Dr. Mary Ann Cantrell inducted into American Academy of Nursing

Professor Mary Ann Cantrell '89 MSN, PhD, RN, CNE, FAAN was inducted as a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) at the AAN annual policy meeting in Washington, D.C. on October 17. 

Dr. Cantrell has effected in cancer nursing research what very few have achieved and through this rare but highly valuable approach, she has contributed to psychosocial cancer nursing research and care in ways that few others have. Dr. Cantrell has achieved this by carefully studying the same set of psychosocial concepts from diagnosis of a pediatric cancer through adulthood status as a survivor of childhood cancer. She has done this through instrumentation science, the use of mixed methods and of electronic data collection in longitudinal studies.

Dr. Cantrell had evolved this research contribution from single site, internally funded descriptive work to multi-site, federally funded behavioral intervention team science. As a result, we now know how the concepts of hopefulness, quality of life, self-care and response to a caring nursing presence affect the newly diagnosed adolescent and how these concepts evolve and respond to nursing care differently over time and clinical context into survivorship.  The dimensions of the concepts do vary and it is this variation that gives strong guidance to cancer nursing care and science.

Dr. Cantrell's work is now incorporated into nursing curricula and national survivorship guidelines. She has translated her research about the caring nursing presence to the next generations of nursing students through the use of simulation, work funded intramurally and extramurally. These simulations reflect her research and the outcomes of the simulations on student practices. Dr. Cantrell connects nursing research, education and practice by way of data and data translation.

Dr. Cantrell earned her BSN from Duquesne University, her MSN from Villanova University and her PhD from the University of Maryland.