Advancing Your Nursing Degree

Debra A. Wolff, DNS, PCNP, RN, is president/chief executive officer of NURSES-Ready for the Next Step, a business launched in 2013 to help prepare nurses for success in the next step of their education and career. She also teaches online at Empire State College. During her 38-year career in nursing, she has been a lifelong learner. Dr. Wolff earned a bachelor's degree from the State University of New York, Plattsburgh; a master's degree and a certificate as a nurse practitioner in community health from Binghamton University, and a doctoral degree in nursing science from The Sage Colleges, where she was inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi Society. Her dissertation, Registered Nurses Return to College: Lessons Learned From Hindsight, is the basis for much of this book's content. Currently, she is an active member of the New York Organization of Nurse Executives and Leaders, American Nurses Association and New York, Capital District Nursing Research Alliance, Northeast New York Professional Nurses Association, and the Albany Chapter of the American Statistical Association. From 2011 to 2013, Dr. Wolff was the project coordinator for the newly established Future of Nursing and New York State Action Coalition. In this capacity, she traveled throughout the state and interacted with nurses in all areas and at all levels of practice. She was the guest speaker at several nursing schools and professional organizations as well as the coauthor and data analyst for the New York State Nursing Schools and Faculty Report: 2010--2011. Before 2010, she was the project director for a cancer research project that enrolled 115 sites nationwide and collected data on over 4,500 patients receiving chemotherapy. She had the privilege of being the only nurse working with this interdisciplinary, multicultural team. She has published extensively in Cancer, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, Annals of Oncology, American Journal of Managed Care, Academic Medicine, Journal of Rural Health, and Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research. In 2010, Dr. Wolff completed a program as a certified synchronous learning expert and, in recent years, has been an abstract, journal, and textbook reviewer as well as a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grant reviewer.