Dr. Ann Guillot Honored with AAP’s Henry Barnett Award

Burlington, VT – The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has awarded its highest honor in pediatric nephrology to a legendary University of Vermont Children’s Hospital clinician, clinical educator and researcher. 

Ann Guillot, MD, received the AAP’s Henry Barnett Award at a ceremony that highlighted a career which spanned more than four decades and touched the lives of thousands of children, physicians and aspiring pediatricians here and across the country. Dr. Guillot is the primary architect of the regional system of kidney care serving pediatric patients and families in Vermont and northern New York 

“First and foremost, Ann has always cared really intensely and deeply about her patients,” said Sarah Twichell, MD, a pediatric nephrologist at UVM Children’s Hospital. “She has a profound understanding of what it means to live in a rural area and incredible dedication to making sure children have access to excellent kidney care – whether that’s general care or dialysis and transplant services.” 

Building a regional system of pediatric nephrology care

When Dr. Guillot completed her pediatric nephrology fellowship at the Montreal Children’s Hospital and in adult nephrology at the University of Vermont in 1979 she joined the Department of Pediatrics at UVM. Her first challenge was convincing hospital leaders that there was a need for dedicated specialty care for children with kidney disease. 

“We didn’t have data back then that showed rural-urban disparities in health care preventing some children with kidney disease needing care from getting that care.  Folks didn’t think they needed a pediatric nephrologist,” said Guillot. “Then very soon we started getting our first pediatric dialysis patients, who otherwise would not have been able to access those services.”

Collaboration and development

Dr. Guillot served as the first and only pediatric nephrologist at UVM Children’s Hospital for more than 25 years. As she embarked on a years-long effort developing the hospital’s pediatric nephrology division and a regional network of care to support children with kidney disease, it was the relationships she cultivated with dialysis nurses and adult nephrologists at UVM Medical Center, and with primary care pediatricians throughout the region that would make the biggest impact. 

“At the very beginning, it was those relationships that were so important,” she said. “Because I had a real-life relationship with all the nephrologists and dialysis nurses who were here. A few nurses who were members of the hospital’s Acute Dialysis Team devoted themselves to gaining pediatric dialysis skills, including traveling to other institutions to learn from nurses at large children’s hospitals. Our small pediatric dialysis team was dedicated and incredibly hard working.” 

After more than a decade developing a model of care, clinical relationships and referral and care coordination systems stretching from UVM Children’s Hospital to Boston, the region’s pediatric nephrology care system took another giant step forward in the mid-1990s. Construction of the Children’s Specialty Center as part of the UVM Children’s Hospital would bring Dr. Guillot’s team out of the hospital’s back hallways and into leading-edge facilities dedicated to pediatric care. 

“It was a huge step forward, and critically important,” said Dr. Guillot of the project’s impact. “It made it possible for us to work collaboratively and run multi-specialty clinics dedicated to pediatric care. That level of support, relationships and buy-in from people collaborating in the care of these children was tremendous.” 

Ida McNamara RN, was the nurse who coordinated all the outpatient care of pediatric nephrology patients seen in the Children’s Specialty Center. She was Dr. Guillot’s “right-hand woman,” at UVM Children’s Hospital for 25 years, gaining the trust and confidence of multitudes of families.  With some families in need of pediatric nephrology care driving hours to reach UVM Children’s Hospital, McNamara’s ability to coordinate services, testing and other medical appointments was crucial to the success of Dr. Guillot’s fledgling network of care. 

“We could not take good care of children here without support from the dialysis team and our pediatric colleagues,” said Liz Hunt, MD, the current division chief of pediatric nephrology at UVM Children’s Hospital, who first met Dr. Guillot when Dr. Hunt was a medical student. “Ann set that up. She ran things so that everyone was involved and invested, and really spent time maintaining relationships both in and outside the hospital. That’s what has really set us up for success and given us the ability to grow our services.” 

In addition to developing the hospital’s pediatric dialysis service, Dr. Guillot developed other programs to care for children with chronic diseases such as apheresis services. Apheresis is the process of removing specific parts of blood from a donor or patient while returning the remainder into circulation. At UVM Children’s Hospital, it is used for blood disorders and certain neurological and kidney disorders. 

Dr. Guillot and Ida McNamara also traveled to other hospitals throughout the region, seeing some patients at hospital sites closer to their homes, and meeting with pediatricians in those communities.  Ida collaborated with many school nurses to help their complex renal patients remain in or return to school.   

“We were fortunate to get to know the pediatricians and family doctors who would refer patients into our care,” said Dr. Guillot. “It was one of the real blessings of being in the same place for so long.”

Inspiring generations of pediatricians and pediatric nephrologists

Colleagues and clinicians-in-training who experienced Dr. Guillot’s passion and dedication to children and families firsthand say her impact goes far beyond the work she did in exam rooms, hospitals and physicians’ offices. She quickly became an inspirational and aspirational figure for current and prospective members of the medical staff at UVM Children’s Hospital. 

“She wanted to make sure we were an exemplar for the rest of the country – and I wanted to get on her team,” said Dr. Lewis First, chief of pediatrics at UVM Children’s Hospital, who said Dr. Guillot’s leadership of the pediatric residency program was a key factor in his decision to join the department in 1994, as Chair of Pediatrics. “I loved that she saw the potential of making a local, state, region-wide and national difference.” 

In addition to serving in administrative roles, such as being on the search committee responsible for bringing Dr. First to UVM Children’s Hospital and the Department of Pediatrics, Dr. Guillot also played a central role developing both graduate and undergraduate medical education programs at UVM’s Robert Larner, MD College of Medicine. 

From 1990 to 2014, Dr. Guillot served as program director of the Pediatric Residency Program, which she also grew and developed. From 2014 to 2015, she served as interim director of the Teaching Academy at UVM Larner College of Medicine – an organization that promotes educator development and seeks to improve the quality of medical education. Currently a professor emerita at the University of Vermont, she has been a member of the medical faculty since 1979.

Following Dr. Guillot’s retirement from full-time clinical practice and teaching, the Department of Pediatrics and its residency program established the Ann Guillot Prize. The award, which is the residency’s highest teaching award given to a resident, goes to an individual who displays “the clinical excellence combined with humanistic qualities that Dr. Guillot exemplified as a caring pediatrician ,” said Dr. First.

Research and advocacy 

Dr. Guillot’s passion for exemplary clinical care, education and mentorship also led her to work to ensure that children with kidney disease from our area were included in pediatric nephrology research and advocacy. And to ensure that the care that each child received at UVM Children’s Hospital was as excellent as any they would receive elsewhere.   

Dr. Guillot led the UVM Children’s Hosital nephrology service to become one of the earliest and longest-serving members of the North American Pediatric Renal Trials and Collaborative Studies, a research group and patient registry that tracks kidney transplants, dialysis and chronic kidney disease treatments for children across more than 100 medical institutions in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Costa Rica. The group also works with pharmaceutical companies to develop clinical trials for pediatric kidney disease. 

Dr. Guillot, speaking about her work and what the award means to her, said she wants to highlight the many pediatric nephrologists who serve rural and isolated communities and work in small or single-provider practices, where collaboration and support among providers is the difference between success and struggle.  

“This is all dependent on community – in the hospital, across our referring region and among our subspecialty of pediatric nephrologists nationally,” she said. “Nobody in the national or even international pediatric nephrology community ever refused my call. I could always depend on my colleagues. I think this award recognizes that there are lots of pediatric nephrologists who deliver care to people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to access it. It’s hard, but it’s fulfilling and a good thing to do with your life.” 

In addition to her work as an educator in Vermont, Dr. Guillot has also served in national roles with the AAP. A member of the Academy’s Section on Nephrology since 1980, she served on the Academy’s executive committee from 1992 to 2004, and was chairperson from 1997 to 2002. She served on numerous committees related to education of residents and continuing education for practicing pediatrician through the AAP and other national organizations, as well as clinical care for pediatric nephrology patients.

“I think about how many people she influenced to go into pediatric nephrology, and that she’s someone people continue to reach out to for advice,” said Dr. Hunt of Dr. Guillot’s impact as an educator. “She’s a human that you would want to be like – that’s what makes her a good leader and mentor.”