Biography

“I think I was destined to become a nurse.” Both Sandra Wood’s mother and aunt taught grade school, but it was nursing that piqued Sandy’s interest. She recalls reading all the Cherry Ames novels when she was in middle school and dreamed of becoming a pediatric nurse. However, in nursing school, psychiatry fascinated her as well as pediatrics, and she decided to combine the two and became a child psychiatric nurse.

After working on child psychiatric nursing unit Sandy chose graduate school in the area of child psychiatric nursing and then started teaching at the undergraduate level. “I guess the influence of my mother’s side of the family did have some effect!” said Sandy. After retirement from full-time teaching, Ms. Wood developed and taught graduate psychopharmacology online as well as teaching a course in nursing roles.

Sandy says that “what has intrigued [her] about nursing, besides the contact with students and clients with many different illnesses and varied cultures, is the versatility of our profession.” Sandy began her career with children with emotional problems, moved to working with students - teaching them about psychiatric illnesses and relating to psychiatric clients, then had her own business preparing nurses to take certification exams, and finally became an advanced practice prescriber. “Not many professions allow so much freedom to explore your own interests while remaining in the same career and helping others in a variety of ways. In nursing you can go wherever you wish in your professional life and still maintain your connection to the nursing profession and your specialty area.”

Sandy summarizes her nursing career well: “I have never regretted my early decision to become a nurse though my actual career was much different than what I originally imagined it would be.”