Biography

Annette Kasselman graduated from nursing school with a bachelor's degree in 1983, from St. Mary’s of the Plains College, Dodge City, Kansas. Upon graduating, she was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corp. Her first duty station was Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Hematology Oncology Unit, 7SE. Ms. Kasselman progressed in her skills as a nurse and as a soldier earning promotion to 1st Lieutenant within the first two years of active duty. An opportunity to become part of the Army’s Preventive Medicine Department was given to Ms. Kasselman. She attended and received a certificate as a Community Health Nurse from the Uniformed Services School of Health at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas in 1986. She returned to Walter Reed Army Medical Center to join that department. She was given the responsibility of out-patient education in child-birthing, preschool health education, and troop education. Along with this, Ms. Kasselman participated in home visits in the Washington D.C. area for those having experienced child-birth, discharge from the hospital and for those who no longer were seeking treatment for life limiting illnesses. This opportunity gave Ms. Kasselman her direction in nursing and passion for all things community. After the birth of her first son, she was honorably discharged from active duty to reserve duty back in her home state of Kansas. There she served as a staff nurse in the 410th Evacuation Hospital until the unit was disbanded in the 1990’s. Being a weekend warrior allowed Ms. Kasselman to pursue other opportunities in nursing. She began working at the hospital she trained in, St. Joseph Medical Center, Wichita, Kansas as a labor and delivery nurse and then onto hospice nursing at Harry Hynes Hospice, Wichita, Kansas. Following her husband as he forged his education in medicine, Ms. Kasselman worked for hospice agencies in Kansas City and again in Wichita. As more children came into the family, she took a position as an evening staff nurse for St. Francis Regional Medical Center in oncology. There she became a certified bone marrow transplant nurse and evening charge nurse for the unit. After her husband’s graduation from medical school and beginning residency, Ms. Kasselman worked for a short time at Mother Francis Hospital in Tyler, Texas. With the birth of their fifth child and a husband in residency she took time to manage the home and children. In 1999, after residency was completed and her husband’s first practice, Ms. Kasselman worked for a critical access hospital in northwest Kansas. There she regained her knowledge of emergency medicine, long-term care medicine, maternal child and labor and delivery nursing.

The pull to community occurred and Ms. Kasselman began working as a school nurse for the Northwest Kansas Education Service Center. She was responsible for school age children at seven schools, and five Head Start classes in the northwest region of Kansas. During the summer of 2022, she was camp nurse at Ponderosa Retreat and Conference Center, Monument, Colorado. With her husband’s new position in Imperial, Nebraska, Ms. Kasselman joined the critical access hospital staff as a staff RN, working in the operating room as a circulating nurse, on the nursing unit as a staff RN, and as a childbirth educator and labor and delivery nurse. Occasionally, Ms. Kasselman worked for North Suburban Medical Center as a prn float pool nurse gaining invaluable experience in multiple medical surgical areas of medicine. In 2004, community opportunities arose at Community Hospital Home and Health and Hospice out of McCook, Nebraska. Here she worked hospice home care and home health care. Traveling to a patient’s home and working with them in their own environment was very fulfilling and rewarding. Ms. Kasselman has had a variety of leadership roles starting within the military as team leader within the medical surgical unit, helping with new orientations, shift charge nurse on the oncology unit at St. Francis Regional Medical Center in Wichita, Kansas, hospice program supervisor at Methodist Home Health and Hospice, and Director of Nursing at Chase County Community from 2010-2013 and Clinic Staff Supervisor at Frontier Health Services, Oakley, Kansas, 2013-2014. Once again following her husband’s career, Ms. Kasselman was employed at a privately owned family practice clinic where she did triage nursing, care coordination, transition of care coordination, nutritional coaching for newly diagnosed diabetes and advocated for patient assistance and prior authorizations. Currently, Ms. Kasselman has been in undergraduate nursing education for five years and maintains her clinical skills through triage nursing for family practice and weekend staff for hospice care with St. Croix Hospice.

Research

Research Interests

• Nontraditional Student Retention in Nursing Education
• Supporting Nursing Students During Times of Grief
• Resiliency and the training for resiliency in nursing students

Grant Support (Previous 5 years)

July 2019 – Present
Nurse Education, Practice, Quality and Retention - Veteran Nurses in Primary Care, $1.4 Million, LaFramboise, L. (P.I.)

July 2018 – Present
Present - Nurse Education, Practice, Quality and Retention – Registered Nurses in Primary Care Training Program, $2.5 Million, Fiandt, K. (P.I.)

Service

Faculty Advisor to military/veteran students in Omaha.

HEARTS (Helping Each other Adapt & Recover in Times of Sorrow) Faculty member.

Recognition

2017-18, University of Nebraska Medical Center, College of Nursing, Kathryn Sandahl Philp Award for Creativity and Innovation