Living Healthy Together

Alexa Valyou has faced more health care challenges in her 8 years than most people do in a lifetime. She underwent her first heart procedure less than 24 hours after being born and her first open heart surgery when she was less than a month old. Since then, Alexa has had four more – along with 17 other heart procedures, near fatal brain bleeds, emergency brain surgery and more. 

Despite Alexa’s resilience and courage, routine medical appointments like blood draws and other diagnostic procedures often tested her resolve – until Alexa and her mother, Brittany, discovered The Comfort Zone at Golisano Childre...

Across America, heart disease causes nearly 1 million deaths each year. In Vermont and northern New York, tens of thousands are impacted annually. At UVM Medical Center, a small but mighty team of heart specialists has spent decades advancing cardiac care for patients and our understanding of the complex factors that impact heart health.

Join us to learn more about the paradigm-shifting work of the Cardiology team at our region’s only academic medical center. You’ll hear about a new biomarker test that gives physicians prescribing blood thinning medications more information than ever before, new treatments for the...

For as long as he can remember, Jon Carey of Erie, Pennsylvania has lived with dysthymia, also known as persistent depressive disorder. But it wasn’t until well into Jon’s adult years that his struggles with depression took a life-threatening turn. Then Jon met Dr. Ennio Ammendola, whose work as part of a team of suicide care experts proved life-changing for the 58-year-old biologist and father. 

Suicide touches the lives of many Vermonters and New Yorkers each year and is a leading cause of death across the United States. It is also a serious challenge for rural...

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...

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 h...

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. Th...

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 expl...

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 he...

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.

Joi...

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 aort...

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 jo...

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 partner...

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 S...

A spinal surgery gone wrong left John Killacky paralyzed and living in debilitating pain. After a traumatic hit-and-run accident, Emily Metcalfe woke up in the hospital, quadriplegic, and in need of months of physical and occupational therapy as she relearned how to walk.

On this episode of Living Healthy Together, UVM Health Network's podcast, John and Emily share their stories, their experiences living with chronic pain, and how the Comprehensive Pain Program at University of Vermont Medical Center helped them learn to control their pain, rather than be defined by it.

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When dementia and Parkinson’s made words hard to find, Allegra Miller and her husband, Bob Rinkema, found a new way to connect — through music at the piano. Their shared playing became a language of its own, even when conversation was difficult.

On this episode of Living Healthy Together, UVM Health Network’s podcast, Allegra shares her caregiving journey with her husband, following his diagnosis of Lewy Body dementia and Parkinson’s.

She’s followed by Dr. Sunny Eappen and Christine Werneke, who reflect on their own experiences with family car...

Dr. Lewis First joins clinical leaders guiding work on physician education, clinical research and patient care to explain how values and vision helped create a unique "children's hospital without walls," make high-quality pediatric specialty care more accessible in rural communities, and continues to make Vermont a national leader in pediatric health and care.

WDEV Airdate: August 29, 2025

We dive into major Medicaid changes and their impact in our region. Dr. Sunny Eappen joins a panel of leaders from across our health system to unpack the impacts and share how our health system is helping patients, caregivers and rural hospitals prepare.

WDEV Air Date: August 22, 2025

Hear the gripping story of Steve Stahl, who survived a widow maker heart attack on the slopes of Mount Mansfield. Join special guest UVM Health Network CEO Dr. Sunny Eappen as we talk critical care, follow Steve’s inspiring road to recovery and discuss the future of cardiac care in our region.

WDEV Airdate: August 15, 2025