Introducing Sharon K. Wrona, DNP, RN-BC, PNP, PMHS, AP-PMN ASPMN® President 2017-18
Sharon K. Wrona, DNP, RN-BC, PNP, PMHS, AP-PMN became the President of the American Society for Pain Management Nursing® (ASPMN®) at the organization’s 2017 National Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.
Every nurse and every patient has their own journey of pain management. Over seventeen years ago when I started my journey in the field of pain management nursing is when the initial Joint Commission standards were published on pain management. As we focused on ensuring we were properly assessing pain in everyone we all worked hard to do the right thing for our patients to treat their pain. Often times the goal for treating our patients pain was to have “0” pain. Now in 2018, the focus for pain management with the new Joint Commission standards is improving function and quality of life for patients in pain and well as ensuring patient safety. This is best achieved through a multidisciplinary and multimodal approach. Nurses are key to providing excellent individualized pain care to patients as well as ensuring patients and families are properly educated on pain management and the importance of opioid safety when opioid medication are need as part of the individualized pain treatment plan. Nurses, at all levels of their career, own pain and need to continue on the journey of being advocates for patients in pain and seen as an integral partner of the patient care team. So I ask that you continue with APSMN® on the Journey of Nursing Experts and Advocates on Pain Management to make an impact on the future of pain.
