University Award for Penn Nursing Professor

Meghani has inspired scores of nursing students at undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels to excel in advancing the field of palliative care and research scholarship through her teaching and dedicated mentorship. She teaches core courses, Principles of Palliative Care and An Evidence-Based Approach to Managing Symptoms in Advanced Illness in our highly popular palliative care minor. Meghani has also taught doctoral core course, Quantitative Research Design and Methods and was selected for the Barbara J. Lowery DSO Faculty Award for her doctoral teaching and mentorship. She has also been awarded the Dean’s Award for Exemplary Teaching at Penn Nursing. Her teaching both enlightens and inspires, and her dedication to students and passion for teaching are unmatched. Meghani’s classroom is inclusive, accessible, and conducive to personal and professional growth. She encourages her students to think creatively about healthcare delivery challenges and novel approaches to care of patients and their families. In fact, many students who have taken one of her courses decide to complete a palliative care minor or an advanced degree and practice as palliative care nurse practitioners or go on to pursue a doctoral degree. Students praise her for transforming their understanding of core nursing values and contributions of nursing to healthcare and science, becoming stronger clinicians and researchers as a result of her passion for palliative care, scholarly mentorship, and dedication to their success.

Meghani has a long-standing commitment to advancing the field of palliative care. Between 2005-2007, she served on the Taskforce to Improve Quality at the End of Life for Pennsylvanians and subsequently on Pennsylvania Department of Health’s Patient Life Sustaining Wishes Advisory Committee (2007-2009), which assessed the feasibility of Pennsylvania Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) in Pennsylvania. This committee’s work led to the approval of POLST the by the PA Secretary of Health in October 2010. Between 2012-2014, Meghani served on the Institute of Medicine Study Committee that authored the report, Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life. More recently, she was a member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) planning committee on Pain and Symptom Management for People with Serious Illness in the Context of the Opioid Crisis and reviewed the NAM report, Assessing Progress on the Future of Nursing. Meghani is the past Chair of the American Pain Society’s Pain Disparities Shared Interest Group, and currently serves on the editorial board of Pain Medicine, the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine and as the Nursing Section Head of the Journal of Pain Research.

Meghani leads a widely recognized program of research focusing on addressing and ameliorating racial disparities in pain and symptom outcomes of seriously ill individuals, especially persons with cancer. Her novel research has been supported by prestigious federal and foundation grants and includes the highly competitive Recovery and Reinvestment Act Challenge Grant through the NIH/National Institutes of Nursing Research. Her impactful research has also informed a policy agenda for harmonizing national cancer pain management guidelines. Meghani’s work has enormous promise for enhancing the lives of millions of seriously ill Americans living with chronic pain in an evolving context of opioid crisis.

Meghani is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She received her PhD from Penn Nursing (2005); her Masters in Biomedical Ethics from Penn Medicine (2005); her Masters in Nursing Science from Penn Nursing (2001); and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the Aga Khan University (1997).