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Biography

Mary Roberge, BSN, RN, is a research nurse interventionist and project coordinator at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing. Mary received her BSN from Villanova University and has been an RN for 31 years. After working in various clinical specialties, Mary entered the field of nursing research 15 years ago.

Mary has worked as a research nurse interventionist on several now completed studies: the Managing Medications Study (PI: Judith Erlen); the WRITE Symptoms Study (PI- Heidi Donovan); and the SmartCare Study (Co-PI’s: Heidi Donovan and Paula Sherwood). Her first caregiver-focused research occurred with the SmartCare Study when she worked with caregivers to explore their belief/self-management system, laying the groundwork for jointly creating a plan of tailored, individualized strategies geared to a caregiver chosen goal.

Her more recent work with caregivers includes the Caregiver and Patient Unmet Needs Survey Study (PI-Heidi Donovan) conducted at Magee Gynecologic Oncology Clinic as well as her participation in a multi-disciplinary discussion to establish priority needs of caregivers of women with gynecological cancers (Essential Elements of Caregiver Support in Gynecologic Oncology PI: Heidi Donovan). This resulted in a workshop held at the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition’s (NOCC) annual conference.

Mary is also a researcher on The Caregiver Project, a three-tiered research study with the goal of making Western Pennsylvania into a model for nationwide “culture of caregiving”. Specifically, she is assisting in the third aim of the project, a quality improvement study which evaluates the implementation of the the CARE Act in local University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) hospitals. Mary conducted observations and documented health providers’ demonstration of understanding and implementation of the CARE Act and wrote reflections of these observations. The information that was collected is currently being disseminated for determining future steps.

Currently, she is coordinating a SPORE (Specialized Programs of Research Excellence) grant study entitled Barriers to Initiating and Persisting with Standards of Care for Ovarian Cancer (PI Heidi Donovan).