National Nursing Group Awards Top Research Honor to SLU Nurse Focused on Children with Cancer

National Nursing Group Awards Top Research Honor to SLU Nurse Focused on Children with Cancer

Trudy Busch-Valentine School of Nursing Professor of Nursing Verna Hendricks-Ferguson, Ph.D., has been named the 2026 National Distinguished Nurse Researcher Award by the National Hospice and Palliative Nursing Association (HPNA).

The award "recognizes a nurse researcher who has demonstrated longevity and consistency in research that advances the mission and vision of HPNA through conducting high-quality research and research presentations and publications in peer-reviewed journals," according to the HPNA. Hendricks-Ferguson received the award at the HPNA's 40th research conference in San Diego.

"I am truly honored and humbled to have received this nursing research award from the National Hospice and Palliative Nursing Association," Hendricks-Ferguson said. "I believe that this award is a powerful affirmation that my funded research efforts to help foster early palliative care discussions with parents of pediatric patients with a poor-prognosis cancer are being recognized as making a real, tangible difference in the lives of pediatric nurses and oncologists who received training to deliver my communication intervention during my NIH-funded grant."

Hendricks-Ferguson, the Irene-Riddle Endowed Chair in Nursing Research, has spent her research career focused on palliative/end-of-life care (PC/EOL). She has focused on bereaved parents' concerns about symptoms experienced by a child with cancer during hospice care and their preferences to receive hospice information.

Her research has also looked at pediatric oncology nurses' perspectives about end-of-life communication with parents of children with cancer and has evaluated MD/RN-communication intervention on early PC/EOL information to parents of children with a poor-prognosis cancer.

Hendricks-Ferguson has also researched mind-body interventions, such as music and art, for children with cancer.

Her program of research has been funded by Sigma Theta Tau, the Oncology Nursing Society, Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer, National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), and NCI at the National Institute of Health.

Currently, Hendricks-Ferguson is serving as a principal investigator for a multi-site RO1 grant titled "Evaluation of the Communication Plan Early through End-of-Life Intervention" from the National Cancer Institute. It is testing if early PC/EOL information discussions may foster earlier consideration of hospice support by parents of children with a poor-prognosis cancer.

"Receiving this award also brings a respected light on my research, and I hope it may help to pave the way for other nurse researchers to focus on an area of research in hospice and palliative care that they may be passionate about," she said.