St. Louis Magazine Honors SLU Nursing Faculty for Academic Excellence, Community Service

ST. LOUIS — Saint Louis University professor Karen Cuvar, Ph.D., was named a St. Louis Magazine Excellence in Nursing winner in the Education category. 

SLU’s Trudy Busch Valentine School of Nursing has long been a national leader in nursing education. That leadership shows in SLU’s regular honors in the Excellence in Nursing Awards. 

Over more than a decade, the magazine has recognized more than 500 outstanding nurses across a wide range of practice areas and levels of expertise, from emerging leaders to those with decades of experience. During this time, SLU faculty members consistently swept the educator category, bringing the total to 10 recognized by the magazine as among the best in the region.

This year, in addition to the Educator category, three other faculty from the School of Nursing were also named winners in the Orthopedics, Research and Community Care/Ambulatory Care categories. Associate professor Bobbi Shatto, Ph.D., was a finalist in the educator category.

More than 200 nurses were nominated for St. Louis Magazine's Excellence in Nursing Awards this year. A team of five judges from outside the St. Louis area narrowed the field to 50 finalists in 18 categories. The winning nurses are profiled in the magazine's May issue.

“I am so pleased SLU Nursing faculty racked up well-deserved finalists and excellence awards in 2023! This is just another example of the superb education the Valentine School of Nursing offers and how our faculty lead in education, research, and practice,” said Danny Willis, DNS, dean of the School of Nursing.

Karen Cuvar, Ph.D.

Cuvar is an associate professor of nursing and level one coordinator for the Traditional BSN program.

Known as “Mama Karen” to her students, they applaud Cuvar for providing “holistic caring support” in recent years to assist students experiencing a mental crisis. She told St. Louis Magazine that nursing is “truly a loving, caring, compassionate profession — an art form.”

Cuvar leads the medication lab in the nursing school. In the classroom, Cuvar provides students with a variety of teaching methodologies coupled with a hands-on learning component. She says she loves the “aha” moment students get when they finally understand a topic or can successfully complete an assignment they found challenging. 

In 2020, Cuvar received the DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nursing Faculty, recognizing individual nurses, clinical teams and faculty for their compassionate care and instruction of nursing students.

One of the multiple nominations for Cuvar stated: “She truly cares about all her students. She made class interesting and easy to learn. She was always there for her students and willing to help anytime. I appreciated having her as a professor because she made me want to strive to be an amazing nurse like her one day!”

Christopher Hemmer, DNP

Christopher Hemmer, DNP, associate professor of nursing, was named an Excellence in Nursing winner in the Orthopedics category.

A recognized expert in orthopedic spine surgery, Hemmer was instrumental in the development and implementation of an osteoporosis clinic that reduced the wait time for screening from six months to days. His nominator says he consistently goes above and beyond for students, colleagues and patients. To enhance their orthopedic practice skills, he regularly shares his knowledge with nurse practitioner colleagues nationally and internationally through invited lectures, workshops, and podcasts. For students, he provides a clinical preceptorship to give them experience in orthopedic assessment and treatment. As a colleague, he is the first to volunteer to help with any event and is willing to assist anyone in need.

The nominator further states that Hemmer exemplifies the University’s fundamental mission of "cura personalis" by caring for the whole person. This is evident by his work with under-resourced communities in free clinics within the city of St. Louis, in the remote Aleutian Islands with members of the Aleut Unangan people, and in Honduran villages. Hemmer’s efforts set a standard for excellence and community engagement for students and faculty to emulate.

Karen Moore, DNP

Karen Moore, DNP, associate professor of nursing, was named an Excellence in Nursing winner in the Research category.

Moore, who studies global health and international exchange and has a background in oncology, acute medicine, and infectious disease, recently received a Fulbright Specialist Award. She will spend up to six weeks in Ireland developing the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) role and curriculum, strengthening ongoing international nursing exchange at Dublin City University, and working on the development and curriculum for simulation within their nursing curriculum. She currently teaches in the DNP program at SLU and helped design and coordinate a simulation center at a prior institution. 

In 2008, SLU's School of Nursing became the first in the St. Louis area to offer a DNP degree for advanced practice nurses focused on patient care.

Moore strives to facilitate collaborations between nurses and nursing students across the globe to help to enrich their understanding of health care delivery models and provide alternatives to their way of approaching a problem.

Moore told St. Louis Magazine that her work is guided by her commitment to health care as a basic right and her desire to improve the lives of people living in under-resourced communities.

In 2019, she was inducted as a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, the highest professional recognition in nursing. 

Heather Wade, DNP

Heather Wade, DNP, assistant professor of nursing, was named an Excellence in Nursing winner in the Community Care/Ambulatory Care category.

As COVID-19 took over the community, Wade’s nominator said Heather was asked to move aside teaching and clinic duties to coordinate, facilitate and run SLU’s COVID-19 Testing and Vaccination Center. Wade has tested hundreds of students, faculty and staff in the evening, on the weekend, and in every spare moment of the day. She taught nursing students how to vaccinate thousands of people in the community at open events, nursing homes and campus vaccine clinics. Community members have begun to see her as the face of pandemic care. She also regularly volunteers as a nurse practitioner at SLU’s Health Resource Center.

Wade told St. Louis Magazine: “It’s been really awesome to be a part of that bigger lens of what public health can look like when we all work together.”

Read more about past recipients from 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016.

View the complete of this year’s nominees and winners on the St. Louis Magazine website.

About Valentine School of Nursing

Founded in 1928, the Trudy Busch Valentine School of Nursing at Saint Louis University has achieved a national reputation for its innovative and pioneering programs. Offering bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral nursing programs, its faculty members are nationally recognized for their teaching, research and clinical expertise.