VCU faculty honored by American Association of Nurse Anesthetists

By Eric Peters

Two faculty members from Virginia Commonwealth University received national awards at the 2013 American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) annual meeting in August.

Lemont “Monty” Kier, Ph.D., was named the recipient of the Didactic Instructor of the Year Award from ANAA. The same organization named Col. Herbert T. Watson the recipient of the Helen Lamb Outstanding Educator Award. 

“We are extremely proud of Dr. Kier and his achievement as the Didactic Instructor of the Year. His contributions to VCU are immense,” said Cecil Drain, Ph.D., dean of the School of Allied Health Professionals and past Helen Lamb Award recipient. “And it is only fitting that Colonel Watson’s award is the highest honor from the specialty to recognize academicians, since his commitment to education has been a hallmark of his career.”

Kier’s Didactic Instructor of the Year award is granted by the AANA Board of Directors annually to a single professor who is deemed to have made significant contributions to the education of nurse anesthesia graduate students and to the specialty at large. Kier has taught VCU students for more than three decades.
Kier authored the text “Medicinal Chemistry and Physics for Nurse Anesthetists,” which is a leading source employed by most anesthesia programs across the United States. More recently, Kier published a seminal paper on the theory of narcosis, a longtime mystery to the anesthesia community.

In addition to teaching medicinal chemistry to nurse anesthesia graduate students, Kier also serves as a capstone adviser to several nurse anesthesia practice doctoral students. Before joining the Department of Nurse Anesthesia, Kier served as the chairman of the School of Pharmacy (then called the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry) from 1977 to 1987. He served as a professor in the School of Pharmacy until 2004. Since then, he has worked as a senior fellow in the VCU Center for the Study of Biological Complexity. He also is an affiliate professor with the School of Pharmacy’s Department of Pharmacotherapy and Outcomes Science.

Watson is a professor emeritus and past chair of the Department of Nurse Anesthesia at VCU. He became chairman of the department in 1977, after a distinguished career in the United States Air Force. Under his leadership, the department gained national recognition as a leader among nurse anesthesia educational programs. 

He founded the “Nurse Anesthesiology Faculty Associates,” a continuing education organization that he donated to the Department of Nurse Anesthesia. His philanthropy was recently acknowledged with the creation of the “Herbert T. Watson Endowed Professorship.” Watson was honored for the professorship on April 29 when VCU President Michael Rao presented the medallion to Michael Fallacaro, DNS,  chair of the Department of Nurse Anesthesia, who will hold the title.

VCU’s Department of Nurse Anesthesia is ranked no. 1 in the nation among best graduate programs by U.S. News & World Report.

Discover more about nurse anesthesia at:  http://www.sahp.vcu.edu/nrsa/about/index.html