Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion

Mary Ersek, PhD, RN, FPCN, received the 2017 Norma M. Lang Award for Scholarly Practice and Policy

CHERP Core Investigator Mary Ersek, PhD, RN, FPCN, received the 2017 Norma M. Lang Award for Scholarly Practice and Policy, given annually to a Penn Nursing faculty member or a graduate from the School’s doctoral program who has made a distinguished contribution to nursing through scholarly practice.

Dr. Ersek is also the Killebrew-Censits Chair in Undergraduate Education and Professor of Palliative Care in Penn Nursing’s Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences.  Upon receiving the award Dr. Ersek gave the lecture “I WONDER: Questions to Guide a Journey in Palliative Care,” in October 25, 2017 at Penn’s Claire M. Fagin Hall.

Ersek is a national and international expert on pain and palliative care for older adults, with an emphasis on the nursing home setting. She has a successful record of funding from the Veterans Health Administration, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, and the National Institutes of Health, and is well published in her area of expertise resulting in her service on the IOM Expert Panel on Advanced Dementia; Chair of the National Nursing Research Field Advisory Committee of the VHA; and Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Palliative Medicine. She is a Fellow in Palliative Care Nursing from the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association.

 Ersek is also a Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She also holds a clinical appointment with the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VAMC - Philadelphia, where most recently, she served as Director of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs’ PROMISE Center, a national quality improvement program aimed at enhancing the quality of end-of-life care and outcomes for Veterans across 150 Medical Centers.

(Mary Ersek faculty bio)