Allied health faculty, students honored

Ulrike (Ricki) Otten of the UNMC Clinical Laboratory Science program with Kyle Meyer, Ph.D., associate dean for the School of Allied Health Professions.

Joe Norman, Ph.D.

M. Patricia Leuschen, Ph.D., with Dr. Meyer.

The School of Allied Health Professions recently surprised three faculty members — Ricki Otten, Joseph Norman, Ph.D., and Pat Leuschen, Ph.D. — by honoring them with awards for outstanding teaching, research and service to allied health.

Colleagues and students joined the award recipients Wednesday at the 21st annual awards ceremony in the Durham Research Center Auditoirum.

“We have an exceptional group of faculty who could have chosen to work anywhere in the country,” said Kyle Meyer, Ph.D., associate dean of the SAHP.

Fortunately, they work here, he said.

Together, they teach approximately 350 on-campus students, as well as an average of 550 distance education students across 10 programs.

“Allied health makes up the third largest student body behind the College of Medicine and College of Nursing,” Dr. Meyer said.

On Wednesday, SAHP leaders recognized faculty, staff and students for their accomplishments of the past year and capped the ceremony by unveiling the 2008 recipients of the following awards:

• Community Service Award — UNMC’s Physician Assistant Class of 2009;
  
• Outstanding Teacher of the Year — Ulrike (Ricki) Otten, Clinical Laboratory Science program;
  
• Outstanding Researcher of the Year — Joseph Norman, Ph.D., associate director of Physical Therapy Education program; and
  
• Outstanding Service to the School of Allied Health Professions — M. Patricia Leuschen, Ph.D., assistant dean for research development in SAHP and associate professor at UNMC in the department of genetics, cell biology and anatomy.

This year’s Community Service Award went to the physician assistant class of 2009 for their participation in 14 community service activities. During this past year, the students volunteered more than 400 hours for such activities as a toy drive for the Pine Ridge Reservation, health fairs, flu vaccines, distribution of holiday meals to the underprivileged, children’s book drive, bone marrow donor drive, pediatrics Easter egg hung and assistance at One World Tuberculosis Clinic.

The Outstanding Teacher Award went to Otten, whose heavy teaching load includes working directly with 48 students who perform their clinical education at 10 sites across Nebraska and in Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa and Missouri. In addition, she teaches 40 students in the degree completion option and has developed modules for CLS Refresher Courses that allied health is offering to laboratory workers in Nebraska through collaboration with the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory.

Student posters It takes time to read 80 posters by 95 allied health students. Those who did Wednesday found answers to an array of research questions: Is pool-based aerobic exercise an effective mode of exercise for reducing the signs and symptoms associated with fibromyalgia? Is West Nile virus becoming more prevalent and does preoperative therapy improve functional recovery following total knee arthroplast? The 21st annual Student Research Forum enabled students from all 10 SAHP programs to share scholarly activity supporting evidence-based clinical practice. Each year, students complete research or literature review projects as partial requirements for program completion and/or participation in state and national professional meetings.

“Ricki’s curriculum development skills are second to none,” one nominator said. “She is adept at distance techniques using Blackboard and designs outstanding laboratory exercises that all students value for years after they graduate.”

This year’s Outstanding Researcher Award went to Dr. Norman, who has published 12 peer-reviewed articles since joining the physical therapy program in the fall of 1992. In the past five years, Dr. Norman has had seven articles published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, of which he was the first author on four of them. He has collaborated and received funding for 15 grants, including work with the College of Nursing on the effect of exercise on patients with heart failure.

“Dr. Norman’s research has consistently been interdisciplinary,” one nominator said. “As associate director, he is actively engaged in assisting faculty develop and successfully complete their own research agendas.”

Dr. Norman also received the school’s outstanding researcher award in 1997.

As recipient of SAHP’s Outstanding Service Award, Dr. Leuschen has contributed to the education of more than 500 graduates of the UNMC Physical Therapy Education program and 600 graduates of the physician assistant program. Dr. Leuschen has taught anatomy and neuroscience to physician assistant and physical therapy students for more than a decade, “teaching not only the basic science but explaining how various forms of neuromuscular pathology result in clinical impairments and disabilities,” her nominator said.

She also has had influenced the professional development and scholarly activity of allied health faculty.

“Through her efforts, (SAHP) faculty are qualified to conduct research and will train many more individuals,” her nominator said.

Dr. Leuschen’s name will join others on a plaque that hangs in the McGoogan Library and an allied health student will receive a $500 scholarship in her name for the next five years.

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