My research has been focused on understanding the effect of cancer on the cancer survivors’ and their family caregiver’ quality of life and depression, and identifying those who are risk of developing emotional distress following a diagnosis of cancer. The goal is to develop a family-based intervention or translate a tested family-based program called FOCUS (Family involvement, Optimistic attitude, Coping effectiveness, Uncertainty reduction, Symptom management) to help cancer survivors and family caregivers to improve quality of life. All my publications as a first author or co-author directly addressed the interest of cancer survivors and their family caregivers’ wellbeing. In addition, with a team of collaborators, I directly documented the effectiveness of FOCUS program in multiple approaches of delivering the program. The program was tested in a community setting by a social worker (moderator) and as a tailored web-based format for cancer survivors and family caregivers. Both approaches demonstrated positive outcomes of cancer survivors’ and their family caregivers’ communication skills and quality of life.
Particularly, I have been focusing my research topic among Asian Americans, specifically Korean Americans to understand this group’s cancer and caregiving experience. I have completed few studies (quantitative and qualitative) and published the results in peer-reviewed journals. My next step is to develop and test a family-based program among Asian groups including Korean, Chinese, Singaporean, and South-eastern subgroups.
For teaching, I served as a course director for Community Health Nursing and supervised all clinical placements, clinical instructors, and students. The course was a core undergraduate nursing class which integrated nursing and public health concepts in theory and clinical. I also taught Evidence Based Research course for undergraduate students. Students learn to critique a journal paper and perform evidence-based research presentation.
I served as a dissertation committee chair for Doctor of Nursing Practice graduate students. Students are expected to demonstrate in-depth knowledge of their areas of expertise in nursing practice to improve either practice or patient outcomes using evidences. Students must learn to use scientific evidences to support their statements, write a proposal which describes planning, implementing, evaluating, and disseminating the project. At the end, students write a manuscript for possible publication submission.