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LITTLE ROCK – Ann Coleman, Ph.D., an internationally recognized oncology nurse and researcher, was formally invested today as the inaugural recipient of the Elizabeth Stanley Cooper Chair in Oncology Nursing at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).
Coleman, a registered nurse practitioner and an advanced oncology certified nurse, is known for helping to determine the method of breast self examination that most doctors recommend to women today.
She is professor in the Department of Nursing Science in the UAMS College of Nursing and professor in the Department of Internal Medicine in the UAMS College of Medicine. She has been with the UAMS College of Nursing since 1980 and served on the task force that developed the doctorate in nursing at UAMS.
Coleman has received numerous awards from prestigious organizations, including the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. She was instrumental in redesigning the data collection protocol concerning breast cancer for the national cancer registry. She developed the International Breast Cancer Screening Network in 21 countries and which laid the groundwork for the Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium in the United States.
Her study of the 1990 Medicare legislation on mammography showed that African-American women had not benefited from public outreach techniques being used at the time. Coleman used an evidenced-based approach to develop and test literature on breast cancer screening for African-American women. The resulting pamphlet, “It’s Like Finding a Raisin in a Three-Layer Cake,” is used throughout the United States.
Her current research involves supportive care studies of patients receiving high dose chemotherapy for multiple myeloma. She also is looking into the molecular epidemiology of multiple myeloma to determine the familial risk and identify genetic aberrations that will guide future therapy.
Coleman is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, and during her 20 years of service she served as head nurse of intensive care, chief nurse of a field hospital and director of a nursing education program. She was awarded the Army medical department “A” proficiency designation, which is the highest award for exceptional professional ability.
Coleman has served as a consultant to the Federal Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, the American Cancer Society and the Oncology Nursing Society. She currently serves on the Governor’s Advisory Board for the Arkansas Breast Cancer Control Program and on the Arkansas Cancer Registry Board.
Coleman graduated from the University of Mississippi with a Bachelor of Science in nursing in 1963 and received the Outstanding Alumnus Award of that decade in 1998. Since then, the “Elizabeth Ann Coleman Nurse Clinician Award” is given in her honor annually to an outstanding graduating student.
She received a Master of Science in nursing in 1979 and a Ph.D. in 1989 from the University of Texas at Austin. She completed a three-year post doctoral fellowship in Cancer Prevention and Control at the National Cancer Institute/National Institutes of Health and post graduate work in cancer genetics at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, and the Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine.
Elizabeth Stanley Cooper received a bachelor of nursing degree from Yale University School of Nursing. In 1944 she moved to Little Rock with her husband, William Grant Cooper Jr., M.D., where he practiced as a general surgeon.
Although she did not work as a nurse after her marriage, Cooper maintained a lifelong interest in the nursing profession. She served as a charter member of the first Community Advisory Council for the UAMS College of Nursing from May 15, 1991, until her death on June 21, 1994.
At her death, friends and colleagues established the Elizabeth Stanley Cooper Oncology Nursing Endowment Fund in the College of Nursing. The fund received generous support from the George Frederick Jewett Foundation.
An endowed chair is the highest academic honor that can be bestowed by a university on its faculty. A chair can honor the memory of a loved one or a person’s accomplishments. It is supported with designated gifts of $1 million or more.
UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with five colleges, a graduate school, a medical center, five centers of excellence and a statewide network of regional centers. UAMS has more than 2,200 students and 660 residents and is the state’s largest public employer with almost 9,000 employees. UAMS and its affiliates have an economic impact in Arkansas of $4.1 billion a year.
UAMS centers of excellence are the Arkansas Cancer Research Center, Harvey and Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy and Jackson T. Stephens Spine and Neurosciences Institute.