Robyn Stone remembers her mentor, Dr. Rosalie Kane.
“Rosalie Kane was an icon before I ever met her.”
That’s how Robyn Stone, co-director of the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston, began a recently published tribute to Dr. Rosalie Kane, a professor of social work and public health for more than 45 years.
Kane died on May 5, 2020, following a brief battle with brain cancer.
In her tribute, published in the Journal of Gerontological Social Work, Stone recalls that articles by Kane and her husband, Robert, were essential reading in the mid-1980s when Stone was a “newly minted researcher.”
“Rosalie, in particular, focused on the evolution of home and community-based services, the need for person-centered care across settings, and the importance of quality of life as well as quality of care to those being served and their families,” writes Stone. “Her pioneering work at that time and over the ensuing 35 years has continued to influence my thinking and research as well as my passion for translating knowledge into better policy and practice.”
Stone and Kane met in the early 1990s, when Stone was working as a long-term care expert for the Pepper Commission and the Clinton Health Care Reform Taskforce.
“It wasn’t long before she became one of my mentors, a professional colleague, and a dear friend,” she writes. “She was one of the smartest, wittiest, and most compassionate researchers and advocates for good long-term care policy and practice.”