Wailua Brandman MSN, APRN, PMHCNS/NP-BC, FAANP
J D Wailua Brandman is the founding President of the Hawaii Association of Professional Nurses. A pioneer in his practice role, his work as a cultural entrepreneur has supported advancing legislation in Hawaii promoting unrestricted practice of NPs and adoption of the NCSBN's Model Nurse Practice Act and Administrative Rules, the first state to do so. A leader in his professional specialty organization (APNA), Wailua has held local and national office. A past AANP Health Policy Fellow, he serves on the APRN Practice and Policy Committee to the Hawaii State Center for Nursing. He is a Board Member of the Yale University School of Nursing Alumni Association.
As the first psychiatric nurse practitioner in Hawaii, he pioneered the role of the PMHNP in his state. His private practice delivers holistic, primary care to those people with mental, spiritual and emotional distress as well as precepting opportunities to local graduate students studying to become PMHNPs via online mainland university programs, such as Johns Hopkins, Rush, MUSC, Frontier, St Louis, EKU, USA, U of AZ, and Regis College. Universities in Hawaii have now started PMHNP programs funneling preceptees to his practice as well. He is the author of Misery or Happiness: Its ALL about ENERGY. A former actor, singer, dancer, he loves presenting to large groups on everything from psychopharmacology to body mind therapies.
His master's degree is from the Yale University School of Nursing from which he is the recipient of the 2021 Distinguished Alumni Award. Other honors include the AANP Hawaii NP State Award of Excellence and the Kupono Award from Gamma Psi Chapter-at-Large of Sigma Theta Tau. He was mentored at Yale by the late Florence Wald and Virginia Henderson, and from his basic nursing school, El Centro College, in Dallas, TX, by Barbara Dossey.