Meagan Whisenant
PhD, APRN
Director, PhD Program
Associate Professor
Department of Research
Dr. Whisenant is an Associate Professor in the Department of Research at Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston, a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas Scholar in Cancer Research, and a National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women’s Health Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health Research Scholar. She is a family nurse practitioner with over 20 years of oncology nursing experience in inpatient and outpatient settings. Dr. Whisenant’s research focuses on developing and using patient-reported outcomes measures in clinical care and research, variation in symptom burden across the chronic disease trajectory, and intervention testing to support patients and their families in managing symptoms related to chronic disease, including cancer and HIV.
Education
University of Utah College of Nursing, Salt Lake City, Utah
Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing
2016
Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston, Houston, Texas
Master of Science in Nursing Family Nurse Practitioner Oncology Focus
2006
New York University College of Nursing, New York, New York
Bachelor of Science in Nursing
2002
University of Utah College of Nursing, Salt Lake City, Utah
Postdoctoral Fellowship - NIH/NRSA/NINR Training Grant T32NR013456
2016-2017
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Division of Internal Medicine Department of Symptom Research, Houston, Texas
Postdoctoral Fellowship - Hawn Foundation for Pain and Symptom Research
2017-2019
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Biomedical Informatics, Houston, Texas
Post-Master’s Certificate Biomedical Informatics
2021
Clinical/Research Focus
Dr. Whisenant’s program of research focuses on improving the lives of people living with chronic disease, including studying variations in chronic disease-related symptom burden, symptom-related communication between clinicians and patients, and the development of innovative interventions for supporting patients and their families in managing symptoms. She has a unique interest in addressing symptom burden in patients and their caregivers and uses qualitative and quantitative approaches. Her work includes developing and testing mobile and digital technologies for capturing the symptom experience and delivering just-in-time symptom management interventions that address health disparities and target diverse patient populations, including underserved and under-resourced individuals. Her research aligns with value-based and patient-centered care principles from disease prevention through the disease survivorship trajectory.
Publications
- Development of an Acute Stroke Care Seeking Framework
- Assessing Patient Perspectives and the Health Equity of a Digital Cancer Symptom Remote Monitoring and Management System
- Self and proxy symptom reporting in glioma patient-caregiver dyads: the role of psychosocial function in rating accuracy
- Simulation-based caregiving skills training for family members of high-grade glioma patients
- Toward Reliable Symptom Coding in Electronic Health Records for Symptom Assessment and Research: Identification and Categorization of International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification Symptom Codes
