Enhancing Connections
A program to help the mother with breast cancer support her child

Helping Her Heal
A program for spouses of women with breast cancer

Family Functioning Research Team

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Family Functioning Research Team:

Director: Frances Marcus Lewis, PhD, RN, FAAN

Dr. Frances Marcus Lewis currently sits as the Elizabeth Sterling Soule Distinguished Professor of Nursing and Health Promotion at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington and is a Full Affiliate at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle. She is a social scientist (Stanford University, The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health) and an oncology clinical nurse specialist (University of Washington).

Dr. Lewis has contributed to the professional literature in 3 areas: 1) the impact of chronic life-threatening illness on the family, especially breast cancer in the mother; 2) the application of multivariate methods to statistically model the mediating processes that explain differential outcomes in family members experiencing life threatening illness; and 3) the development and evaluation of complex multi-site, multi-method interventions for families experiencing early stage breast cancer. In addition, Dr. Lewis is a noted evaluation methodologist (Evaluation and Measurement in Health Education and Health Promotion, by L.W. Green and F.M. Lewis) and an expert in health behavior theory; (she received the Mayhew Derryberry Award from the American Public Health Association with Glanz and Rimer for substantial contributions to the advancement of health education and health promotion. Their book, Health Behavior & Health Education is now in its 3rd edition).

In 1998 she was the recipient of the Oncology Nursing Society/Bristol-Myers Squibb Oncology Distinguished Researcher Award and served as the American Cancer Society Professor of Oncology Nursing, 1988-1992. She has presented the Bice Memorial Lectureship, University of Virginia (1999); the Cleveland Memorial Lectureship, Washington State University (2001); the Potter Memorial Lectureship, Emory University (1997); and the Marion Woodward Lectureship, University of British Columbia (2001), among others. In 2003, Dr. Lewis presented invited plenary talks on cancer-related research at Yale University Cancer Center, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Pittsburgh. In 2004, she will be giving the keynote at the Thirteenth Annual Nursing Research Conference, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota as well as the keynote at Ishikawa Prefectural Nursing University, Japan commemorating the opening of the university's graduate nursing program.

Dr. Lewis is currently retained by the National Cancer Institute as one of three experts developing the next generation of printed educational and support materials for family members impacted by cancer in a member (along with Drs. Bruce Compas and Barbara Given). She is also an invited member of the steering committee for the National Cancer Institute-sponsored Advanced Training Workshop in Health Behavior Theories [directed by Neil Weinstein, Rutgers University]. Dr. Lewis has authored over 80 professional papers and has published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine, Preventive Medicine, Cancer Practice, Journal of Community Health, Journal of Family Relations, Health Education Quarterly, Nursing Research, Social Science and Medicine, Oncology Nursing Forum, and Journal of Psychosocial Oncology, among others. Dr. Lewis has recently served a technical lead consultant in the Ukraine in the development of a regional breast cancer screening program as well as training physicians and nurses in providing behavioral interventions for women with breast cancer. She was the recent chosen Fellow of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, Japan and is part of an invited team of scholars traveling to Russia to exchange research and programmatic ideas with nurse leaders.

UW School of Nursing