Deborah Ejem (PhD 2014) is an Assistant Professor of Nursing at the UAB School of Nursing.

During her postdoctoral studies at the School of Nursing She was awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), to explore how significant a factor spirituality is in the relationships among patients with chronic illnesses, their caregivers, and their clinicians.

One focus of Ejem’s study will be on how African American heart-failure patients and their family caregivers use spirituality to ease the burden of care on the caregivers and improve the quality of life for the patient. Another will be on how the study participants include spirituality as they interact with their clinicians during the course of the patient’s care. Read more about Ejem's study opens a new website.

“I have personal family friends that are caregivers for people who are seriously ill,” Ejem said. “As I talk to them about how they are coping, often they talk about how important religion is to them, how they use prayer, and how it all helps them even in the most difficult of situations."