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Background

Pamela (Pam) Stewart Fahs is professor and holds the Dr. G. Clifford and Florence B. Decker Endowed Chair in Rural Nursing at ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ. She is also editor-in-chief for the Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care.

Fahs began her professional nursing career in southeastern Kentucky in an Appalachian regional miners hospital. Her experience also includes large medical center and community hospitals where her roles included staff nurse, team leader, nurse manager and nursing supervisor in addition to nurse educator. Her clinical practice acute care experience includes medical/surgical nursing, surgical ICU, burn unit and dialysis.

Fahs was an officer in the Kentucky National Guard and Army Nurse Corp. Reserves for a decade, holding ranks from 2nd lieutenant to captain.

With a research focus of cardiovascular disease in rural populations, she has built a research trajectory combining her expertise in cardiovascular disease, passion for rural healthcare and community-based participatory research.

She has been published in some of the top journals in her discipline such as Nursing Research, Annual Review of Nursing Research and Journal of Nursing Scholarship. She has also had work published in interdisciplinary journals such as Journal of Adolescent Health and most recently the Journal of Rural Health.

Fahs has successfully garnered research support from a variety of sources ranging from local and regional nonprofit organizations to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Additionally, she received the Anna Mae Erickson Nurse Leadership Award from the Rural Nurse Organization at an international rural research conference in July 2016. She was also inducted as a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing in 2022.

Education

• PhD, nursing/adult health education, University of Alabama at Birmingham
• MS with family nurse practitioner and clinical nurse specialist certifications, ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ
• BSN, University of Kentucky
• AAS, nursing, Eastern Kentucky University

Research Interests

• Cardiovascular risk reduction
• Rural populations
• Knowledge of cardiovascular risks
• Heart attack and stroke in rural women
• Rural nursing theory
• Roy Adaptation model

Clinical Interests

• Cardiovascular disease
• Community-based participatory research

Teaching Interests

• Theory and research
• Rural nursing, healthcare and health policy
• Health disparities in rural populations

Awards

• Anna Mae Erickson Nurse Leadership Award, Rural Nurse Organization, July 2016
• Fellow, American Academy of Nursing, 2022