Remembering Ann Stadtler
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our colleague and dear friend, Ann Stadtler. For more than three decades we have had the privilege – and it was a privilege – to be Ann’s colleague and to watch her close-up in her work as both clinician and teacher. I know all of you who worked with her or were trained by her in Touchpoints or in the NBO, will agree with me when I say that she was the best colleague anyone could have wished for – not just because she was always smiling and emanated goodness and kindness - but every contact with her changed one’s life for the better. She was one of the most caring, concerned, kind and compassionate people one could ever meet. She lived a life of unstinted caring and embodied all that is best in the human condition. Ann Stadtler made us all better people. Our heartbreaking loss is deeply compounded therefore by the severe, isolated restrictions of lockdown, since she spent her life building bridges among people and professions across the world.
Ann Coleman Stadtler, DNP, RN, CPNP was a pediatric nurse practitioner with a doctorate in Nursing Practice. She graduated from Boston College School of Nursing and later joined Boston Children’s Hospital as Assistant Director of the Medical Diagnostic Programs and served as Director of the Preschool Function Program. She had a special interest in children who had problems with toileting and designed a family-centered “Toilet School” treatment program. She and Claudia Quigg – also a Touchpoints and NBO Trainer - co-authored Lessons from Toilet School: A Family Centered Approach to Toilet Training, which was published in 2017.
Ann was a nurse for whom Nursing was a calling, a lifestyle, and a way of living. She always put the patient first, and took the time to listen without judgment or prejudice and thus helped change the way we look at children and families. Her capacity for empathy enabled her to acknowledge and understand peoples’ confusion, concerns, doubts and fears, so that she was always hopeful and positive in the face of adversity.
Ann’s affirmative sense of hope and sophisticated sense of what was important in her profession drew her to Berry Brazelton’s work over thirty years ago and allowed her to embrace with enthusiasm her role at Touchpoints and at the Brazelton Institute. She was one of the founding faculty at the Brazelton Touchpoints Center (BTC) and served as Director of BTC and led BTC's professional development program for over 20 years. She became a Trainer on the NBO in 2013. Her goal was to build vital, caring relationships with parents and she inspired health care providers to put parents and families first.
Ann received many honors. She received the Massachusetts March of Dimes Nurse Practitioner of the Year Award, the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Associates & Practitioners' Loretta C. Ford Outstanding Fellow Award, the Wong Hock Boon Professorship from Singapore University Hospital, the BCH Mel Levine Award, That's the Spirit Award, and the BTC Outstanding Leader Award.
Remembering Ann’s smiling face brings balm to our anguish, so that while we are bereft, we are secure in the knowledge that her legacy leaves healthcare – and all of us - in a better place. To her husband, John, and to her children, Johnny, Kevin and Cathy and to all her grandchildren, we offer our heartfelt sympathy.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam dílis!
J. Kevin Nugent