Class of 2013 - MAKE IT SING!

Not one but two cakes, one chocolate and the other white - both delicious, were bestowed upon me by my anesthesia students during the last class (June 10th) of the academic year. In time for summer travels, I was also bestowed a fabulous “messenger bag” with a special laptop compartment and a plethora of other compartments that I am still discovering.

My students, incredibly busy in the three-year doctoral nurse anesthesia program, somehow found the time to show their gratitude (relief?) and celebrate together because they’re almost done with my courses. These courses include physics, biochemistry and molecular biology, followed by the anatomy and physiology of all the systems. Very intense!

The last lecture finishes Renal Physiology and the challenge of covering all the material in the available time usually preoccupies me so that these “ceremonies” truly are surprises. While I’m obviously feigning surprise in the photo, I actually was very surprised upon initially seeing not one but two cakes!

The chocolate cake was decorated with “Thank You Ronnie!” and a card explained why I was being thanked: “Dear Ronnie, The class of 2013 would like to thank you for your dedication and fostering all that we have learned our first year of training. Thanks for being available, encouraging, and tolerating our emails!! Regards, Class of 2013”

The white cake was inscribed with the words “Make It Sing!”  This is one of the expressions for which I am famous. The students hear it often during the beginning of the year when I am reviewing proportionalities and exponential functions. “Make It Sing” means the equations they will be using in physics should be something they truly understand and that the equation is much more than a one sentence statement. “Make It Sing” means wringing out of an equation all that it holds - being able to determine the relationships among the variables, visualize the graphic representations thereof, and predict what will happen when a variable changes.

Now the students proceed into the second year of the doctoral program. I am confident that, like the many graduates before them, they will succeed in the career of nurse anesthesia and that they will “Make It Sing!”

Anesthesia Class 2012 & The Saber-Tooth Tiger

Just two more sets of exams to grade (renal physiology) and I’m done teaching for this academic year! I will have all of August and the first week of September off. Teaching science (physics, biochemistry, molecular biology, anatomy and physiology of all body systems) in a leading nurse anesthesia program is a rewarding challenge that I’ve taken on for thirty-six years now, partly because the students are so appreciative.

On Thursday during a break in the final lecture, the students surprised me with a cake and a gift. The students will be moving into the second year of the three-year master degree program in nurse anesthesia (thus the “Class of 2012” on the cake), and I will greet the next wave of fledglings in September.

Typically the students commemorate our last academic interaction with references to things I often say when teaching. Something I often mention when lecturing is the “saber-tooth tiger.” Look closely at the upper left corner of the cake and you will see the figure of a tiger (closest thing the students could find to a saber-tooth tiger).

I offer an attack by a saber-tooth tiger as an example of a natural stress situation in response to which the actions of stress hormones and sympathetic nervous fight-or-flight behavior are adaptive. The medical dilemma is that we have ice-age bodies but live in a modern age in which the stressor is job loss, debt, divorce, or a traffic jam – not a saber-tooth tiger attack! The physiological stress responses that have evolved (e.g., increased blood glucose and fatty acids, increased cardiac output) do not help us survive modern stressors but instead, combined with over-plentiful calories and sedentary lifestyle, lead to our demise (diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis and cardiovascular accidents)! So there are lots of references to saber-tooth tigers and their prey when I’m lecturing on sympathetic nervous system and hormone effects like those of glucocorticoids and catecholamines. Hence, there is a tiger (and a bear for good measure) on the cake.

On a more practical level, the students have demonstrated their observational acuity by bestowing upon me a new lab coat. (My old lab coats reflect the many years I’ve been teaching.) The lab coat is exactly the style I like, and unlike any I ever had before, is beautifully embroidered with my name.

I will think of the class of 2012 whenever I look at the animal figures from the cake or whenever I put on my new lab coat. This coat will be donned for the first time on September 9th, when the shepherding of students through the process of building a scientific foundation for their profession in anesthesia begins again.

Surprise for Excellence in Teaching

The students I taught during 2007, the first year of their three-year master degree program in nurse anesthesia, had their graduation ceremony on August 28th. What a wonderful surprise awaited me at my students’ graduation ceremony! I have been the science faculty in the anesthesia program for thirty-five years. The courses I teach during the first year provide the foundation in science that the students will build on throughout the rest of the program and their professional lives.
Now I have a plaque and a huge stack of cards sent by my former students, some of them from the very first class, to commemorate these years. The program director’s complimentary speech about the students’ evaluations of my teaching over the many years was a joy to hear announced to a large audience mostly comprised of the graduates’ families and friends. The generous check and the beautiful flowers were welcome too. But the teary-eyed smiles of my former students and the heartfelt messages in the many cards were the best parts of the surprise. These cards and the associated memories will be treasured always.

Tokens of Gratitude From My Students

Being the science faculty for the students in the School of Nurse Anesthesia is challenging and rewarding. The students are extremely smart, exceptionally stable, and among the nicest people you will ever meet. They are training to become the high-level medical professionals who keep you alive during surgery.
Here I am shamelessly bragging about the presents that the Class of 2011 gave me recently at the end of the first year of their rigorous three-year program. The T-shirt, while probably the most inexpensive of the presents, is the most priceless because it sports many of my sayings or what the students now call “Ronnie-isms” on the back. I am moved that they have memorized these remarks some of which refer to concepts they previously never knew.

Plus, the students really have sized me up. They know I am a T-shirt person. They have also observed that I have a big weakness for jewelry and prefer that it is coordinated. Look at the two beautiful sets of jewelry my students gave me.


The students presented these gifts to me during a wonderful special luncheon they put together in the hospital cafeteria just after they took the last of my exams. Teaching science to medical professionals like my students, who want to learn as much as they can so that they can be the very best nurse anesthetists, is an awesome responsibility I accept with pleasure!

Surprise Cake From Students

The Nurse Anesthetists Program is intense and I am proud to teach the students all the science that is the foundation for their professional lives. The students were celebrating the end of the first year of this three-year master's degree program.