Member Spotlight
NCNA's Member Spotlights celebrate the voices, experiences, and impact of NCNA members across North Carolina. Each spotlight highlights a nurse’s unique journey, professional insights, and dedication to advancing the nursing profession.
Read Anna's Member Spotlight below to learn more about her career path, what inspires her work, and the advice she shares with fellow nurses.
Anna Woody, BSN, RN, CCRN, C-NPT
Employed as a Neonatal/Pediatric Flight Nurse, Anna provides advanced life support to critically ill infants and children during interfacility transports across a multi-county region in eastern North Carolina. Anna performs high-level interventions, including advanced airway management, mechanical ventilation, vascular access (UVC/IO), and emergency procedures such as thoracic decompression. In addition to delivering rapid, autonomous clinical care in high-risk environments, Anna leads quality improvement initiatives, contribute to research and protocol development, and provide outreach education to regional hospitals to enhance pediatric and neonatal care coordination.
What inspires you most about being a nurse?
What inspires me most about being a nurse is the opportunity to make a meaningful impact during some of the most vulnerable moments in a patient’s life while also contributing to something larger than myself. As a neonatal and pediatric transport nurse, I care for critically ill children in high-risk environments, where skill, teamwork, and trust are essential. At the same time, I’m inspired by the ability to create lasting change, whether through outreach education, quality improvement, or improving access to care in rural communities where disparities are most evident. Being part of a growing transport program and helping shape its development has reinforced my passion for nursing as a career that constantly challenges me to grow, think critically, and contribute to both patient outcomes and the advancement of the field.
Share something awesome you are doing in your current role as a nurse.
One of the most awesome parts of my current role is practicing at the highest scope of nursing in a truly autonomous, high-acuity environment. As a neonatal and pediatric transport nurse, I perform advanced procedures like intubation and central line placement while making critical, independent decisions alongside my team, often in what is essentially a tiny flying ICU. It’s powerful to recognize that it’s nurses leading these transports, directly bridging the gap between critically ill children and the definitive care they need, sometimes reducing transport times from over an hour by ground to under 30 minutes by air. Equally rewarding is the impact I can make beyond the bedside as a nurse driving best-practice change, including implementing an evidence-based sedation protocol and leading the adoption of video laryngoscopy to improve neonatal intubation success. It’s a role that highlights not only the skill and autonomy of nursing, but the profound difference nurses make in both individual patient outcomes and the evolution of care.
Do you have a favorite quote, cartoon or image about nursing to share?
One of my favorite quotes is by Kerr L. White: “Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment.” While it isn’t specific to nursing, I think it resonates deeply within the profession, especially in high-acuity settings, because so much of our growth comes from navigating complex situations and learning through experience. It’s a reminder that even difficult moments contribute to becoming a more thoughtful, skilled, and resilient nurse.
What do you wish people outside of the nursing profession knew about nursing?
I wish people outside of the nursing profession understood that nurses are often mistakenly viewed as assistants to physicians, when in reality, we are integral clinical decision-makers and essential leaders within the healthcare team. Nurses spend the most time at the bedside, continuously assessing patients, recognizing subtle changes, and identifying concerning trends early, often preventing deterioration and saving lives. We bring a unique combination of clinical expertise, critical thinking, and patient advocacy, ensuring that care decisions align with what is truly in the patient’s best interest. At the same time, the scope of nursing extends far beyond the bedside, with nurses practicing in roles that influence education, research, leadership, quality improvement, and health policy. From hands-on patient care to driving system-wide change, nurses are at the forefront of shaping safer, more effective healthcare.
What (or who) inspired you to become a nurse?
I’ve always been inspired by nurses who push the boundaries of what our profession can be, and one of the most influential figures for me is Dolores B. O'Hara. As the first aerospace nurse for NASA’s early astronauts, she helped establish an entirely new specialty and demonstrated that nursing extends far beyond traditional settings. Her work showed me that nurses can lead, innovate, and practice at the highest level in even the most complex and unconventional environments. That mindset directly influenced my own path into transport nursing, where I’m able to combine advanced clinical care, autonomy, and innovation while helping expand what nursing can achieve.
NCNA thanks you for being a part of our community and for your passion for nursing, Anna!
