Yale University
Spring 2006 Commencement
Anthony Diguida/Delta Mu Prize
The Anthony Di Guida/ Delta Mu Prize is given at Commencement to a graduating doctoral student who exemplifies the love of scholarship and the joy in learning that Anthony, who would have been in the second graduating class of doctoral students, embodied. The YSN chapter of nursing's honor society, Sigma Theta Tau, joins in this award to recognize the exercise of scholarship that is the doctoral dissertation.
The recipient of the prize must demonstrate creative conceptualization of a complex clinical problem for study, methodologic and analytic excellence, and superb writing. The study must be one that offers promise in promoting a healthier population.
The 2006 Anthony DiGuida/Delta Mu Research Prize Citation
This student immersed herself in doctoral study from the day she entered the Yale School of Nursing and continued with the same passion throughout the program. She came to Yale after many years as an advanced practice nurse. It was from this rich clinical experience that she chose the problem she studied for her dissertation research.
In her practice, she had observed that many of her patients experienced a particular side-effect of their treatment - one that had been inadequately studied. She began her dissertation by critically reviewing the existing literature and instruments used to measure this side-effect. She identified numerous unanswered questions and a discrepancy between what the existing instruments measured and what her patients had shared with her. Furthermore, she found that the impact on patients' lives had yet to be described, especially for those who were "cured" of their disease, but were living with this persistent side-effect.
In her dissertation on "Understanding Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy: The Patient's Perspective on Symptoms and the Impact on Everyday Life," she conducted a mixed method study. Through intensive study, she mastered qualitative data analysis. The methodologic rigor and months of thematic analysis resulted in an incredible description of the experience of patients with chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy. She used qualitative researchers, clinicians, and patients throughout her analysis to validate her insights and conclusions. Quite creatively, she chose the metaphor of music, based on the words of patients who participated in her study, to explain the pattern and diversity of the symptom experience: Background Noise in Everyday Life with Cancer. "Facing the music", "adjusting the volume", and "tuning it out" described how patients coped with the symptoms.
The findings of this dissertation will have a significant impact on our understanding of how cancer treatment affects a patient's ability to function. Eventually, this student hopes to develop a more effective instrument to assess peripheral neuropathy induced by cancer treatment and its effect on everyday life.
As Anthony did before her, she loved doctoral study at Yale. The 2006 Anthony DiGuida/Delta Mu Research prize to Marie Bakitas, DNSc '06.
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