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Steve Wooden Recieves Prestigious Healthcare Award
PARK RIDGE, ILL. – Steve Wooden, a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) from Albion, NE., received the presitigious 2009 Ira P. Gunn Award from the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) during the AANA’s annual meeting in San Diego, Ca.
The Ira P. Gunn Awards was established in 2000 to recognized CRNAs or others who make significant contributions to promoting and/or protecting the legal, legislative and regulatory practice rights or nurse anesthetists.
Steve Wooden is managing partner in Wooden Anesthesia, PC, a private anesthesia practice in Albion, NE.
Wooden has been serving the anesthesia profession on the state and national level in appointed or elected positions since 1982. In fact, he has been appointed by two governors to serve on the Nebraska Board of Health and is currently the vice president of Nebraska’s first APRN Board. This APRN Board oversees and monitors practice issues and violations for all advanced practice nurses in the state of Nebraska.
In 2002, Wooden helped to successfully lobby the governor’s office making Nebraska the second state to opt out of physician supervision requirement. In addition, he was also a member of the Legislative Technical Review Committee, which played a role in the process to grant CRNAs the legal right to utilize fluoroscopy in Nebraska.
“My first concern is the patient and the opt-out as well as the fluoroscopy regulation allows CRNAs to provide access to anesthesia care for the citizens of Nebraska without regard to location,” said Wooden. “I truly enjoy my profession and view my legislative involvement related to healthcare as a way of giving back to the community and state in which I live.”
In 2001, Wooden was the recipient of the Alice Magaw Award for the Outstanding Clinical Practitioner. This award recognizes the accomplishments of CRNAs involved in direct patient care.
A CRNA for more than 20 years, Wooden received his master’s degree in nurse anesthesia from the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., and his bachelor’s degree in nurse anesthesia from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. In addition, he earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Tennessee Center for Health Sciences in Nashville, Tenn. Wooden is currently enrolled in the Doctorate of Nursing Practice program in Duke University in Durham, NC.