Ruth McCorkle

Ruth McCorkle (1941 to 2019) was an American nurse, oncology researcher and educator, born in Johnson City, Tennessee. After a master's degree in medical-surgical nursing at the University of Iowa she worked as an oncology clinical nurse specialist, then studied hospice care in London at St. Christopher's Hospice under Dame Cicely Saunders. She took a PhD at Iowa in 1975 and taught at the University of Washington and the University of Pennsylvania before becoming the Florence Schorske Wald Professor of Nursing at the Yale School of Nursing in 2001. With Jeanne Quint Benoliel she developed a graduate program for oncology nurses, and with Kathy Young Graham she developed the Symptom Distress Scale, which clinicians still use to measure the discomfort of cancer patients. Her randomized trials tested home care and follow-up delivered by advanced practice nurses to patients with cancer and their families. She was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1990 and died in Hamden, Connecticut.