Welcome to the Cancer Caregiver SIG
Tamryn Gray, MPH, PhD, RN
Dr. Tamryn Gray is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School in Boston. She earned her undergraduate and MSN degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Gray’s research focuses on patient-family centered care, disparities, decision science, and health services research in the context of solid tumors and hematologic malignancies, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and family caregivers of individuals with cancer. Dr. Gray has published peer-reviewed articles and co-authored book chapters on topics related to solid tumors, hematologic malignancies with a special emphasis on patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and family caregivers of people with cancer. She has received predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and is a current Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association Research Scholar. Her clinical expertise is hematology/oncology and blood and marrow transplantation, and she spent several years practicing in these areas at Duke University Hospital. Dr. Gray is the recipient of grant funding from the Oncology Nursing Foundation and the American Cancer Society, and her dissertation study examined the role of decision partners in clinical trial decision-making for adults with cancer. She is currently conducting research studies to examine factors that impact the overall well-being of family caregivers of adults with advanced cancer with the goal of developing supportive care interventions for caregivers who have unmet psychosocial needs.
Erin Kent, PhD, MS
Dr. Erin Kent is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health and Member of the Lineberger Comprehensive Center Cancer Prevention and Control Program. Dr. Kent’s disciplinary background is epidemiology and health services research. Dr. Kent’s focus is on the impact of social context on cancer control, and she leads a program of patient- and family-centered outcomes research and community engaged scholarship. Dr. Kent is currently leading studies to improve support provision to rural families affected by cancer. Her work has been funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The Duke Endowment. Prior to working at UNC, Dr. Kent served as a Cancer Prevention Fellow, Program Director, and Scientific Advisor for the Outcomes Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for 9 years. There, Dr. Kent worked to establish funding opportunities and research resources to better understand the that caregivers face and develop family-centered interventions for cancer patients and their caregivers. A major focus for Dr. Kent is training and mentorship. Dr. Kent works with students, postdoctoral fellows, and other trainees in research proposal development, mixed methods and qualitative research, and research to improve health equity.
Our Mission: To help work toward assuring that nationally, no cancer caregiver who is experiencing significant burden due to their critical role goes unidentified and deprived of necessary psychosocial services.
This SIG was founded in 2014 and focuses on issues relating to caregivers of patients with cancer. There is growing recognition that comprehensive care for patients with cancer involves attending to the psychosocial needs of their informal caregivers, and caregivers represent an underserved population directly affected by cancer. As a result, and by extension, the needs of cancer caregivers should be more directly and comprehensively addressed by APOS. This group is open to all members of APOS who are interested in the development and provision of services for cancer caregivers. Activities of this SIG may include participating in annual workshops, lectures, and conferences focused on caregiving.
One of the APOS member benefits is to join the conversation on Groupsite with any of the 10 Special Interest Groups (SIGs). This is a very engaging conversation platform and the Executive Office is happy to help you navigate this platform and help you set up your profile to begin networking.
