Dr. Shani receives $534,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health

Pinky Shani, Ph.D., RN received a $534,000 National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant for her proposed research on “Caring for Caregivers with Mind-Body Exercise,” the first-ever study related to the practice of Qigong for caregivers, in November 2018. For the past eight years, Shani has been working with cancer patients using integrated medicine and therapies to ease the pain and anxiety of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. It was during this time that she began to see a need to also treat the often-neglected caregivers. 

“Seeing how much these caregivers gave every day is what made me decide to focus on this unique and often-overlooked population,” said Dr. Shani.

For TWU’s College of Nursing, it has been more than ten years since a faculty member has received an NIH grant. The significance of being the first one in recent history is not lost on Shani. “I believe this is setting a pathway for others, including our students, to realize that nurses can compete for big grants. We sometimes tend to be overlooked for our capacity,” she says. 

Page last updated 2:07 PM, September 6, 2019