Mennonite’s Lindsey Awarded Fagin Fellowship

Date: 6/25/07
Contact: Eric Jome

As a Claire M. Fagin Fellow, Pamela Lindsey will investigate ways to improve care for older adults with mental illness. Lindsey, an assistant professor at Mennonite College of Nursing at Illinois State University, is one of a select number of nursing educators nationwide awarded the fellowship, which focuses on enhancing geriatric nursing care.

The two-year Claire M. Fagin Fellowship is awarded to select nursing educators by the Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity (BAGNC) program. Now in its seventh year, the BAGNC program focuses on enhanced research, education and practice as the keys to better nursing care for older adults. The BAGNC program is administered by the American Academy of Nursing and the John A Hartford Foundation, which supports education and research in the field of geriatric nursing.

Lindsey’s research under the Fellowship will focus on the appropriate use of psychiatric medication in older adults with dementia and other mental health issues. Emphasis will be placed on developing a better understanding of how older patients in hospital settings react to the medications and how psychiatric drugs may interact with other medications taken by patients.

Fagin Fellowship recipients work with highly-experienced faculty mentors to focus and refine their research activities. Lindsey will collaborate with Kathleen Buckwalter, a professor of geriatric mental health nursing at the University of Iowa College of Nursing. In addition to taking graduate level geriatric mental health research coursework at the University of Iowa and attending professional conferences focused on geriatric mental health nursing, Lindsey will also explore sources of grant funding in order to continue her research after her two-year fellowship.

Lindsey’s work during the fellowship will also directly benefit Mennonite’s mission of improving care for older patients. Her work at the University of Iowa is part of a faculty development effort in a collaborative doctoral program in geriatric nursing administered by Mennonite and the University of Iowa College of Nursing.

Lindsey currently serves as Mennonite’s undergraduate director. During the next two years that position will be filled by Dianne Clemens, an instructional assistant professor at Mennonite.