Sheila Ridner

Vanderbilt University School of Nursing Professor Sheila Ridner, PhD, FAAN, recently completed a large randomized trial to assess early detection methods coupled with a prevention intervention for a common side effect of breast-cancer treatments—lymphedema. Read More

The 2020-21 academic year saw a number of School of Nursing longtime faculty and staff retire and be honored with virtual retirement events. In fall 2020, longtime Admissions Coordinator Bernie Rimgale retired, as did then-assistant dean for student affairs Sarah Ramsey, BA’77, MEd’81. Rimgale joined VUSN in 1985 and worked… Read More

Vanderbilt University professors Sheila Ridner at the School of Nursing and Barbara Murphy at the School of Medicine have contributed to the development of a first-of-its-kind device to treat head and neck lymphedema–a chronic disease that causes fluid buildup in the body and can complicate normal functions. When this disease occurs in the head… Read More

During Commencement ceremonies on May 15, Vanderbilt University honored five distinguished Vanderbilt University School of Nursing faculty by naming them faculty emeriti. The university also announced that Dean Linda Norman, DSN, FAAN, would be designated dean emerita, effective July 1, 2021. Norman, who has been dean of… Read More

Under a tent at Recreation Field 1 on Vanderbilt’s East side, the Vanderbilt School of Nursing Class of 2021 reassembled for Investiture on May 15. The joyful celebration reflected a mix of tradition and variations necessitated by pandemic precautions, and marked the first time some participants had been on… Read More

Associate Professor Terrah Foster Akard, PhD’08, MSN’01, FAAN, has been named director of the PhD in Nursing Science program at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. Akard, a Vanderbilt University Chancellor’s Faculty Fellow and noted scholar in pediatric palliative care, had been… Read More

When in-person research activities at Vanderbilt were put on hold in mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sheila Ridner, Martha Rivers Ingram Professor of Nursing and director of the Ph.D. in Nursing Science Program, was the primary investigator on two research studies with oncology patients. Entering… Read More

When in-person research activities at Vanderbilt were put on hold in mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sheila Ridner, PhD'03, MSN'00, FAAN, the Martha Rivers Ingram Professor of Nursing and director of the PhD in Nursing Science Program, was the primary investigator on two research studies with oncology patients. “The participants in the lymphedema prevention study had given us five years of their lives, and so we also felt an ethical responsibility to finish our work in supporting them,” Ridner said. Read More

Bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) is better than a tape measure for assessing a woman’s risk for developing lymphedema after breast cancer surgery, according to interim results of a study led by Sheila Ridner, PhD, RN, Martha Ingram Professor and director of the PhD in Nursing Science Program at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. Read More

Sheila Ridner, PhD, RN, FAAN, Martha Rivers Ingram Professor and director of the Vanderbilt School of Nursing’s PhD in Nursing Science Program, has been named a 2019 American Cancer Society ResearcHERS Ambassador. In this role, Ridner is advocating for her fellow women researchers… Read More