Research Nurse - Annette Wysocki
This article describes the career of Dr. Annette Wysocki '78, '80. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: "Research Nurse," ECU Report, Spring/Summer 1990, Volume 21, No. 3.
Dr. Annette Wysocki '78, '80 believes that nurses should expand their career options beyond patient care and teaching.According to the Ph.D. nurse, research is also a viable alternative.
"There's no reason why nurses shouldn't be on the cutting edge of science," Wysocki says.
A nursing background is a definite advantage in research, says Wysocki, a registered nurse with medical-surgical certification."One of the strengths we have as practitioners is that we know what these abnormalities look like at the clinical level. One cell biologist I worked with had never seen a chronic wound. Our clinical experience also allows us to make a connection between research and patients by seeing how that knowledge might be useful in practice."
She should know -- as a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow with the Department of Surgery at Cornell University Medical College in New York, Wysocki is trying to find out why chronic wounds don't heal. "That's an area of research that's not well known," Wysocki says.
A chronic wound, Wysocki says, is any wound that has not healed within one year.Pressure sores and venous leg ulcers frequently do not heal; neither do large burns.
Wysocki is hoping to find a clue by studying fibronectin, a glycoprotein found in cells and circulating plasma that acts as a biological glue to attach cells to extracellular matrix material.
"Studies have demonstrated that the topical application of fibronectin is effective in healing persistent corneal ulcers and venous leg ulcers," Wysocki says. "My curiosity was really aroused to find out why."
The allure of research, Wysocki says, is finding something that no one else has seen before. "One of the motivations of science is to see something first and see it in a way that no one else has before. It was exciting when I first started and it still is. It's what keeps you motivated."
Research has been a part of Wysocki's life since 1982, when she joined the University of Texas School of Nursing as a research and teaching assistant.
"I have always wanted to do research," Wysocki says. "When I started out at ECU I majored in chemistry because I wanted to be a research chemist. I switched to nursing two years later after deciding I wanted to do something to help people."
The 1978 cum laude graduate spent a year as a staff nurse at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville before returning to ECU in 1979 to pursue a master's degree in nursing.
It wasn't enough for Wysocki, who started applying to Ph.D. nursing programs soon after graduation."I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge," she says. "I really enjoy learning."
Wysocki packed her bags and headed west when the University of Texas at Austin notified her that she had been accepted. For the next five years, while working on her doctorate, Wysocki worked part time as a staff nurse at Seton Medical Center in Austin.
After graduation in 1986, she accepted a position in the Department of Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas as a senior research associate. It was there that Wysocki became interested in wound healing and its relationship to fibronectin.
