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The word spread quickly throughout the nursing community, via friends, colleagues, e-mails, and listservs. On Sunday, May 4, 2008, pediatric nursing lost a great leader, Donna Lee Wong. Donna was diagnosed with leukemia in 2003. We knew from the start that her prognosis was poor. A bout with pneumonia was finally too much for her compromised immune system to bear, but not before she attended her daughter Nina's wedding, the day before Donna's final hospitalization.
Most of us knew Donna as the author of pediatric textbooks- Wong's Nursing Care of Infants and Children, Essentials of Pediatric Nursing, Clinical Manual of Pediatric Nursing, and Pediatric Quick Reference - and co-developer of the Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale. Many of us knew Donna for her honors, including the first recipient of the Audrey Hepburn/Sigma Theta Tau International Award for Contributions to the Health and Welfare of Children and the Society of Pediatric Nursing Barbara Larson Humanitarian Award. I, too, knew and respected Donna for all of these accomplishments; yet, what I treasured most about Donna was her joy of life and loyal friendship.
While living in Tulsa, OK, I had the honor of belonging to Pediatric Nurse Consultants (PNC), a networking group of nurse specialists Donna founded in the early 1980s. Meeting monthly, we were active in publication, research, education, and legal activities aimed at improving the quality of medical care for children at both local and national levels. Donna encouraged us to develop professionally in ways we had never thought possible and always provided the support needed to ensure success. She encouraged us to write articles, but she first wrote some with us to teach us how. She encouraged us to write a book, introduced us...