About Me
Dr. Ian Hewer is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Academic Nursing at Wake Forest University. Though new to Wake Forest, he has been academic faculty since 2011, and was Program Director at Western Carolina University immediately prior to his move. Dr. Hewer trained as a nurse in the United Kingdom, coming to the United States in 1987 in the midst of the AIDS epidemic, to work on a new unit in New York. He has lived and worked on both coasts, the Midwest, and became a nurse anesthetist in 1995, attending the University of California- San Francisco. He earned his PhD in Health Services Research from the University of North Carolina- Charlotte in 2018, where he focused his work on the differences between populations served by different practice models, using Medicare data. He has presented his work both nationally and regionally, and continues to explore the characteristics of the anesthesia care team, most recently with survey work in North Carolina.
Dr. Hewer’s teaching expertise has been acknowledged at multiple levels, including in 2024 being one of three finalists for the WCU Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the most prestigious on- campus award at WCU. While his primary area of clinical interest is in cardiac anesthesia and physiology, he also enjoys teaching many topics, including economics and statistics to all doctoral nursing students. In addition to the classroom, Dr. Hewer also is active in simulation, with ongoing central line instruction, as well as multiple workshops & high fidelity simulation scenarios.
Mentoring students is a key priority for Dr. Hewer, who was nominated five times for the Graduate School Mentorship award at WCU, as well as chairing multiple doctoral projects since the inception of doctoral education. Outside of his academic career, Dr. Hewer is active in the North Carolina Association of Nurse Anesthetists (NCANA), where he is currently President-Elect, and has acted as a professional mentor to both students, and fellow CRNAs in this important area. He also sits on the Board of Trustees for the AANA Foundation.
Aside from teaching, he is married with two grown children, & is a keen Chelsea fan. He likes to mountain bike, play soccer (badly), read fiction & listen to loud rock music.