Margaret A. Wheatley

Margaret A. Wheatley is a PhD student at Case Western Reserve University, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing in Cleveland, Ohio. Ms. Wheatley is dedicated to a teaching and research career focused on mental health and the aging population. Her research area of study is the influence of learned resourcefulness and sense of belonging in understanding the relationship between risk factors for depression and quality of life in the elderly population. Ms. Wheatley is a faculty member of Case Western Reserve University, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing and instructs undergraduate and doctorate of nursing students in psychiatric and mental health nursing. Previous to being on faculty at Case Western Reserve University and while at Case, Ms. Wheatley was the project director on two NIH grants - one grant focused on low intensity exercise in the frail elderly and the other grant focused on brain trauma and behavioral changes in children. She has been a mental health/psychiatric nurse for over thirty years and has served most of that time working with vulnerable populations including the elderly as a clinician, manager, and administrator. Ms. Wheatley is a diploma graduate and received both her BSN and MSN in psychiatric/mental health nursing from the University of Cincinnati (Ohio).

Ms. Wheatley served as the President of the Ohio Nurses Association (ONA) for four years (1993-1997). In 1994, she was one of ten nurses throughout the country who was given an opportunity to meet President Clinton and speak with him individually. Prior to her term as President of ONA, she was the founding Chair of the ONA Minority Issues assembly (still the largest special interest group in ONA). In June of 1996, under her leadership, out of 50 states, the American Nurses Association presented ONA with the Affirmative Action Award. In 1999, she received the Dorothy L. Cornelius Award for Leadership from ONA. She has held various other positions in the American Nurses Association at the national, state, local levels. She is also a member of the National Black Nurses Association, Sigma Theta Tau, the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, the Midwest Nursing Research Society (MNRS) and the Gerontological Society of America.

July 2008 Update

Margaret A. Wheatley, PhD, MSN, RN, CNS successfully defended her dissertation, “Personal Characteristics, Chronic Stress, and Depressive Symptoms in African American Women in Midlife,” on July 31, 2008 at Case Western Reserve University, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, Cleveland, OH. Dr. Wheatley was also awarded the National Black Nurses Association’s (NBNA) 2008 Nurse Educator of the Year Award during their 36th Annual Institute and Conference, August 4 -7, in Las Vegas, NV.