Holland, psychiatrist who helped cancer patients cope, dies

SCARSDALE, N.Y. – A psychiatrist who pioneered the field of psycho-oncology to help patients cope with the emotional impact of cancer has died. Dr. Jimmie Coker Holland was 89.

Dr. James F. Holland says his wife died Sunday at their home in Scarsdale, New York, of cardiovascular disease.

Holland started at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 1977 and became the first woman to chair a clinical department there. She went on to train leaders of psycho-oncology in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.

She was the founding president of both the International Psycho-Oncology Society and the American Psychosocial Oncology Society. At the time of her death, she held Sloan Kettering’s Wayne E. Chapman Chair in Psychiatric Oncology.