Season 2 | Episode 44 | November 2, 2022

Ivette Guttmann, MD, is a sports medicine specialist and a former professional athlete with hopes of serving as a physician at the Olympic Games. Dr. Guttmann practices sports medicine and non-surgical orthopedic care with SVMC Orthopedics, part of Southwestern Vermont Medical Center (SVMC) and Southwestern Vermont Health Care (SVHC) in Bennington. She earned her medical degree at Universidad Autonoma de Centro America in Costa Rica and completed the pediatrics residency training program at San Juan City Hospital in Puerto Rico in 2012. In addition, she completed fellowship training in primary care sports medicine at Albany Medical Center in New York in 2013. She is board certified by the American Board of Pediatrics and holds an American Board of Family Medicine Certificate of Added Qualifications in Sports Medicine.

In addition, Dr. Guttmann played professionally as a record-breaking quarterback for the Independent Women’s Football League Orlando Starz and was captain of the Orlando Mayhem, 2001 - 2002. At the amateur level, she has participated in adventure races, basketball, mountain and road cycling, snowboarding, tennis, and volleyball. She has provided medical coverage for the New York Giants training camp in Albany, NY; several college-level sports teams; and many adventure races.

Dr. Guttmann aspires to serve as a physician at the Olympic Games. As a first step, she will serve as a lead physician at the 2023 FISU World University Games in Lake Placid, NY, January 7 – 21. The games will bring more than 2,500 athletes and delegates from 600 universities and 50-plus nations to compete in 12 sports and 86 medal events. From Lake Placid, she will go on to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs January 22 – February 4. After this month-long training with elite athletes in Lake Placid and Colorado, she may be chosen to serve as a team physician during an upcoming Olympic Games.

Underwriter: Mack Molding

Medical Matters Weekly features the innovative personalities who drive positive change within health care and related professions. The show addresses all aspects of creating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle for all, including food and nutrition, housing, diversity and inclusion, groundbreaking medical care, exercise, mental health, the environment, research, and government. The show is produced with cooperation from Catamount Access Television (CAT-TV). Viewers can see Medical Matters Weekly on Facebook at facebook.com/svmedicalcenter and facebook.com/CATTVBennington. The show is also available to view or download a podcast on www.svhealthcare.org/medicalmatters. Questions can be emailed to wellness@svhealthcare.org.

Underwriter: Mack Molding

Season 2 | Episode 43 | October 26, 2022

Rheumatologist Matthew Stanishewski, DO, practices with SVMC Rheumatology, part of Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, in Bennington. Stanishewski earned his medical degree from Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and most recently served as a fellow in Rheumatology at Roger Williams Medical Center, Rhode Island Hospital, and the VA Medical Center in Providence. He is the chair of Internal Medicine at SVMC and the vice president of the medical staff. In addition, he is a fellow of the American College of Rheumatology. Stanishewski will see patients in suite 307 of the Medical Office Building, which is located at 140 Hospital Drive in Bennington.

Underwriter: Mack Molding

Medical Matters Weekly features the innovative personalities who drive positive change within health care and related professions. The show addresses all aspects of creating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle for all, including food and nutrition, housing, diversity and inclusion, groundbreaking medical care, exercise, mental health, the environment, research, and government. The show is produced with cooperation from Catamount Access Television (CAT-TV). Viewers can see Medical Matters Weekly on Facebook at facebook.com/svmedicalcenter and facebook.com/CATTVBennington. The show is also available to view or download a podcast on www.svhealthcare.org/medicalmatters. Questions can be emailed to wellness@svhealthcare.org.

Underwriter: Mack Molding

Season 2 | Episode 42 | October 19, 2022

Dr. Filbin is the co-director for Research for the Pediatric-Neurooncology Program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital. She earned her doctoral degrees in biochemistry and molecular biology from the Medical University of Graz, Austria. After a pediatric residency at Boston Children’s Hospital, she completed a fellowship in pediatric hematology/oncology at the Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center. She joined the faculty at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's as a pediatric neuro-oncologist in July 2017. In addition to her role in the treatment of patients with brain tumors, her research focuses on establishing cellular networks of tumor dependencies in pediatric brain tumors with the goal of finding new targeted therapies.

The Filbin Lab at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute studies pediatric brain tumors, particularly the lethal high-grade gliomas, including DIPG and malignant embryonal brain tumors that are in greatest need of therapeutic improvements. The team is especially interested in how the specific developmental and cellular contexts in which tumorigenic mutations arise shape the cellular hierarchy of the resulting tumors. They combine single-cell genetics and transcriptomics with gene editing, epigenetic, stem cell and pharmacologic methods to identify these cellular states, hierarchies and networks underlying tumorigenesis, with the goal of establishing new druggable targets.

For more on Dr. Filbin’s lab, visit https://filbinlab.dana-farber.org/. SVHC is grateful to the AYJ Fund for their role in connecting us with Dr. Filbin. Visit https://www.ayjfund.org/ for more information. 

Underwriter: Mack Molding

Medical Matters Weekly features the innovative personalities who drive positive change within health care and related professions. The show addresses all aspects of creating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle for all, including food and nutrition, housing, diversity and inclusion, groundbreaking medical care, exercise, mental health, the environment, research, and government. The show is produced with cooperation from Catamount Access Television (CAT-TV). Viewers can see Medical Matters Weekly on Facebook at facebook.com/svmedicalcenter and facebook.com/CATTVBennington. The show is also available to view or download a podcast on www.svhealthcare.org/medicalmatters. Questions can be emailed to wellness@svhealthcare.org.

Underwriter: Mack Molding

Season 2 | Episode 41 | October 12, 2022

Kara Richardson Whitely wrote the memoir Gorge: My Journey Up Kilimanjaro at 300 Pounds, which is being made into a movie produced by and starring ‘This Is Us’ actress, Chrissy Metz. She also wrote, Fat Woman on the Mountain and The Weight of Being. She has partnered with brands like L.L. Bean, Columbia, Keen and Discover Puerto Rico to showcase diversity and inclusion and build positive brand sentiment in the plus-sized community. She contributes to Backpacker magazine, presents to such companies as Pfizer, Google and Uber; and serves on Come Alive Outside’s Board of Directors. Find her at www.kararichardsonwhitely.com and @kararichardsonwhitely. 


Underwriter: Mack Molding

Medical Matters Weekly features the innovative personalities who drive positive change within health care and related professions. The show addresses all aspects of creating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle for all, including food and nutrition, housing, diversity and inclusion, groundbreaking medical care, exercise, mental health, the environment, research, and government. The show is produced with cooperation from Catamount Access Television (CAT-TV). Viewers can see Medical Matters Weekly on Facebook at facebook.com/svmedicalcenter and facebook.com/CATTVBennington. The show is also available to view or download a podcast on www.svhealthcare.org/medicalmatters. Questions can be emailed to wellness@svhealthcare.org.

Underwriter: Mack Molding

Season 2 | Episode 40 | October 5, 2022

Dr. Vahdat is the section chief of Medical Oncology and the interim section chief of Hematology at Dartmouth Cancer Center and a professor of medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. She earned her medical degree at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and completed an internal medicine residency at Mount Sinai Hospital, both in New York City. She completed a fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

A translational breast cancer medical oncologist, Dr. Vahdat’s expertise is in drug development. She has been involved in the identification, conceptualization, design, and conduct of clinical trials of new therapies in high-risk, adjuvant, and metastatic breast cancer patients since 1994. She has led four separate drug development efforts that lead to FDA approval of three drugs active in metastatic breast cancer.

Medical Matters Weekly features the innovative personalities who drive positive change within health care and related professions. The show addresses all aspects of creating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle for all, including food and nutrition, housing, diversity and inclusion, groundbreaking medical care, exercise, mental health, the environment, research, and government. The show is produced with cooperation from Catamount Access Television (CAT-TV). Viewers can see Medical Matters Weekly on Facebook at facebook.com/svmedicalcenter and facebook.com/CATTVBennington. The show is also available to view or download a podcast on www.svhealthcare.org/medicalmatters. Questions can be emailed to wellness@svhealthcare.org.

Underwriter: Mack Molding

Season 2 | Episode 39 | September 28, 2022

Stephen T. Higgins, PhD, a national leader in addiction research and the director of the Vermont Center on Behavior & Health (VCBH) at the University of Vermont (UVM) is the guest on Medical Matters Weekly with Dr. Trey Dobson on September 28.

Dr. Higgins is principle investigator on multiple National Institutes of Health grants on the general topic of behavior and health, including a National Institute of General Medical Sciences’ Center for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) award, a National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA)/Food and Drug Administration’s Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science (TCORS) award, and a NIDA institutional training award. He is the Virginia H. Donaldson Endowed Professor of Translational Science in the departments of psychiatry and psychological science at UVM and serves as vice chair of psychiatry.

Dr. Higgins’ research centers around behavioral economics and behavioral pharmacology to investigate tobacco, substance use, and other health-related risk behaviors in vulnerable populations. His projects focus on examining mechanisms underpinning vulnerability to tobacco and other risk behaviors, treatment interventions to reduce them and improve health outcomes, and regulatory science. He is the author of more than 425 journal articles and invited book chapters and editor of a dozen volumes and therapist manuals in behavior and health.

VCBH is an interdisciplinary research center committed to investigating relationships between personal behavior patterns (i.e., lifestyle) and risk for chronic disease and premature death. Their work has historically focused on health disparities for the most vulnerable populations, particularly among the socioeconomically disadvantaged where these risk factors are overrepresented.

Medical Matters Weekly features the innovative personalities who drive positive change within health care and related professions. The show addresses all aspects of creating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle for all, including food and nutrition, housing, diversity and inclusion, groundbreaking medical care, exercise, mental health, the environment, research, and government. The show is produced with cooperation from Catamount Access Television (CAT-TV). Viewers can see Medical Matters Weekly on Facebook at facebook.com/svmedicalcenter and facebook.com/CATTVBennington. The show is also available to view or download a podcast on www.svhealthcare.org/medicalmatters. Questions can be emailed to wellness@svhealthcare.org.

Underwriter: Mack Molding

Medical Matters Weekly | Season 2 | Episode 38 | Sept. 21, 2022

Marc David, MA, is the bestselling author of the books, Nourishing Wisdom: A Mind Body Approach to Nutrition and Well-Being and The Slow Down Diet: Eating for Pleasure, Energy, and Weight Loss, a frequent speaker and consultant, and host of the celebrated Psychology of Eating Podcast. David is also the Founder of The Institute for the Psychology of Eating, the world’s only health coaching program devoted to teaching the principles of Dynamic Eating Psychology and Mind Body Nutrition. With students in well over 100 countries, the Institute champions an uplifting, inclusive approach to food and body that honors each individual’s unique physiology and psychology and that sees eating challenges as a doorway to personal growth and self-actualization.

Medical Matters Weekly features the innovative personalities who drive positive change within health care and related professions. The show addresses all aspects of creating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle for all, including food and nutrition, housing, diversity and inclusion, groundbreaking medical care, exercise, mental health, the environment, research, and government. The show is produced with cooperation from Catamount Access Television (CAT-TV). Viewers can see Medical Matters Weekly on Facebook at facebook.com/svmedicalcenter and facebook.com/CATTVBennington. The show is also available to view or download a podcast on www.svhealthcare.org/medicalmatters. Questions can be emailed to wellness@svhealthcare.org.

Underwriter: Mack Molding

Season 2 | Episode 37 | September 7, 2022

Rachel Desautels, the executive director of Girls on the Run Vermont, is the guest on Medical Matters Weekly with Dr. Trey Dobson on September 14.

Desautels has been the executive director of Girls on the Run Vermont since 2019, before which she served as a statewide program manager, program coordinator for Northern Vermont, and a volunteer coach. She moved to Vermont after more than a dozen years working as a national television and radio media buyer in metropolitan New York. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Communication and Media Studies from Pennsylvania State University.

Medical Matters Weekly features the innovative personalities who drive positive change within health care and related professions. The show addresses all aspects of creating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle for all, including food and nutrition, housing, diversity and inclusion, groundbreaking medical care, exercise, mental health, the environment, research, and government. The show is produced with cooperation from Catamount Access Television (CAT-TV). Viewers can see Medical Matters Weekly on Facebook at facebook.com/svmedicalcenter and facebook.com/CATTVBennington. The show is also available to view or download a podcast on www.svhealthcare.org/medicalmatters. Questions can be emailed to wellness@svhealthcare.org.

Underwriter: Mack Molding