Audrey Elizabeth Evans is a pediatriconcologist and has also created several nonprofits throughout her life. She was originally from England but went to school in the United States and then decided to move there for better career opportunities. Evan's worked at several hospitals before settling at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Evans took on a total care approach for her patients and wants to be known as the women who cares. She is known as the "Mother of Neuroblastoma" for her work in the field and is also one of the co-founders of the original Ronald McDonald House in Philadelphia as well as a co-founder of the St. James School in Philadelphia.
Personal life
Early life
Audrey Evans was born in 1925 in York, England. She was the youngest of three children born into a middle-class family. Her sister was 6 years older than her while her brother was 2 years older than her. She attended a quaker school before heading to a boarding school in Bristol, England. She stayed there until the start of World War II. After the war began she went home and attended The Mount School in York, England. During her senior year she developed tuberculosis causing her to miss school.
Marriage
She married Dr. Giulio D'Angio, in 2005, when she was 80 years old. They met in 1953, while they were both working at Boston Children's Hospital. Their first interaction was when Dr. Evans was sitting at his desk going through his mail. In 2005, after over 50 years of knowing each other they got married at seven o'clock in the morning so they were able to make it to work at eight thirty am.
Education
Audrey Evans trained at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in the early 1950s. She was the only female student in the medical school. She struggled during her first year of medical school and ended up failing. She attributes her failing to the fact that she learns by listening and not by reading. She did two years of residency at the Royal Infirmary where she was the only female in the program. After she finished her degree in 1953, she then applied and received the Fulbright Fellowship at Boston Children's Hospital. She trained at Boston Children's Hospital for two years where she trained under Dr. Sidney Farber, who is known as the father of modern chemotherapy. Then, in 1955, she went to Johns Hopkins to finish her medical training.
Career
After she finished her medical training in the United States she returned to England to practice specialty pediatrics. She soon learned that this field was strictly for men and not women. So, she headed back to the United States of America to pick up her career in pediatric oncology. She worked at Boston Children's Hospital at first before she headed to the University of Chicago, in 1964, to work at their hematology and oncology unit. Here, Evan's was recruited by former U.S Surgeon General and Surgeon Chief at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, C. Everett Coop, to create the pediatric oncology unit there. She spent the rest of her career here. Throughout her career she took a total care approach towards her patients. Meaning that she didn't just focus on her patients physical needs but also their social, emotional, spiritual needs as well as supporting the families. In 1971, she created the Evans staging system for Neuroblastoma. She served as chair of the Division of Oncology at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia from 1969 to 1989 and was appointed a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1972.
Mother of Neuroblastoma
Dr. Evans is known as the "Mother of Neuroblastoma" because of all of the advances, research, and work that she has done for this type of cancer. After years of treating this type of cancer she reduced the mortality rate caused by neuroblastoma by about fifty percent. Currently, the survival rate is above eighty five percent. Evans also instituted and chaired the early meetings for Advances in Neuroblastoma Research, which began on May 30, 1975, as a series of symposia held at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The conference is designed to promote the exchange of information among investigators studying Neuroblastoma biology, diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy. She created the Evans staging system in 1971 to determine neuroblastoma disease progression and to determine what treatments would be most effective. Dr. Evans and Dr. D'Angio were the first to describe the phenomenon of spontaneous regression of widely spread neuroblastoma that they later dubbed "4S disease". This spontaneous regression usually occurs in infants younger than 6 months old.
Evans Staging System for Neuroblastoma
Stage one: tumor is confined to organ of origin
Stage two: tumor extends beyond organ of origin but does not cross midline; regional lymph nodes may be involved
Stage three: tumor extends beyond midline to encroach on tissues on opposite side
Stage four: distant metastasis
Stage fourS: localized primary tumor that does not cross midline, with remote disease confined to liver, subcutaneous tissues, and bone marrow but without evidence of bone cortex involvement
Ronald McDonald House Charities
As CHOP's pediatric oncology department grew, people were coming from a wide range of places to get treated here. Evans realized that the families of the children that were being treated had no place to stay and would often get separated to different locations. Evans was introduced to The Philadelphia Eagles owner when the team had raised $100,000 for children with cancer in honor of one of the players daughters who had leukemia. Evans accepted the money from Eagles owner, Jimmy Murray, which is when she expressed that she needed $32,000 more in order to buy a house for the children and their families. A player for the Eagles had been advertising for McDonald's shamrock shakes and Murray asked regional manager, Ed Rensi, if he would donate money towards a house. Rensi agreed to use the proceeds from the shamrock shakes to pay for a house under the condition that it would be named the Ronald McDonald House. It started out as a place to stay and meet a persons basic needs; a place to sleep and eat. As the programs have grown they have adapted Evan's totally care approach and created a place for family centered care. It's now considered a home away from home, free of charge. There are now over 300 houses in 57 countries.
St. James School
After Evans retired in 2009 from her medical career she realized that she missed the kids too much. She decided that she wanted to get involved in a school. There was a city camp on a school campus that she started to be involved with but the campus would close once summer ended. They decided to open the campus as a school. The St. James School was opened on September 11, 2011. It was a tuition free school for kids in the Alleghany West Philadelphia area. The school's goal is to break the cycle of poverty by having an extended school year.
