Leader in cancer nursing to head doctoral program

Ruth McCorkle has joined the Yale faculty, assuming leadership of the School of Nursing's doctoral program and establishing a Center for Excellence in Chronic Illness Care. The center will encourage research collaborations among faculty at YSN and throughout the University who specialize in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and HIV/AIDS.

An international leader in cancer nursing, education and control research, McCorkle has done landmark research on the psychosocial ramifications of the disease. She was the first research chair of the Oncology Nursing Society and is a charter member of that organization as well as of the International Society of Nurses in Cancer Care. She has served on the boards of both groups. She has been a member of the study sections of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institute of Nursing Research, and she was the first non-medical recipient of an NCI Institutional Research Training Grant.

Noting that McCorkle's "clinical roots have given her analyses a perspective that is both insightful and empathetic," School of Nursing Dean Catherine Gilliss said: "Ruth McCorkle has already done a great deal to shape nursing research. Her new position at Yale will allow her even greater opportunity to define this vibrant and growing discipline."

McCorkle is the principal investigator of "Nursing's Impact on Quality of Life Outcomes in Post-Prostatectomy Patients," a grant funded by the American Cancer Society. Along with Dr. Jeanne Quint-Benoliel, she developed standardized scales to measure distressing symptoms and functional changes in patients undergoing cancer treatments; these scales have been widely adopted.

McCorkle was elected to the American Academy of Nursing in 1979 and to the Institute of Medicine in 1990. She has authored more than 70 articles, 30 book chapters and three books. Her textbook, "Cancer Nursing" (co-edited with Marcia Grant and Susan Baird), won the American Journal of Nursing Book-of-the-Year award in 1991. She was recognized by the American Nurses Association in 1993 as Nurse Scientist of the Year.