March 2026

Dean's Message

On February 16^th, our Class of 2028 marked a milestone for VTCSOM as they ushered the VTCSOM Identities curriculum into its second phase.  This phase represents the culmination of years of work and visioning from our VTCSOM community, which began with the medical education strategic planning process, led by Dr. Jed Gonzalo. In the fall of 2022, our faculty, students, staff, and alumni came together to articulate the values and attributes that we aspire for our learning environment and graduates, and our pioneering Class of 2028 is helping us bring these dreams to life!

The clerkship phase now features four integrated intersessions focused on professional identity formation that are woven into a series of core clinical clerkships. February’s Transition to Clerkship intersession, which serves as a deliberate bridge into clerkships, was led by Dr. Tarin Schmidt-Dalton and Dr. Farrell Adkins. During these two weeks, our students focused on reinforcing the habits and perspectives that define a Scientist Physician, a System Citizen, and a Master Adaptive Learner. Students practiced core skills by working through an evolving case that required structured reasoning and clear communication, strengthened procedural skills in hands-on workshops, honed systems thinking skills to identify opportunities for improving outcomes, and reflected intentionally on who they are becoming as clinicians. As they enter each clerkship, students will work towards becoming System Citizens by logging observations about the environment in which they are immersed, looking for places that small improvements might have big impacts on outcomes. They will also focus on personalized learning goals, a practice that will support their development as lifelong Master Adaptive Learners. This identity-centered approach ensures that Phase 2 is not simply about accumulating experiences, but about intentionally cultivating adaptive expertise, systems awareness, curiosity, and professionalism in authentic clinical settings, preparing students not just to observe, but to participate in ways that add value to patients and teams.

The Scientist Physician identity has been core to VTCSOM from its origin, and we hope you will join us on March 27 (12–5 p.m) for the Class of 2026 Research Symposium, which celebrates the accomplishments of our graduating class. The Scientist Physician journey begins in Year 1 with curiosity and question formulation and matures through mentorship, investigation, analysis, and scholarly dissemination. Throughout their time at VTCSOM, students have explored questions spanning disease mechanisms, clinical innovation, population health, and systems improvement. The path of discovery demands resilience, critical thinking, and collaboration and calls upon the very identities we seek to cultivate: the curiosity of the Scientist Physician, the accountability of the System Citizen, and the reflective growth of the Master Adaptive Learner.

At the symposium, each student will present a poster detailing their work, offering our community the opportunity to engage directly with the ideas and insights that have shaped their development. In addition to our two poster sessions, we will recognize our research mentor of the year and hear rapid-fire talks from a select group of students. We invite faculty, staff, students, mentors, and faculty to join us for this meaningful afternoon. Your presence affirms the collaborative spirit that makes both clinical education and research possible.

As we launch Phase 2, we send our appreciation to all of you who have been integral to creating the VTCSOM Identities curriculum. Whether in the classroom, the clinic, or the hospital, it is inspiring to see our commitment to the tenets of our education mission come to life – to inspire a community of learning that embraces unique learner characteristics and cultivates lifelong learners and health systems thinkers positioned to improve healthcare through inquiry and humility. We look forward to continuing this work together, building on the strong foundation that has been established and looking ahead to new opportunities to innovate and contribute!

Leslie LaConte, PhD
Associate Dean for Educational Affairs

News Around Campus

• Medical student studies genetic risks of chemotherapy drugs

Social Media

• VT Account: Virginia Tech alumni Jim and Augustine Smith have made the largest scholarship gift in their university’s history, endowing $20 million for in-state scholarships to medical school.
• The Narrative Behind the Numbers: Centering Black Women’s Clinical Experiences and Health
• THANK YOU for such a great Giving Day
• President Tim Sands recognized Jim and Augustine Smith for their record $20 million gift to support scholarships at VTCSOM.
• Check out these true eyecons! Congrats to Dana, Grace and Parsa, our VTCSOM ophthalmology matches!
• It was great to host artist Bill FitzGibbons, members of the Roanoke Arts Council, and so many community members to discuss the possibility of bringing a transformative art project to the underpass next to VTCSOM!

Events

3/18 Docs For Morgan

3/20 Match Day

3/27 Research Symposium

Humanism

Being Vulnerable Together On the 6th “Birthday” of PeerRx!

“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen …. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world.” Brene Brown (The Gifts of Imperfection).

This week marks 6 years since the launch of the PeerRxMed process and 16 years since the vision for PeerRx was first planted in me. For each of the over 300 times I’ve shared a blog since then, I’ve experience that same feeling of vulnerability I felt when I first hit the “make public” button on the PeerRxMed website and put myself “out there.”

In that first blog, I wrote the following, “Those of you who know me well will likely be surprised as to how hard it was for me to do this. The vulnerability I have been feeling at the prospect of sharing this dream more widely has at times been stifling … as I was allowing my fears that it wouldn’t be ‘perfect’ or some might think it was ‘soft’ or ‘trite’ and the potential criticism that may result to prevent me from moving ahead. It’s the same reason that in the past I have shared the poetry I write with so few people, even though I consider it to be a vital expression of who I am.”

I went on to write, “It is my suspicion that many of us don’t allow wonderful, deeply important parts of ourselves to be ‘seen’ due to our fear as to how those parts will be received. And in the process, we don’t really bring our authentic selves to the world. If that is true for you, what are some of those parts of you and what prevents you from sharing more?” Little did I know at the time as to how much those questions would continue to shape me. The hesitation, as I have learned, is often less about ability, and more about standing at the edge of the unknown and deciding whether to step forward.

As I have previously shared, in 2025 I chose the self-created word liminicious to name what felt like an invitation to inhabit those edges more consciously. Over time, I have come to see that the PeerRx process itself has always lived in that in-between space; between isolation and connection, exhaustion and renewal, the professional mask and the human face beneath it. The recently written poem Liminal, shared below, emerged from that same terrain. It reflects the experience of standing before something older, wiser, and more patient than our small-self stories, and allowing that presence to humble and widen us.

Sharing this poem now feels like crossing another threshold. Six years ago, I wondered whether I could risk being seen. Today, I recognize that the deeper work of PeerRx has always been about creating spaces where we can stand in unknowing together, without rushing to fix, define, or perform. If liminicious defined my intention for 2025, this poem embodies it. It is an invitation to pause in that sacred in-between, personally and collectively, and trust what may be emerging.

After reading it, you might reach out to your PeerRx partner or another colleague and ask, “What is this season inviting you to release, and what might be opening for you?” Because the “more” the poem gestures toward is not solitary transcendence. It is the widening that happens when we loosen our grip on the small self and discover that we are shaped, strengthened, and expanded through one another. In that shared space, there is always more.

Liminal

Mark Greenawald

Here, the rocks

seem to know your name,

and yet not care.

What is a name to them, after all? Or to you.

Nor is the canyon’s whispered hush

interested in your shallow-self stories,

its geologic memories

humbling even those

layered in

your ancient past

as it silently welcomes

every shadow.

Friend, let go of your plans

as the illusion they are

and embrace the ultimate mystery –

not death, or life

but now ...

Remember that between

what you would call your

present self and what might

next emerge

is a void

that really isn’t –

a sacred threshold

of unknowing.

Why do you rush to fill it

or rush at all ...

Whatever you think you are looking for,

pause, listen, and allow this moment

to inform.

And then

there will be less

of you …

and

more

Publishing

1. R. Brock Mutcheson, associate dean for assessment, evaluation, and strategic analytics, chief data officer, and assistant professor in the Department of Health Systems and Implementation Science (HSIS), Natalie Karp, associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, David Musick, senior advisor for accreditation and professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Heidi Lane, assistant dean for clinical skills assessment and education, Title IX liaison, and associate professor in HSIS, Sarah Parker, chair and associate professor in HSIS, and Jed Gonzalo, senior associate dean for medical education and professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, collaborated with colleagues from Virginia Tech on "Understanding Health Systems Thinking in Medical Education: Qualitative Interviews With Expert Clinicians," published in BMC Medical Education as part of their Stemmler Medical Education Research Grant work.
2. Roxanna Farzad, graduate student in the Translational Biology, Medicine, and Health program, worked with mentor Nicholas Rider, professor in HSIS, and colleagues on "Differences in Immunoglobulin Utilization When Treating Patients With Primary Immune Disease in the United States," published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: Global.
3. Carol Yen, PhD student in the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, worked with John Epling, vice chair for research and population health and professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Michelle Rockwell, co-director of Health Systems Science and Interprofessional Practice Phase 1 and assistant professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, and mentor Monifa Vaughn-Cooke, associate professor in HSIS, on "Toward Safer Diagnoses: A SEIPS-Based Narrative Review of Diagnostic Errors," published in Diagnostics.
4. Chloe Lessard, class of 2025, and Alexander In, class of 2025, worked with Anita Kablinger, vice chair, director of clinical research, and professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, and other colleagues on "Prescribing Trends in Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Medications Among Pregnant and Postpartum Persons," published in Obstetrics & Gynecology.
5. Amanda Reynolds, class of 2028, and Adam Hoch, class of 2027, worked with mentor Scott Johnstone, assistant professor in the Department of Surgery, and other colleagues on "Pannexins in the Heart: Cell-Specific Expression and Contributions to Disease," a review published in Cell and Tissue Research.  
6. Charles LeNeave, class of 2026, worked with mentor Brian Meier, assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, John Perkins, associate professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, and another colleague on "Impact of Primary Spoken Language as a Social Determinant of Health on Cardiopulmonary Education and Use: Pilot Study," published in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine.
7. Jonathan Stewart, associate professor, and John Epling, vice chair for research & population health and professor, both from the Department of Family and Community Medicine, worked with another colleague on "Use of Epic Signal Data to Evaluate the Impact of an 'EHR Pearls' Curriculum," published in PRiMER.
8. Denis Foretia, associate dean for global health, vice chair for faculty development, and associate professor in the Department of Surgery, collaborated with colleagues on "Building Research Capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa: Findings From a Pilot Scientific Writing Workshop in Cameroon," published in BMC Research Notes.
9. Katherine Mayes, associate professor, and Damon Kuehl, vice chair and professor, both from the Department of Emergency Medicine, collaborated with colleagues on "Evaluating Emergency Department Transfers for Falls in Skilled Nursing Facilities: A Single-Site Observational Study of Witnessed and Unwitnessed Falls," published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.
10. Stephanie Lareau, professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, worked with colleagues on "Educational Scholarship in Wilderness Medicine: Foundations, Challenges, and Emerging Standards-A Special Issue on Wilderness Medicine Education," published in Wilderness & Environmental Medicine.
11. Justin Weppner, associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, and Isaiah Yim, class of 2026, worked with another colleague on "A Survey of Physicians Perceptions of Disability Outcomes After Hypothetical Traumatic Brain Injury," published in Scientific Reports.
12. Randall Bissette, Lucas Arney, Mia Edelson, and Ethan Nethery, all class of 2025, collaborated with Terry Nickerson, associate professor in the Department of Surgery, surgery resident graduate Madaliene Denison, and another colleague on "High-Frequency Micro-Ultrasound Transrectal Imaging Enhances Staging and Preoperative Planning of Prostate Radiation Induced Rectal Cancer: A Case Report," published in the Journal of Clinical Ultrasound. 

Congratulations

Congratulations to Ryan Anderson on receiving an Honorable Mention Award for Excellence from the AAMC Group on Institutional Advancement (GIA) in the Electronic Communications – Audio and Video category for his powerful piece, The First Patient. The GIA Awards for Excellence honor outstanding contributions that advance medicine, research, and education across academic medical centers nationwide. Selected for national recognition, Ryan’s work was praised by judges as exceptional, reflecting both creative vision and meaningful storytelling that elevates the mission of academic medicine.

The First Patient exemplifies the impact of thoughtful, mission-driven communication in connecting audiences to the heart of medical education and patient care. This national recognition highlights not only Ryan’s talent, but also the strength of storytelling within the VTCSOM community. Please join us in congratulating Ryan on this well-deserved achievement, and take a moment to view his award-winning video here:

Spotlight on Giving

After another successful Giving Day, we want to thank everyone who came together in support of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Virginia Tech! Held from noon on Feb. 18 to noon on Feb. 19, the 24-hour fundraising event will have a lasting impact on our students and our school.

More than 25,000 Hokies participated across the university with 174 unique donors specific to VTCSOM. Virginia Tech colleges, teams, programs, and student organizations raised more than $17 million as a whole. We were thrilled with nearly $250,000 raised to support VTCSOM scholarships and programs directly.

This year, VTCSOM hosted a coffee fundraising event called the Giving Grind at RND Coffee in Riverside 2. It was an invigorating get-together with a strong and enthusiastic turnout, filled with games, giveaways and camaraderie.

We are so grateful that members of the VTCSOM family and our community believe in our school and our mission, supporting us on this university-wide initiative. Thank you again, and we are already looking forward to the next Giving Day!

Alumni Update

Dr. Michael Ferguson, VTCSOM Class of 2019, was recently elected by the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine to serve as the Vice-Chief for 2026-2027 for the Medical Executive Committee (MEC) at the Carilion Medical Center. The MEC of Carilion Medical Center consists of elected representation from each Department within the Organized Medical Staff.  Dr. Ferguson will be the first VTCSOM graduate to serve as an elected member of the MEC. 

The 2026 Society of Maternal Fetal Medicine PREGNANCY Meeting in Las Vegas brought together a few familiar faces this month. Dr. Lauren Hennis ’23 presented a poster presentation on the implementation efforts of the Carilion L&D unit to reduce postpartum hemorrhage at Carilion. In addition, Amand DeGraaf, a current second year VTCSOM medical student, presented preliminary results from a program aimed at developing a novel ultrasound framework for in-utero evaluation of placental health. This program is a joint venture between Carilion and VT collaborators, Dr. Meghan Whitham ’15 and Dr. Aiguo Han.

Do you have any news to share?

Are you moving on to private practice or a fellowship? Did you get married? Have a baby? Get published, present at a conference, receive an award, or promoted?  Tell us all about it! Email your update to vtcsomalumn@vt.edu or fill out our survey:  https://virginiatech.questionpro.com/a/TakeSurvey?tt=vgzDQZL8WMUECHrPeIW9eQ%3D%3D

Carilion Recruitment

Interested in returning to Roanoke or the surrounding areas to work and play?  Carilion Clinic has outstanding employment opportunities available in many specialties. Visit Carilionclinic.org, scroll to Careers and then Physician Careers for more information. You may also reach out to Andrea Henson, director of physician recruitment & onboarding (ahenson@carilionclinic.org) or 540-224-5241.

Take Note

Docs For Morgan

At 7 p.m., Wednesday, March 18, we will be holding our annual Docs For Morgan basketball game at Patrick Henry High School.

Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine students and Carilion Clinic physicians go head to head to honor Morgan Harrington and support her parents. Founded in 2012, the event raises money for a scholarship in Morgan's memory — a Virginia Tech student and school intern who was tragically murdered in 2009. The fund has raised more than $375,000 to benefit School of Medicine students.

To Learn More About Docs for Morgan

To Give To The Scholarship

Match Day

On March 20th, Fourth-year students discover the location and clinical area in which they begin their residency. This celebration is the culmination of four years of study. Envelopes are handed out during the private ceremony, indicating the residency that matched with each student. During the public ceremony, students shared their next adventure with their classmates and guests.  

Livestream

Research Symposium

On March 27th, we'll celebrate the discoveries of our Class of 2025. Throughout their training, these students have explored topics ranging from the pathophysiology of cancer, pulmonary, and cardiovascular diseases to strategies for improving our health system. At the symposium, every student will present a research poster, and a select group of faculty-recognized students will deliver rapid-fire presentations highlighting their work.

Livestream

Last Note

Jim and Augustine Smith made the largest scholarship gift in Virginia Tech’s history, endowing a $20 million fund for in-state scholarships at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. The Smith’s record generosity will help aspiring physicians overcome cost barriers to realizing their dreams and support the medical school’s continued growth.

The Smiths, who are both Virginia Tech alumni and Roanoke natives, have been long-time champions of VTCSOM. Jim served as the first chair of the school’s advisory board and the James R. Smith Family Charitable Foundation Scholarship has supported numerous students over the years.

“The opportunity to contribute to a medical education that incorporates research into the curriculum caught my interest,” said Jim Smith. “This was a unique chance to enhance our research capabilities and our health care delivery to rural areas. Investing in the education of our most talented young people, I viewed as money well spent.”

Please join us in our heartfelt thanks to the Smith Family!