Editor’s Note: To celebrate the Department of Anesthesiology’s House Officer Appreciation Week, February 24 – 28, we will highlight one House Officer from each class.
A funny thing happens when you think you want to be a cardiac surgeon during medical school at UNMC. You spend a lot of time shadowing surgeons in operating rooms, tucked safely out of the way at the head of the operating table alongside the anesthesiology team. Often members of that anesthesiology team, say the lauded educator and Director of Perioperative Echocardiography, Nick Markin, M.D., will teach any eager student willing to seize the opportunity. This is how Apollo Stack, M.D., found his way into an anesthesiology residency at UNMC.
“As time went on, I discovered I was more interested in the medical management of surgical patients,” Dr. Stack said.
Now a second-year resident slated to graduate in 2022, Dr. Stack has narrowed his interests further to the pain management subspecialty of anesthesiology and hopes to eventually pursue fellowship. He cites the country’s current opioid addiction epidemic and our anesthesiologists’ response to it as motivational factors for pursuing this work.
“In working with department faculty, I discovered that I really enjoy the procedures that surround pain management,” Dr. Stack said. “What interests me most about them is the way they are done here. The pain team tries to get to the underlying problem that is causing the patient pain, rather than masking the problem with medications that can have a detrimental effect if not used correctly.”
Dr. Stack focuses his extracurricular time on global health and research. He is currently working with Madhuri Are, M.D., pain medicine division chief, on a research project that examines outcomes of cancer patients who receive celiac plexus neurolysis to relieve pain associated with intra-abdominal malignancies. Additionally, Dr. Stack has performed medical mission work in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and India.
As far as Dr. Stack’s inspiring mentors go, Dr. Markin doesn’t get all the glory. In fact, several department faculty have made an impact in Dr. Stack’s world for varying reasons:
- Madhuri Are, M.D., for the time she dedicated to develop his interest in pain management
- Thomas Nicholas, M.D., for the inspiring way he clinically manages his patients
- Drs. Sheila Ellis, M.D., Robert Lobato, M.D., Charles Walcutt, M.D., Corey Zetterman, M.D. (and countless other faculty members) for helping future anesthesiologists establish a strong knowledge base and clinical skills
- Chandra Are, M.D., who mentored him as his career path moved away from surgery and into medical service work, research and anesthesiology