Past Mendel Medal Recipients

2023
Betty Ferrell, PhD, CHPN, FAAN, FPCN

Betty Ferrell, PhD, CHPN, FAAN, FPCN has been in nursing for 46 years and has focused her clinical expertise and research in pain management, quality of life, and palliative care. Dr. Ferrell is the Director of Nursing Research & Education and a Professor at the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, California. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and she more than 500 publications in peer-reviewed journals and texts. She is Principal Investigator of the “End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC)” project. She directs several other funded projects related to palliative care in cancer centers and Quality of Life (QoL) issues. Dr. Ferrell was Co-Chairperson of the National Consensus Project for Quality Palliative Care. Dr. Ferrell completed a Masters degree in Theology, Ethics and Culture from Claremont Graduate University in 2007.

She has authored eleven books including the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Nursing (5th Edition, 2019) published by Oxford University Press. She is co-author of the text, The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Nursing published by Oxford University Press (2nd Ed, 2023) and Making Health Care Whole: Integrating Spirituality into Patient Care (Templeton Press, 2010).

In 2013, Dr. Ferrell was named one of the 30 Visionaries in the field by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. In 2019 she was elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine. In 2021, Dr. Ferrell received the Oncology Nursing Society Lifetime Achievement Award and she was inducted as a “Living Legend” by the American Academy of Nursing.