Meet UNMC Outstanding Teacher awardee Richard MacDonald, Ph.D.

Richard MacDonald, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, is among the four UNMC faculty members who will receive Outstanding Teaching Awards at the April 26 Annual Faculty Meeting.

Richard MacDonald, Ph.D.

• Name: Richard MacDonald, Ph.D.
  
• Title: professor, biochemistry and molecular biology
  
• Joined UNMC: May 1988
  
• Hometown: Detroit but grew up mainly in Stamford, Conn.

What are the greatest rewards of being a teacher?

It is very rewarding to convert students’ curiosity, energy and enthusiasm into understanding of how to do something and how things work. When all the pieces fit together and the students see “the big picture” and recognize its importance or value to them as future physicians or scientists, that is very satisfying.

Describe a moment in your career when you realized you had picked the right occupation.

Actually, like most teachers in post-graduate education starting their first faculty positions, I thought my career focus was going to be research. I had minimal training in how to teach, especially to medical students, and my early experiences were unsatisfactory, both for the students and me. … When I joined the admissions committee for the College of Medicine, I resolved to connect with the medical students better. With the advice and example of a master teacher in our department, Dr. Margaret Heidrick, I created a new set of handouts on a topic with which I was well acquainted — cellular signaling. After my first lecture in this area, one of the medical students came up to me and said, “I really got a lot out of that lecture, Dr. MacDonald. Thanks.” That was it.

What are the biggest challenges you face as a teacher?

One of the biggest challenges is to make the delivery of dry information in the classroom relevant to the world in which our students will work. So not only do I try to convey how things work, but to relate the information to disease mechanisms, pathophysiology or experimental applications in research.

List three things few people know about you.

• I have a big garden in my backyard in Fremont but I hate digging.
  
• I enjoy home improvement and have built three closets and finished three basements.
  
• I have played golf for 45 years without getting a hole in one.