Patricia A. Patrician, PhD, RN, FAAN

Patricia A. Patrician, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a Professor and Rachel Z. Booth Endowed Chair in Nursing at the School of Nursing, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in Birmingham, Alabama. She joined the UAB faculty in 2008 after serving 26 years in the US Army Nurse Corps, where she rose in positions from critical care staff nurse to nurse manager to cardiothoracic clinical nurse specialist. She taught in the military’s LPN program and administered the Army’s Continuing Nursing Education program. After earning her PhD, she served as the Chief of Nursing Research at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Her final military position as Chief, Department of Nursing Science at the Academy of Health Sciences, positioned her well for academia. At UAB she teaches and mentors students in the PhD and the Executive DNP Programs. She conducts research on the nursing workforce and nursing’s contributions to patient safety and quality outcomes. Dr. Patrician Co-Directs of the VA Quality Scholars (VAQS) fellowship program at the Birmingham VA site and mentors post-doctoral nurses, physicians, and pharmacists in quality improvement and improvement science activities. She has authored or co-authored over 110 peer-reviewed publications and several book chapters.

Her research focuses on the contribution of nursing to quality and safety of patient care, particularly in hospitals. She is currently working on several projects evaluating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the nursing workforce and on patient care, as well as interventions to assist in the recovery of nurses post-pandemic.

Dr. Patrician earned a BSN from Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania; MSN in Critical Care from the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, Texas; a Masters in Strategic Studies from the US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA; and PhD in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.