Kristen Pecanac, PhD

Current occupation: Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Awarded the Certificate in Fall 2013

Research interests: To improve decision making regarding life sustaining treatment

What was your research project for the Certificate?

An educational module on advance directives for nurses

What role did your community partner play in the project?

My community partner was the ethicist of the hospital. He coordinated my presentation about issues with advance directives to the nursing quality improvement team. He also helped me to develop the educational module.

How might this research affect the health consumer?

This project provided nurses with valuable education on advance directives, which could lead to nurses being better able to assist the health consumer in their understanding of advance directives.

What did you learn in the program that you didn’t expect to learn?

During this program, the institution I was working with got rid of the department I was working with to get the module to the nurses, which was quite unexpected. Therefore, I had to learn how to “start over” and use the connections I still had to move the module forward in the nursing education process.

Name the top things learned that you will use in your research career.

I will use what I Iearned about working closely with a community partner and establishing relationships throughout my research career. This certificate has also provided a great foundation for dissemination and implementation science, which I will need to design appropriate interventions to improve practice.

How has the certificate advanced your professional goals?

The certificate has improved my confidence in conducting research in the “real-world” which I will need to advance my professional goals.

What other opportunities have you been provided as a result of the certificate program?

I appreciated the opportunity to work with researchers out of my discipline because I feel they were able to see my program of research from a different point of view.

What advice would you give current and future Certificate students?

Work hard so that you can impact practice and make positive changes in healthcare.

Published works

Pecanac, K.E., Repenshek, M.F., Tennenbaum, D., & Hammes, B.J. (2014). Respecting Choices and advance directives in a diverse community. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 17(3), 282-287.

Doherty-King, B., Yoon, J.Y., Pecanac, K., Brown, R., & Mahoney, J. (2014). Frequency and duration of nursing care related to older patient mobility. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 46(1), 20-27.

Pecanac, K.E., Kehler, J.M., Brasel, K.J., Cooper, Z., McKneally, M.F., Schwarze, M.L. (2014). It’s big surgery: Preoperative expressions of risk, responsibility, and commitment to treatment after high-risk operations. Annals of Surgery, 259(3), 458-463.

Kruser, J.M., Pecanac, K.E., Brasel, K.J., Cooper, Z., Steffens, N., McKneally, M., & Schwarze, M.L. (2015) “And I think that we can fix it”: Mental models used in high-risk surgical decision making. Annals of Surgery, 261(4), 678-684.

Pecanac, K.E., Doherty-King, B., Yoon, J.Y., Brown, R., & Schiefelbein, T. (2015). Using timed event sequential data in nursing research. Nursing Research, 64(1), 67-71.

Yoon, J. Y., King, B., Pecanac, K., Brown, R. L., Mahoney, J. & Kuo, F. (2015). Comparison of time-and-motion observations and self-reports to capture mobility related nursing care activities for hospitalized older adults. Research in Gerontological Nursing, 8(3), 110-117.

Nabozny, M.J., Kruser, J.M., Steffens, N.M., Pecanac, K.E., Brasel, K.J., Chittenden, E.H., Cooper, Z., McKneally, M.F., & Schwarze, M.L. (2016). Patient-reported limitations to surgical buy-in: A qualitative study of patients facing high-risk surgery. Annals of Surgery, Jan 18 Epub ahead of print.

Pecanac, K.E., & Schwarze, M.L. (in press). Conflict in the intensive care unit: Nursing advocacy and surgical agency. Nursing Ethics.

Pecanac, K.E. (in press). Communicating delicately: Introducing the need to make a decision about the use of life-sustaining treatment. Health Communication. King, B. Pecanac, K., Krupp, A., Leibzeit, D., & Mahoney, J. (in press). Impact of fall prevention on nurses and care of fall risk patients. The Gerontologist.