Dr. Betty Ferrell has been in oncology nursing for 29 years and has focused her clinical expertise and research in pain management, quality of life, and palliative care.  Dr. Ferrell is a Research Scientist at the City of Hope National Medical Center.  She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and she has over 270 publications in peer-reviewed journals and texts.

Dr. Ferrell received the Oncology Nursing Society Distinguished Nurse Researcher Award in 1996.  She is Principal Investigator of a study funded by the NCI on “Barriers to Pain and Fatigue Management” and she is also Principal Investigator of the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) project funded by the NCI and several other funded projects related to end-of-life care in cancer centers and QOL issues in cancer survivors.  She is a hospice volunteer and also the chairperson of the Southern California Cancer Pain Initiative.

Dr. Ferrell has authored five books  - Cancer Pain Management (1995), a text on Suffering (1995), Pain in the Elderly (1996) and the Textbook of Palliative Nursing Care (2001) and the second edition of the Textbook of Palliative Nursing Care (2006) published by Oxford University Press.  She is also currently pursuing a Masters degree in Theology, Ethics and Culture from Claremont Graduate University.