Ruth McCorkle

Margaret Ruth McCorkle FAAN, FAPOS (March 4, 1941, in Johnson City, Tennessee – August 17, 2019, in Hamden, Connecticut) was an American nurse, oncology researcher, and educator. She was the Florence Schorske Wald Professor of Nursing at the Yale School of Nursing.

McCorkle's professional biography included research and working as a professor of nursing at the University of Washington School of Nursing in Seattle, Washington, and as a professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and an associate director of cancer control at the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Comprehensive Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

McCorkle was a prolific writer and her published research appears in many professional nursing and medical journals in the United States and abroad. She received many prestigious awards for her ground-breaking research. Most notably, she was the first non-medical research recipient of a National Cancer Institute Research Training Grant and this opened the door for other disciplines to apply for these training grants. She was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1990. At St. Christopher's Hospice she observed how chronically and terminally ill cancer patients were managed.

After graduation, she moved to Seattle to work with Jeanne Quint Benoliel, an international nurse leader in death and dying at the University of Washington. They worked together for over 10 years and developed a graduate program, the Oncology Transition Program, to prepare advanced practice nurses to deliver nursing interventions for patients and their families across the cancer trajectory.

McCorkle received funding for her research from the National Institute of Health and the American Cancer Society to conduct seven randomized clinical intervention studies delivered by advanced practice nurses to cancer patients and their families. Three of her most important interventional studies are described in detail in this Wikipedia article.

Development of the Symptom Distress Scale The Symptom Distress Scale (SDS) was one of McCorkle's most notable achievements. Drs. McCorkle and Kathy Young Graham developed and tested SDS at the University of Washington from 1976 to 1978.

Research studies

Evaluation of Cancer Management McCorkle's premiere study was the “Evaluation of Cancer Management.” From 1983-1986 she designed a Randomized Control Trial (RCT) to test the efficacy of home care interventions provided by APNs in the Seattle community. Patients with lung cancer were assigned to one of three groups: an APN group that received oncology home care (OHC) education, standard home care (SHC) group that received care from the traditionally prepared home care nurse, or an office care (OC) group that received usual outpatient care. McCorkle found that patients who received care in the OHC group and patients in the SHC group remained physically and socially independent longer than patients in the OC group. The APNs helped to minimize symptom distress and maintain independence longer compared to patients in the OC group. In addition, patients enrolled in OHC had fewer re-hospitalizations from complications of their cancer therapies compared to patients enrolled in SHC or OC.

Spouse bereavement McCorkle became aware of the responsibility of the caregiver during her first study, so in 1986-1988 she and her colleagues extended their study to include caregivers. They tested how the OHC intervention for terminally ill cancer patients affected caregiver distress during the bereavement period. The APNs assisted families through the living-dying transition of the illness trajectory. In the OHC group the trained APNs taught families about symptom management and comfort care. The OHC group proved an overall decrease in psychological distress between the caregivers who interacted with trained APNs.

Quality of life in older people after surgery In 1992-1996 she launched an RCT to test the effects of APNs role in quality of life outcomes of newly diagnosed post-surgical older cancer patients and their caregiver's psychological status at the cancer patient's discharge. Patients were randomly assigned to the experimental group where APNs were highly trained in post-operative oncology care. The patients in the control group received standard post-operative care. The APNs in the experimental group were trained with specific guidelines to help cancer patients recover post-operatively to improve quality of life and extend survival. The study found more cancer patients died in the control group than in the experimental intervention group. In 2018 she was named a Living Legend of the American Academy of Nursing.