont and northern New York with a shared mission: working together, we improve people’s lives. The partners are:
- The University of Vermont Medical Center
- The University of Vermont Health Network Medical Group
- The University of Vermont Health Network – Alice Hyde Medical Center
- The University of Vermont Health Network – Central Vermont Medical Center
- The University of Vermont Health Network – Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital
- The University of Vermont Health Network – Elizabethtown Community Hospital
- The University of Vermont Health Network – Porter Medical Center
- The University of Vermont Health Network – Home Health & Hospice