UO > Sep/Oct 2008 > Upper Valley New Hampshire & Vermont

Community Profile

Upper valley of new hampshire & vermont

New England Gem

The Upper Valley of New Hampshire and Vermont offers diverse

employment and pace of life

By Lisa Rogak Unique Opportunities Sep/Oct 2008

Simply put, most people who live in the Upper Valley area of New Hampshire and Vermont consider themselves to be thoroughly spoiled. The region is rich in everything you’d ever want: small-town life, lots of four-season outdoor activities—summer’s hiking trails become winter’s cross-country skiing trails—a surfeit of culture, great food, unique shopping possibilities, intellectual stimulation, and last but not least, friendly people. Quaint little towns and old-fashioned general stores dot the region, heralding a view to a bygone agricultural era that’s still alive and kicking.

The towns that make up the core of the Upper Valley—Hanover, Lebanon, Lyme, and Enfield on the New Hampshire side, and Norwich, Hartford/White River Junction, Thetford, and Hartland in Vermont—vary widely in terms of real estate, culture and population. For instance, Hanover is home to many Dartmouth College professors, so there’s a real intellectual air that permeates the town, but come fall weekends, football fever predictably reigns. Though it’s right next door, Lebanon has more of a melting-pot feel to it demographically speaking. It’s also the one town in the region with the most national retail chains, on Route 12A in West Lebanon, which parallels the Connecticut River. Lyme boasts to numerous horse farms and second homeowners while Enfield is generally regarded as suburban.

The differences don’t stop on the Vermont side. Norwich is one of the wealthiest towns in the state, while Thetford to its immediate north has a more laid-back rural feel. South of Norwich, the town of Hartford is made up of numerous villages including White River Junction—an old railroad town that’s now a gritty arts community with a

top-notch theatre company, a funky clothing store/espresso bar, and a martini lounge with live music nightly—and Quechee, home to a sprawling second home community and a gorge that is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the state. To its south, Hartland is similar to Thetford.

Small high-tech companies abound in the area, and many of the companies with main headquarters located here—Hypertherm, TeleAtlas, Dimatix, and Creare—got their start as a mere glimmer in the eye of some Dartmouth professor.

Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, is the largest hospital in northern New England—with 329 beds—and is home to Dartmouth Medical School.

In addition to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center—better known as DHMC—physicians can find work at the Veterans Administration in White River Junction and Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital in Lebanon. In fact, many Upper Valley MDs shuttle between at least two of the hospitals; there’s a lot of career cross-pollination, especially due to the presence of Dartmouth Medical School.

Indeed, in some ways, it sounds too good to be true. Of course, there exists what some people consider to be a downside, but we’ll get to that later.

The Hills Are Alive

The local music and art scene is alive and well in the Upper Valley, with many restaurants hosting live music several nights a week—the Canoe Club on Main Street in Hanover boasts live music 363 nights a week (Christmas and Thanksgiving being the exceptions.) World class performers passing through town to perform at the College’s Hopkins Center; in the last year, luminaries including Wynton Marsalis and Kevin Bacon graced the stage. The Lebanon Opera House also hosts top national acts like Hot Tuna and Garrison Keillor. William J. Rosen, MD, associate professor of ophthalmology at Dartmouth Medical

School is well-versed in the local music scene; besides his day job, he also plays jazz guitar in ensembles at some of the local restaurants.

Rosen first discovered the Upper Valley in 1993 when, after finishing med school and residency at UC Davis, he came to DHMC for an interview. He was charmed by the Upper Valley, and though he had already been offered a job in Augusta, Georgia, he accepted a position at DHMC and never looked back.

“The Upper Valley has a small-town college atmosphere with good schools and cultural events, and it’s a safe place to raise a family,” he says.

Size Matters

Around the Upper Valley, some residents prefer the atmosphere of a small hospital instead of the teaching-hospital environment at DHMC, and some physicians feel the same way. With over 6,600 employees, DHMC is by far the Upper Valley’s largest employer, akin to a small city, while Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital (APD)—with 440 employees and 50 beds—has more of a small-town feel.

David Kroner, MD, FACS, is a general surgeon at APD and appreciates the neighborhood feel of the hospital. “I get to practice in a place where I know everyone from the CEO down through nursing, maintenance, and housekeeping, though as a physician, the access to DHMC for referrals and continuing education is a wonderful plus,” he said. After completing his surgical training in San Antonio, his stations included Michigan, Virginia, Maine, and Alaska, among others, along with a stint as the commander of a Rapid Deployment Force hospital. In 1985, when it came time to settle down in one place, Kroner’s wife, Connie—who had loved the years they spent in Maine—put her foot down and insisted they live in New England. The first time they drove around to explore the Upper Valley, they both felt a sense that they were in God’s country and had found their home.

“We have the best of both worlds here,” he said. “Whatever you need, it’s not too far away. If you need the big city, Boston is only two hours away while rural is right out your back door.” And for downhill ski enthusiasts, resorts such as Stowe and Killington are about an hour’s drive from Upper Valley towns. While hospital food usually ranks right down there with airplane cuisine, according to Kroner, the chefs at APD are particularly gifted. “This is the only hospital where I’ve worked that I actually sometimes order take-out from the cafeteria because the food is that good.”

Tina Foster, MD, MPH, MS, also ended up in the Upper Valley—at DHMC—after an equally circuitous route. After graduating from med school at UC/San Francisco in 1984, she did her residency in OB/GYN at San Bernardino County Medical Center/Loma Linda University in southern California. She then earned an MPH at the Harvard School of Public Health before getting a VA National Quality Scholars fellowship, where she landed at the VA in White River Junction. After finishing the fellowship, she stayed on at DHMC, starting there full time in 2002.

She first came to Vermont in January 2000, and she was anxious about driving on ice or snow. As it turned out, she didn’t have to worry about snow, but found it bitterly cold when the thermometer fell below zero and got stuck for awhile. “Everyone kept telling me that it was never that cold. I now know they were not being entirely truthful,” she adds wryly. Foster initially thought that the Upper Valley seemed pretty far away from everything, and once she relocated she planned to visit Boston and New York as often as possible for a dose of culture. That soon fell by the wayside, however, due to the rich cultural offerings in the area. “I actually spent more time in New York when I lived in LA than after I moved to the Upper Valley,” she says.

“It’s incredibly beautiful here,” she adds. “I feel lucky every day on my drive home, even in the winter now, and it’s really safe. I’m in a community, but I’m not hemmed in by it. There’s plenty to do if you like being outdoors or indoors, but I’m not sure I would love it here so much if the college weren’t here.”

Jennifer H. Judkins, MD, an otolaryngologist, joined APD in 2006 after spending six years in practice in Providence, Rhode Island. She attended the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo, Ohio, and split her residency between Burlington, Vermont, and Brooklyn, New York. When she decided to leave Rhode Island, she specifically looked for a rural community so she could start a small farm. She picked New Hampshire after considering Colorado, Wyoming, and Wisconsin.

“I’ve been so happy here,” she says. First she bought a small farm so she could keep her two horses at home instead of boarding them, and she’s since added four more horses along with two goats and fourteen chickens. Judkins also grows some of her own food and is involved in a grassroots organization that promotes animal-powered farming. She loves that there is so much to learn. “As a physician, it’s so important to have a passion at home that allows you to decompress from your practice, which helps prevent burnout,” she says.

Like her colleague David Kroner, she loves the small-town feel of the area. “I know all my neighbors, and we all watch out for each other and help out without being asked,” she says.

Continued... PAGE 2 TOP OF THIS PAGE