Rate My Professor Sara Rhoads

Sarah Rhoads, PhD, DNP, WHNP-BC, RNC-OB, APRN, FAAN, served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Community and Population Health in the College of Nursing at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC). She joined UTHSC in 2018 from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), where she was director of the South Central Telehealth Resource Center, education director for the Center for Distance Health, and associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Rhoads earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Master of Nursing Science from UAMS in 1995 and 2000, her Doctor of Nursing Practice from the UTHSC College of Nursing in 2006, and her PhD in Nursing from UAMS in 2013. Certified as a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner and in Inpatient Obstetrics, she is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

Dr. Rhoads specializes in telehealth and digital health innovations to enhance healthcare access for rural and underserved populations, particularly in maternal and infant care. As principal investigator, she obtained a nearly $3 million Health Resources and Services Administration Advanced Nursing Education Workforce grant in 2019, renewed for $2.6 million in 2023, to support 19 advanced practice nursing students annually in nurse midwifery, family nurse practitioner, and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner programs serving the Delta region of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. She earned the 2017 Edge Runner designation from the American Academy of Nursing for redesigning the Angel Eye web-camera system to enable parental virtual presence with neonates in intensive care. Her key publications include "Rethinking Nursing Education and Curriculum Using a Racial Equity Lens" (2022), "Using mHealth in postpartum women with pre-eclampsia: Lessons learned from a qualitative study" (2020, International Journal of Gynaecology and Obstetrics), "High-risk obstetrical call center: a model for regions with limited access to care" (2017), and "Web Camera Use of Mothers and Fathers When Viewing Their Hospitalized Neonate" (2015). Dr. Rhoads advanced UTHSC's designation as a telehealth training site, developed digital health curricula, and led mobile health unit initiatives.