Audrey E. Evans, an emerita professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, the first chief of the division of oncology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and the co-founder of Ronald McDonald House Charities in Philadelphia, died on September 29. She was 97.

Born in York, England, Dr. Evans received her medical degree from the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in Scotland in 1953, the only woman in the program. Afterwards, she came to the U.S. on a Fulbright Scholarship, and began training in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital. After short stints there and at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, she briefly returned to the Royal Infirmary Teaching Hospital in the U.K., but after encountering sexism in the workplace, she returned to the U.S., where she was recruited to the University of Chicago as a pediatric oncologist in 1964. There, she began to hone in on what would become her life’s work, improving the lives of children with cancer from a caregiving perspective.

In 1969, future United States Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, then surgeon-in-chief at CHOP, recruited Dr. Evans to become CHOP’s first chief of oncology (as well as an associate professor of pediatrics; she advanced to full professor in 1972). She remained there until retiring in 2009, and became a renowned figure in the world of childhood cancer during her career at CHOP. In 1971 she developed the Evans Staging System, a protocol for assessing patients with neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer that involves nerve cells. The system helps determine which children need aggressive treatments and which can be aided with less invasive methods. The Evans Staging System was used for decades, and during Dr. Evans’ tenure at CHOP, the mortality rate for children with neuroblastoma dropped by 50 percent, according to some accounts. Dr. Evans was also one of the first researchers to recognize the importance of nursing, psychology, and social work to the care of children with cancer. She recruited individuals in these fields well before her peers, and the integration of these areas today is largely due to Dr. Evans’ work. She advocated for a “total care” approach to cancer treatment, ensuring that patients’ social and familial needs were an integral part of CHOP’s program.

In 1974, Dr. Evans cofounded, with Philadelphia Eagles general manager Jimmy Murray, the first Ronald McDonald House, located on Spruce Street in Philadelphia. Named because several Philadelphia-area franchises of fast food chain McDonalds had largely funded the house using proceeds from Shamrock Shakes, the house offered a home away from home for families with a child afflicted by a serious disease requiring hospitalization. The house became a model for more than 375 other Ronald McDonald Houses in 45 countries and 689 RMHC-affiliated programs in 66 countries. “A family with a sick child is a sick family,” Dr. Evans said. “So you must think about everybody—the siblings, the mother, the father, maybe grandmother. You must remember that they’re part of a group.”

Dr. Evans retired from her leadership positions at Penn in 1989, but continued to work on neuroblastoma in the lab for another decade, retiring from teaching and taking emeritus status in 2001. In her retirement, she helped found the St. James School in Philadelphia in 2011, which seeks to make a difference in Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion neighborhood. She was widely honored over the course of her life: In 1994, she was listed in the book The Best Doctors in America, and she received the 1995 Distinguished Career Award from the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology and the 1997 William Osler Patient Oriented Research Award from Penn. She was elected an honorary member of the American Society of Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in 2008 (Almanac November 11, 2008), and in 2017, the International Society of Pediatric Oncology gave her its Lifetime Achievement Award. She was also elected an honorary fellow of her alma mater, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The film Audrey’s Children, which has recently begun filming, is inspired by Dr. Evans’ life. Written by Julia Fisher Farbman, it will feature Natalie Dormer in the title role.

“When I would go on walks with her,” Ms. Farbman told The New York Times, “she would literally stop and smell the roses, cuddle strangers’ babies, hand out dog treats (which she always carried in her purse despite not having a dog), and she’d strike a conversation with anyone who seemed like they were having a bad day. If you asked her why, she would say, ‘We just made that person’s day a little better—that wasn’t so hard now, was it?’”

“The world has lost a true giant in medicine, a Renaissance woman, a mentor, and role model for many,” said a tribute in Pediatric Research penned by her colleagues Max Coppes and John Maris. “We all have become better people, better physicians, better researchers because of her many contributions, passion for perfection, and compassion for all around her.”

Outside of her professional duties, Dr. Evans was an accomplished equestrian and an aficionado of scuba diving.

Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Philadelphia region and St. James School will co-host a public memorial for Dr. Evans at a date yet to be determined.