Sarah Hope Kagan, PhD, RN, FAAN
Lucy Walker Honorary Term Professor of Gerontological Nursing
Contact Information
University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing
Room 313 Fagin Hall
418 Curie Blvd.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4217
UNITED STATES
tel: (215) 898-1316
email: skagan@nursing.upenn.edu
Sarah H. Kagan holds a primary academic appointment as Professor - Clinician Educator and is the Lucy Walker Honorary Term Professor of Gerontological Nursing. Her clinical appointment is as Clinical Nurse Specialist in the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where she offers advanced nursing consultation to patients, their families, nurses, and physicians on matters of symptom management, psychosocial oncology, geriatric oncology, and interdisciplinary team work. Dr. Kagan's secondary faculty appointment is in the Division of Hematology: Oncology, where her particular consultative focus is on clinical research and care of patients who have head and neck as well as other cancers and are suffering complex, cancer-related wounds and other challenging symptoms.
Teaching
Dr. Kagan teaches students across the baccalaureate, masters and doctoral programs in the School of Nursing as well as offering lectures and clinical preceptorships in the School of Medicine. She is the director of the Nursing Undergraduate Honors Program and the Penn-UK and Penn Australia Study Abroad Programs in the School of Nursing. Dr. regularly teaches two undergraduate honors courses "Sweet Little Old Ladies and Sandwiched Daughters" and "Ageing, Beauty, and Sexuality". In addition, she directs the advanced qualitative methods course in the PhD program. Dr. Kagan teaches a course in comparative health systems and elder care in conjunction with the Departments of Community Medicine and Nursing Studies at the University of Hong Kong.
Clinical Practice
Dr. Kagan's program of clinical research is centered on human experience and illness, with a focus on symptom experience for older adults particularly those who have cancer. Her second book – published by Penn Press in 2009 – is entitled Cancer in the Lives of Older Americans: Blessings and Battles. Dr. Kagan commonly examines the experience of cancer for older adults through naturalistic, interactionist inquiry using head and neck cancer as a model to understand cancer experience in older adults. Her Current investigations include collaborative projects to understand embodiment in younger and older individuals who have oral tongue cancer and that of those who have undergone microvascular reconstruction of the oral cavity for oral tongue and mandible cancers. Dr. Kagan welcomes undergraduate students, in particular, as collaborators in her research.
• Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
| Publications (select year) 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 and Prior | In Press | More Publications |
I’m lucky to be doing what I love – caring for older adults and their families – and learning from them so that I can share this knowledge and develop or investigate better ways of caring. My special interests in care of older adults who have cancer allow me the intimate privilege of being with patients at the best and worst times of their lives. That intimacy acts as a beacon– it reminds me of the value that I and nursing as a profession contributes to society and the rewards offered in return. 