CATHERINE HEILFERTY
CATHERINE HEILFERTY PHD, RN
Director of Outcomes & Accreditation
Assistant Professor
Office Location:
McDowell Hall
Dr. Heilferty’s research centers on the online experience of parenting a child during cancer treatment; symptom management in childhood cancer care, on strategies to enhance nursing student success, and on the effect of integrating art into nursing education. She has expertise in qualitative research methods, particularly narrative analysis, and in nursing curriculum, pedagogy and learning assessment.
Education
- PhD, Villanova University
- MSN, Villanova University
- BSN, DeSales University
Undergraduate
- NURS 233: Introduction to Professional Nursing
- NURS 262: Healthcare Research and Evidence-Based Practice
- HLTH 241: Ethical Aspects of Healthcare
- NURS 411: Biopsychosocial Care of Dying Patients and their Families
- HLTH 467: Crafting Healthcare: Promoting Health in Unusual Spaces
Graduate
- NURS 810: Philosophical and Theoretical Basis of Nursing Science
- NURS 891: Teaching Practicum
- Heilferty, C. M. (in press). Patients before profits: Promoting change in healthcare through craftivism, Globa Craftivism: Handcraft Responses to Violence, War, Illness and Isolation. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, MD
- Heilferty, C. M. (2024). Cultural considerations when caring for children of diverse backgrounds. In G. Kersey-Matusiak (Ed.), Delivering Culturally Competent Nursing Care, 3rd Ed. New York: Springer.
- Heilferty, C. M., Phillips, L. J., & Mathios, R. (2020). Letters from the pandemic: Nursing student narratives of change, challenges, and thriving at the outset of COVID-19. Journal of Advanced Nursing.
- Heilferty, C. M. (2019). Cultural considerations when caring for children of diverse backgrounds. In G. Kersey-Matusiak (Ed.), Delivering Culturally Competent Nursing Care. New York: Springer.
- Heilferty, C. M. (2018). The search for balance: Prolonged uncertainty in parent blogs of childhood cancer. Journal of Family Nursing, https://doi.org/10.1177/1074840718772310
- Heilferty, C. M. (2018). “Hopefully this will all make sense at some point”: Meaning and performance in illness blogs. Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1177/1043454218764880
- Heilferty, C. M. (2011). Ethical considerations in the study of online illness narratives: A review of the qualitative literature. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 67(5), 924-931.
- Heilferty, C. M. (2011). The balance we seek: A narrative analysis of parent illness blogs. (Doctoral dissertation). Villanova University, Villanova PA.
- Heilferty, C. M. (2009). Toward a theory of online communication in illness: concept analysis of illness blogs. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 65(7), 1539-1547.
- Nominee, Excellence in Teaching Award, UD Faculty Senate Committee on Student and Faculty Honors, Spring 2020
- Humanities for STEM Grant, University of Delaware Interdisciplinary Humanities Research Center (IHRC): “Crafting Healthcare,” April 2020
- Fellow, Leadership for Academic Nursing Program, American Association of Colleges of Nursing, Washington, DC, 2016
- Ray L. Taylor Research Award, Holy Family University, 2016
- Holy Family University Outcomes and Institutional Research grant, 2014
- Distinguished Dissertation Award, awarded by the doctoral faculty, Villanova University, 2012
- Pediatric oncology nursing
- Pediatric hospice
- Curriculum
- Learning assessment
- Undergraduate nursing student wellbeing
- HC ethics
- Arts+HC
ADDITIONAL LINKS
Connect
Tower at STAR: 100 Discovery Blvd, Newark, DE 19713 | Health Sciences Complex: 540 S. College Ave, Newark, DE 19713 chs-info@udel.edu Phone: 302-831-1060