Paul Dobesh, PharmD, will receive the Outstanding Teacher Award at the annual faculty meeting, which will be held virtually through Zoom at 3 p.m. on April 15.
Dr. Gold to address faculty
UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, MD, will give his annual address to the faculty, titled “Gratitude and Altitude: Expressing Thanks and Achieving New Heights in Challenging Times” at the annual faculty meeting.
The virtual awards ceremony will be accessible to the UNMC community via Zoom during the event and archived afterward.
- Name: Paul Dobesh, PharmD
- Titles: Professor of Pharmacy Practice and Science
- Joined UNMC: January 2005
- Hometown: Gregory, South Dakota
What are the greatest rewards of teaching?
Although there are many rewards, the greatest is helping students succeed. This has taken several forms over my career. One aspect is helping them succeed in the classroom. The cardiology module I teach is known to be challenging and time consuming. Helping students develop their problem-solving skills through the interactive case discussion labs and understand complex cardiology topics is very rewarding. It is great to get an evaluation where students comment on the time and rigor but realize now this was clearly worth it, and they like that they really understand cardiology. I also have had the opportunity to have students come back after the class is completed and ask for career advice and insights to help make them better residency candidates. It has been extremely rewarding to help them develop their skills and achieve their goals. Nothing like helping them fly and then watching them soar.
Describe a moment in your career when you realized you had picked the right occupation.
My teaching career has been a roller coaster. After my first two years of teaching, my teaching evaluations were so bad I figured I needed to find a different path in the world of pharmacy. I then went to a seminar on developing a teaching philosophy. During this seminar, I realized my approach was not working for me and needed to change my thinking on how and what to teach. After implementing these changes, I realized I was able to reach students and I did have something to offer. It was through this transformation in my understanding teaching that I realized I had actually picked the right occupation.
What are the biggest challenges you face as a teacher?
Probably the two biggest challenges are insight and time. Most of us that teach in the medical field at the collegiate level have less training on “teaching” than a kindergarten teacher. Our main quality when we start is that we are experts in our fields of study. Gaining insight into teaching methods has been a challenge for me over my career. Students learn in a variety of different ways, which requires a variety of different methods to reach them. Although some of the methods come naturally to me, since it is how I learn, others have taken me a decade to learn. Realizing these deficiencies in my teaching has taught me to be much more compassionate in understanding students who struggle. Now, I must go the extra mile for them — adding lists and flow charts to handouts, interactive and passive teaching, volunteer and Socratic discussions. It’s much more than I ever thought I would have to consider when I considered teaching as a career.
The other challenge is time. In the medical academic world, there are many responsibilities we must fulfill. Even those of us with significant teaching responsibilities still need to contribute to patient care, service and scholarship. Although I find my didactic teaching the most rewarding part of my job, there are always other irons in the fire throughout the year. I want to give my best to my students each and every day, but I do not always have my best days. I have had to learn how to arrange my yearly schedule to provide time for the different responsibilities of the job, as well as accept that I can give my best every day, but the best does not always look the same.
How do you know when you’ve been successful as a teacher?
The feeling of success can be fleeting, so I am not sure how much I have thought about this question. For me, it still goes back to watching a student get that “light bulb” moment. When they came into your office feeling completely lost, and then you see them literally putting it together right there in front of you, and from there see their understanding and grades continuing to improve. From a different perspective, I also have received emails or letters over the years from students who have left our program, sometime several years ago. In these emails or letters, the former students mention the success they have had in the profession, and take the time to thank me for expecting a lot from them and helping them be the pharmacist they are today. That is a great day.
Congratulations Paul, well deserved!