UofL faculty member will lead world’s largest oncology social work group

A University of Louisville faculty member has been tapped for leadership roles with the world’s largest organization of professionals who provide psychosocial services to people with cancer and their families and caregivers.

Tara Schapmire, PhD, has been elected president-elect of the Association of Oncology Social Work. Her three-year term begins in January 2017 with one year as president-elect, followed by one year as president and the final year as past president.

Schapmire is an assistant professor at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine, Palliative Care and Medical Education of the Department of Medicine. She also is on the faculty of the Kent School of Social Work.

As a long-time oncology and palliative care social worker, Schapmire’s research interests include psychosocial care of cancer survivors and their families, gerontology, health disparities, communication and cancer, caregiver issues, palliative care, survivorship, end of life care and interprofessional education.

She is co-investigator on a Health Resources and Services Administration grant aimed at development of an interdisciplinary gerontology curriculum for learners in medicine, nursing, social work, dentistry and pharmacy. As a co-investigator on the $7.5 million Kentucky LEADS Collaborative, she and her team are dedicated to reducing the burden of lung cancer in Kentucky and beyond through development, evaluation, and dissemination of novel, community-based interventions to promote provider education, survivorship care prevention and early detection regarding lung cancer.

Her past research includes a National Institutes of Health grant focused on development of an interdisciplinary oncology palliative care curriculum for schools of medicine, social work and nursing and chaplaincy residency programs, and an American Cancer Society-funded study of emotional distress in older adults with cancer.

Schapmire has been involved in the interprofessional education, research and service efforts of the School of Medicine. She also has taught classes in the Kent School since 2008, most notably in the master’s degree program and the psychosocial oncology specialization, in addition to other master’s level practice and research classes.

Schapmire is a past national board member of the Association of Oncology Social Work and vice president of the American Clinical Social Work Association. She is a Distinguished Scholar and Fellow in the Social Work Academy of the National Academies of Practice and has received the AOSW/American Cancer Society Leadership in Oncology Social Work Award. She also is a past recipient of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine’s Research Scholar Award and the American Cancer Society’s C.A.R.E. Award for service to people with cancer and their families.