A lifetime of nursing comes full circle
The nursing career of Kirsten Hanrahan, DNP, ARNP, RN, CPNP-PC, FAAN, has been shaped by a steady willingness to ask questions, follow opportunities, and use each chapter of her work to open doors for others. Earlier this year, she was honored with a DAISY Lifetime Achievement Award.
Kirsten Hanrahan, director, Nursing Services, Nursing Research and Evidence-Based Practice, did not always know she would become a nurse. She grew up in a family that welcomed more than 70 foster children, which helped shape her early interest in working with kids. That experience eventually led her to the University of Iowa, where she earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees over 30 years — what she humorously calls her “degree a decade.”
That path became the foundation for a career spanning several roles. Hanrahan began as a pediatric nurse, later became a pediatric nurse practitioner, and spent many years in newborn and neonatal intensive care settings.
Although she enjoyed direct care, Hanrahan felt drawn to the questions behind care — the techniques, evidence, and ideas that could improve outcomes. That curiosity shifted her career toward nursing research, evidence-based practice, and implementation science.
Full circle moments
Hanrahan spent years studying distraction as an intervention for painful pediatric procedures, helping children focus their attention away from pain so necessary medical care would not become traumatic. For example, having the patient watch a favorite cartoon during a procedure.
Years later, she experienced one of many full circle moments in her career when, after receiving a vaccine, her young granddaughter proudly told her, “Grammy, I did so good. I watched a video.” In that moment, years of research became personal: a practice Hanrahan had helped develop had reached her own family.
Now, as director of the Office of Nursing Research and Evidence-Based Practice, Hanrahan helps nurses and clinicians move from clinical questions to meaningful change. She supports frontline nurses with bottom-up projects, contributes to broader quality and patient outcome initiatives, and helps make the Iowa Model of Evidence-Based Practice more accessible.
She first learned about the Iowa Model, a framework that guides clinicians from clinical questions to practice change, earlier in her own training. It, too, became another full-circle thread in her career. She benefited from the work of early leaders, then helped revise the model, develop tools, write papers about it, and teach others how to use it.
“I’ve been fortunate to not just benefit from using the model, but to stand on the shoulders of those early leaders and continue to create tools to make it easier for nurses,” Hanrahan says.
That reach has extended far beyond Iowa. Hanrahan has been intentional about building national and international connections while remaining rooted in the place where she trained and built her career. Through family student exchange experiences, international conferences, the Magnet4Europe program, and professional partnerships in places including Germany, Norway, Belgium, Poland, Portugal, and Romania, she has learned to look at nursing through a broader lens.
“Those experiences built my perspective over time,” Hanrahan says. “They deepened my understanding and expanded collaboration opportunities. They reminded me that nurses everywhere are asking similar questions about how to improve care.”
Even with that global reach and deep research expertise, Hanrahan keeps returning to the bedside as the place where important ideas begin. She loves helping staff nurses turn questions and practical insights into change.
For her, the most rewarding accomplishments are not only her own publications or projects, but the moments when she helps someone else grow — a nurse who develops confidence, presents at conferences, publishes for the first time, or sees an idea change a real-life practice. After being shaped by strong mentors early in her career, Hanrahan has become that kind of mentor for others. Another full circle.
Honoring a lifetime of work
Hanrahan was surprised and humbled when learning she had received a DAISY Lifetime Achievement Award. She sees the honor as a team award — recognition of the mentors, colleagues, clinicians, and nurses who worked alongside her. Acknowledging the team that surrounds her says a lot about her legacy. Her impact is not only in research findings, models, tools, or publications, but in what that work has done improving care and outcomes, and empowering nurses to make meaningful changes.
Her advice to young or aspiring nurses is grounded in that same spirit: ask questions, seek mentors, seize opportunities, and eventually become a mentor yourself.
“New nurses bring a valuable perspective because they are close to the bedside and often see what others miss,” Hanrahan says. “Questions are where improvement begins.”
Kimberly D. Hunter, DNP, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, chief nurse executive, UI Health Care, presented Hanrahan with the award, noting, “Dr. Kirsten Hanrahan has demonstrated exceptional leadership and dedication to nursing over a more than 40-year career, advancing practice across clinical care, research, and national leadership. Dr. Hanrahan’s impact continues to shape the future of nursing.”
For Hanrahan, a life in nursing has been less a straight line than a series of circles — from being mentored to mentoring, from practice to research, from Iowa to the world and back again, and from developing evidence-based methods to help children through painful procedures to watching that work comfort her own granddaughter.
The DAISY Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes all of it: a career built on curiosity, collaboration, and a lasting commitment to helping nurses improve lives.
