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Amy Huebschmann MD, MSc
(She/Her)
Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine
- Ludeman Center Senior Faculty Member and Lead Scientist, Community Outreach and Education
- Internal Medicine (SOM)
Email Address:amy.huebschmann@cuanschutz.edu
Primary Phone:303-724-2268
Mailing Address:
- CU Anschutz
Academic Office One
12631 East 17th Avenue
Aurora, CO 80045
Background
Amy Huebschmann, MD, MSc, received her BS in environmental engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, her MD from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and a master's in clinical sciences from the University of Colorado. Her interest in women’s health is motivated by a passion for health equity and the potential for tailoring interventions to individual needs and the context of health systems and communities, which she explores by embracing implementation science methods.
Research + Funding
In 2008, Dr. Huebschmann began the project “Exercise-related Perceived Rate of Exertion at Steady-State workloads (ExPRESS) in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus,” funded by the Ludeman Center. This research focused on developing and testing effective programs to lower the risk of heart attack or stroke for people with type 2 diabetes by increasing physical activity, which is a powerful tool for preventing cardiovascular disease. Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is associated with high levels of disability and mortality – in addition, people with T2DM are less physically active than their peers without diabetes, for reasons that are not fully established.
Through her Ludeman Center-funded research, she has identified a novel barrier to physical activity for people with diabetes: exercise feels harder for women with diabetes than for women without diabetes, and she has also found that lactate levels as a marker of effort during exercise are higher for women with diabetes than their healthy female peers.
Building on her initial seed grant findings, she has obtained further funding from the National Institutes of Health to adapt evidence-based physical activity programs for the specific needs of people with diabetes, and to test those programs in primary care clinics. Dr. Huebschmann also completed additional training in the implementation science methods needed to bring invested partners together in healthcare systems and communities to feasibly deliver these programs in primary care.
Dr. Huebschmann has “grown up” with the Ludeman Center, given her seed project was funded when she was a junior faculty member in 2008, and she is now a Senior Faculty member as well as the Ludeman Center’s Lead Scientist for Community Education and Outreach. Her favorite parts of working with the Ludeman Center have been the opportunities to engage with the community to share new developments in the field, and the strong commitment of our senior faculty to mentorship of early-career faculty in the field.
Transforming Women’s Health
Dr. Huebschmann currently sees primary care patients at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital Internal Medicine on the Anschutz Medical Campus. Her priority is to promote health equity by leveraging implementation science methods to prevent and treat chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and asthma. Her goal is to deliver evidence-based programs that will improve the health of both men and women, and that overcome individual, interpersonal, health system, and societal barriers. As it relates to physical activity research, she began with the Ludeman Center, which includes continuing to refine and test programs in primary care and communities to increase physical activity, diet and other healthy lifestyle behaviors to improve patients’ functional health and quality of life.
In the News
