Sara L. Douglas
The Gertrude Perkins Oliva Professor in Oncology Nursing, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing
Area of focus: Caregivers of patients with advanced cancer and end-of-life decisions
When a patient with a terminal illness faces end-of-life decisions, it is a challenging time for the entire family. Sara L. Douglas witnessed this first hand while working in clinical nursing. This trend, among many others she observed on the job, pushed her to earn her PhD in educational research, statistics, and evaluation.
She’s gone on to have a distinguished research career in nursing at Case Western Reserve University, examining critical issues related to patient outcomes.
Douglas has been a co-investigator on five National Institutes of Health (NIH) projects and a principal investigator on four more. In these projects, she’s focused on topics that directly affect patients and their caregivers.
Currently, she’s studying how cancer patients’ final wishes align with—or are disconnected from—those of their caregivers. Better understanding this alignment will help Douglas and her colleagues define quality end-of-life.
“I continue to see patients and their family caregivers struggle with issues related to discussions and decisions that focus on end-of-life care,” Douglas said.
The team hopes to allow patients to have better experiences in their final days while easing their families’ grief or regret once the patients die.
Funded by a grant from the National Cancer Institute of the NIH, the research involves recruiting patient-caregiver pairs at the outpatient clinics at University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center. Once they have obtained informed consent from qualified research participants, the research team surveys patients and caregivers in person, by phone or online.
““As in my prior work, I am hoping that my study findings will lead to the development and testing of an intervention to provide guidance and support to assist them in talking about important treatment decisions and patient wishes at the end of life,” Douglas said.
Douglas cited the challenges in securing more and more funding in an increasingly competitive landscape as a pressing concern facing the field, but she offered advice to young researchers.
“Find a good mentor—someone who is willing to provide you with meaningful experiences to inform your understanding of the research process,” she said. “Stick to what you know or find meaningful. Make these areas the focus of your research—regardless of what is a popular trend.”
To foster the next generation of nursing researchers, Douglas is that person for other faculty members and doctoral students at the nursing school.
Learn more about some of Douglas’ advanced cancer research at the nursing school.