Wendy L. (Newell) Mosiman ’91/09 is an advanced practice nurse who serves as a clinical nurse specialist at Via Christi Health in Wichita. She’s also a member of WSU’s adjunct nursing faculty, and her professional mission is easing people’s pain.
For 15 years, she has worked to find ways to improve patient pain management, gaining knowledge through both research studies and patient care experiences. She shares that knowledge through journal articles, presentations to healthcare professionals and service as a go-to resource for associates.
This past September, she was nationally recognized for her work by the American Society for Pain Management Nursing, which presented her the Nurse Exemplar Award for the Pediatric Patient.
Pain can have devastating effects, a fact brought home to Mosiman when she worked as trauma director at Via Christi from 1989 to 1996. One patient in particular, an elderly woman who had extreme back pain, left a lasting impression.
The woman was brought into the ER with a gunshot wound after attempting to end her life; living with pain had become unbearable. “That broke my heart,” Mosiman says. “We had the medication and treatments to safely decrease her pain. We, as a healthcare system, let her down.”
Ever the patient’s advocate, Mosiman also focuses on pediatric needle-stick care, working to develop ever more effective pain-management strategies and striving to never let a person in pain — young or old — down again.
