Amy Duhachek-Stapelman, M.D., arrived at UNMC as a medical student in 1998.
She had great teachers, she said. Dozens of them.
But one moment that stands out for the associate professor of anesthesiology, and 2019’s Varner Educator Laureate Award winner, was in the classroom of Kurtis Cornish, Ph.D.
Varner Educator Laureate Award
The Varner Educator Laureate Award is named after Jerald Varner, Ph.D., associate professor in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Engineering. In addition to his support of the Innovation in Education Awards, Dr. Varner also currently funds the Varner Professorship in Pancreatic Cancer and Global Health in the College of Medicine, which is held by Chandra Are, M.B.B.S.
The award recognizes an individual with sustained achievement in education who has significantly improved the UNMC learning environment through the provision of outstanding educational experiences.
“Dr. Cornish did a lot of teaching on cardiac physiology,” she said. “How he explained it to us just made sense, and it was the first time I realized that medical school isn’t about memorization, it’s about understanding.
“I remember sitting in his class and going ‘Ah – I get it.'”
Now on faculty, which she joined in 2006 after her anesthesiology residency, Dr. Duhachek-Stapelman has inspired other students to “Aha!” moments, as well.
“I feel very blessed, because every year we have a new group of enthusiastic trainees that come in, and they are sort of a blank slate, and I love helping them to figure out important concepts,” she said. “It’s so rewarding to see them go from novices to experts in anesthesiology who take excellent care of complex patients by the time they graduate.”
Most of the teaching Dr. Duhachek-Stapelman is involved in is in the operating room, taking care of clinical patients.
“When you’re teaching one-on-one in a clinical setting, you can really have a discussion,” she said. “You can bring up a clinical case: ‘Our next patient has aortic stenosis. How are we going to manage that patient?’ And you can talk through different clinical scenarios, allow them to make clinical decisions in the discussion and, if they’re good decisions, move forward with the treatment plans.”
When Dr. Duhachek-Stapelman initially joined the faculty at UNMC, her plan was to stay a year or two. But, she said, she simply fell in love with teaching.
“I especially have a passion for helping people who are struggling,” she said. “Of course, I like to help everybody learn, but I have a soft spot in my heart for those who are trying so hard to understand concepts and missing the mark. It may be that it is not being explained in a way that makes sense to them, or maybe they don’t have their study strategies quite figured out yet. Helping these students to develop new ways to think about concepts and understand them is something I find really rewarding.”
Dr. Duhachek-Stapelman said she was humbled by the Varner Educator Laureate Award.
“There are so many incredible educators on campus, in the College of Medicine, as well as all of the other colleges on campus,” she said. “One of the things that has made me successful from an educational standpoint is having a tremendous team of exceptional clinicians and educators in our department who enthusiastically adopt new educational ideas and help to make them a reality.”
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