Honoring One Of Our Own:
The Donna L. Wong Professorship of Pediatric Nursing Research

One night in 1970, first-year nurse Donna Wong kept watch with a grieving mother at the bed of her dying child. The young nurse could do little then to ease the physical pain of the little girl, a cancer patient, or the heartache of the mother. But the bedside vigil was the catalyst for a nursing career that has pioneered new and effective health-care techniques in pediatrics and pain management.

Today, Dr. Donna Wong is internationally renowned for her textbooks on pediatric nursing, Nursing Care of Infants and Children, Clinical Handbook of Pediatric Nursing and Essentials of Pediatric Nursing, all mainstays in nursing education. She has served as an instructor, researcher, mentor and consultant in the areas of nursing education, patient care and pain management.

The impact of her research extends well beyond the profession of nursing. The Wong-Baker FACES pain scale – perhaps her most well-known contribution to international health care – reflects her compassion and concern, as well as her innovative approach, in health-care research. This chart of six faces with expressions ranging from happiness to severe pain is a fixture of health clinics around the world, familiar to even the youngest children and their parents.

The University of Oklahoma, where Dr. Wong is now an adjunct faculty member in the College of Nursing and in the College of Medicine-Tulsa, is committed to raising $250,000 in private funds to establish the Donna L. Wong Professorship of Pediatric Nursing Research in honor of her outstanding career and contributions to nursing. Thanks to generous donors, the College of Nursing is nearing its goal of $250,000, but we still need $43,732 to complete the private funding. It is important to note that gifts to the Wong Professorship will be maximized through the Oklahoma State Regents Endowment Program, which provides matching funds for endowed faculty positions.

Though Dr. Wong has been honored many times for her work, an endowed professorship in pediatric nursing would be an enduring and especially fitting tribute to her. The professorship would expand the College of Nursing’s instructional and research expertise in a critical area of nurse training, ultimately preparing better and more nurses who will follow Dr. Wong’s example of pursuing excellence in pediatric nursing research and improving outcomes for children and their families.

Dr. Wong says: “My work is finite, but this endowment offers immortality. Through other gifted and dedicated nurses my efforts to improve the quality of health care for children and their families will continue.” All gifts, no matter the size, are deeply appreciated and much needed. We thank you for your consideration of support for this important endowed faculty position that will simultaneously honor the work of one of the world’s preeminent nurses, while providing enduring resources for the holder of the professorship to conduct pediatric nursing research and teach new generations of nurses.

To support this professorship and honor Dr. Wong’s many accomplishments, please mail checks made out to:

“OU Foundation,”
c/o Lindsey Manning
The University of Oklahoma, Alumni and Development Office
PO Box 26901, 162 Library
Oklahoma City, OK 73126-9968.

Make sure to include a note designating the gift for the Donna L. Wong Professorship. Gifts also can be made on-line, using the OU Foundation’s secure online giving page.

Please visit http://www.oufoundation.org and click on “make a gift” to begin. In the gift section of the online giving form, make sure to choose nursing from their drop-down menu and type Donna L. Wong Professorship in the “other gift restrictions” field.

Thank you for standing with the nursing community to celebrate Donna Wong’s great achievements!