Paul Paulman, M.D., is one of four faculty members who will receive UNMC’s Outstanding Teacher Award Thursday, April 11 at 4 p.m. during the Annual Faculty meeting in the Eppley Science Hall Amphitheater. Dr. Paulman is the third award recipient to be profiled in UNMC Today.
Lectures given by Paul Paulman, M.D., on malpractice cases require somewhat unusual preparation.
Dark glasses and dark clothing replace his usual professional attire, and his hair is carefully slicked back with the help of a lot of mousse. The final touch — a gold chain — completes Dr. Paulman’s sleazy medical expert costume.
“It’s my way of showing students that there’s definitely a wrong way to behave at trials,” he said. “Role playing makes it more tangible for them.”
Once the gold chain comes off and his hair is restyled, Dr. Paulman doesn’t stop trying to find ways to make lessons real to his students.
As the predoctoral education director of family medicine, Dr. Paulman’s classes cover everything from history and physical exam skills, death and dying issues and even how to appear in court as a medical expert. The subjects might be hard to comprehend on a personal level, but his nominators for the award said Dr. Paulman humanizes textbook information.
“As a student, it was important to me to see the human face Dr. Paulman put on every aspect of medicine,” one nominator said. “During years where most of a student’s time is spent with a book or in a lab, he reminds us that medicine is first and foremost a human profession.”
That may be why he says he’s more a “designer,” than a teacher, working to find ways for students to use their skills in real-world situations. Whether it’s a community rotation or time at a local clinic, he tries to find extensive clinical experience for students before their third year of medical school.
Dr. Paulman works with medical students all four years, teaching them how to provide comprehensive primary care to patients no matter the gender, age or illness. With this knowledge, students are prepared to practice in rural areas, an aspect of medicine he knows firsthand.
“I’m from a small town and I’ve seen people in this state who can’t access medical care,” he said.
A native of Sutherland, Neb., Dr. Paulman attended Kearney State College and came to UNMC for medical school, graduating in 1977. A career in family medicine was an obvious choice.
“I wanted variety and to learn more about patients,” he said. “Family medicine seemed the best way to do that.”
Dr. Paulman spent almost two years at a small-town practice in Spalding, Neb., with the National Health Service Corps before returning to UNMC in 1982 to take a teaching position.
Encouraging his students to gain practical experience often has a dual purpose. Many of his students volunteer at the student-operated SHARING clinic in South Omaha, where students handle all aspects of patient care. Dr. Paulman is a faculty adviser to the students who run the clinic, and he works there one night a month. Also, for at least five years he’s accompanied students on the Jamaica Annual Medical Mission, where last month 370 patients were seen in one week.
Dr. Paulman said the greatest satisfaction from teaching is seeing the students working with patients and having the opportunity to follow their medical school careers.
“I enjoy seeing students develop from nervous first-year students to confident seniors,” he said. “I look at them and remember when I was in their place.”