Lucia D. Wocial, RN, CCNS, PhD (Nurse Ethicist, Program Leader for the Fairbanks Program in Nursing Ethics)
Bio
Dr. Wocial received a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN and her Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctorate degrees in Nursing from the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, OR. She has been in clinical practice for more than 20 years. Her clinical background is in neonatal intensive care. Her doctoral dissertation, Life Support Decisions Involving Imperiled Infants, examined parents’ experience with the ethical dilemma of considering withdrawing or withholding treatment from their newborns.
Prior to joining the Fairbanks Center in July, 2007, Dr. Wocial worked in a variety of health care organizations from small private hospitals to large academic teaching centers. She is highly regarded as a lecturer, educator, researcher, consultant and practitioner in the field of medical ethics, particularly as it applies to the nursing profession. Wocial comes to the Fairbanks program from the Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital, where she served as a Neonatal Clinical Nurse Specialist. She has been a Nursing Thought Expert Consultant for Web-based product development for Elsevier Publishing in St. Louis, MO. She has also served as a member of the Ethics Consultation service for the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and was a special assistant for the Commission on Determining Nursing Workforce Policy with the National League for Nursing.
Education
- 1997- Doctor of Philosophy-Nursing
Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, OR
Major: Family Nursing
Minor: Health Care Ethics
Dissertation: Life Support Decisions Involving Imperiled Infants - 1992- Master of Science
Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, OR
Major: Nursing Familes Across the Life Cycle - 1985- Bachelor of Sciences in Nursing
Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, OR - 1982- Bachelor of Arts in Psychology
Macalester College, St. Paul, MN
Certification
- 2005- Trainer, End of Life Nursing Education Pediatric Palliative Care
- 2002- AACN Certification, Clinical Nurse Specialist, Neonatal
Representative Publications
Ethics
- Wocial LD. An Urgent Call for Ethics Education. The American Journal of Bioethics. 2008;8(4):21-3.
- Wocial L. Moral Distress--the role of ethics consultation in the NICU. Bioethics Forum. 2002;18(1-2):15-23.
- Wocial L. Life Support Decisions Involving Imperiled Infants. Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing. 2000;14(2):73-86.
- Wocial L. Achieving Collaboration in Ethical Decision-Making: Strategies for Nurses in Clinical Practics. Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing. 1996;15(3):150-159.
Clinical
- Wocial L. The Role of Mentors in Promoting Integrity and Preventing Scientific Misconduct in Nursing Research. Journal of Professional Nursing. 1995; 11(5):276-280.
- Wocial L. Advocacy in Action. Neonatal Network. 1992;12(5):43-48.
Abstracts, Posters, & Letters
Ethics
- Wocial LD. Letter to the Editor: Neonatal Care for Premature Infants. Hastings Center Report. 1992;12(5):43-48.
- Neonatal Research Makes Sense, a compendium of research abstracts accepted for presentation. National Association of Neonatal Nurses Research conferences. April 1998, Dallas, TX.
- Life Support Decisions Involving Imperiled Infants. Poster Presentation. Annual Conference, National Association of Neonatal Nurses. September 1996, Nashville, TN
Clinical
- Everyday Miracles. A single short story in a collection published by the National Association of Neonatal Nurses, September 2004.
- Beyond Our Four Walls, co-authors Genella Mussell, RN and Becky Walkes, RN. An abstract describing the neonatal transport program and perinatal outreach activities. Poster presentation at the International Neonatal Nursing Conference, Sydney, Austrailia. November 2001.