Beyond a Closed-Ended Question: Understanding the Decision to Screen or Not for Lung Cancer
Dr. Lisa Carter-Harris is a behavioral scientist with over 15 years of clinical experience as an adult nurse practitioner. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Louisville in 2013 and a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship at Indiana University in Behavioral Oncology in 2015 and the Cancer Research Network Scholars Program in 2017. Dr. Carter-Harris was inducted as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing for her work in patient-clinician communication in complex cancer screening decisions in 2018. She is currently an Associate Attending Behavioral Scientist and the Associate Research Director of the Tobacco Research, Training and Treatment Lab in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center, and an Affiliate Investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle since 2016. Prior to joining MSK, Dr. Carter-Harris was an Assistant Professor at Indiana University School of Nursing.
Dr. Carter-Harris’ research focuses on understanding the many factors that influence the decision-making process in lung cancer screening decisions as well as actual screening behavior. She has a particular passion for understanding how stigma influences the decision to screen or not for lung cancer. Dr. Carter-Harris has been a strong advocate of understanding the patient perspective in lung cancer screening and credits the many wonderful individuals who have been involved in her studies for shaping her perspective on research and care in lung cancer.
Her research has been funded by the NCI, American Lung Association, American Cancer Society, Cancer Research Network, Indiana University Simon Cancer Center, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s Population Science Research Program.
Dr. Carter-Harris is the Vice Chair of the Survivorship, Stigma and Nihilism Task Group of the American Cancer Society’s National Lung Cancer Roundtable. She was recently appointed to the Editorial Board of Nursing Research, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Nursing, and she is the Editor-in-Chief for the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Population Sciences Research Program quarterly newsletter. Dr. Carter-Harris also serves as an executive board member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Board of the NCI Central Institutional Review Board as well as many academic and national committees aimed at improving cancer prevention, early detection and decreasing inequities in care.