Joyce Willens

Joyce S Willens, PhD, RN, BC, has been elected President Elect of the American Society for Pain Management Nursing. She will serve one year in that role and then serve a year as president. She is an assistant professor in the College of Nursing.

Dr. Willens is a longtime advocate for pain management and a leader in ASPMN. She is the editor of Pain Management Nursing, the official journal of ASPMN published by Elsevier, and was previously on the journal’s editorial board. Dr. Willens is also one of two nurses in the nation selected from ASPMN to the Content Expert Panel for the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s new certification examination in pain management. She has authored many chapters on pain management and edited the 1996 AJN Book of the Year titled Pain management: an interdisciplinary approach. Dr. Willens has chaired ASPMN’s taskforce that completed the role delineation survey defining what pain management nurses do. This study was published in Pain Management Nursing and serves as a basis for test content outline.

Education

• 1983 BSN Villanova University
• 1984 MSN University of Pennsylvania
• 1994 PhD University of Maryland

Companies

• Assistant Professor Villanova University (1986)
• Critical Care Clinical Nurse Specialist Graduate Hospital (1984 — 1986)

Areas of Interest

• Monitoring for respiratory depression when under sedation. Invisible disabilities
• Pain management