Nancy Spahr has been a nurse for more than 50 years and has worked in a wide variety of settings including the U.S. Peace Corps, medical-surgical nursing, emergency nursing, nursing administration, ambulatory care and nursing education. She recently retired as a Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, where she worked for 17 years in the field of ambulatory care. Spahr is a member of the American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nurses and the American Nurses Association. As a CNS, her primary focus areas included primary care, policy development, scope of practice issues, care coordination, evidence-based practice, staff competency development, fall prevention and project management in all areas of ambulatory nursing practice.
She currently teaches in the RN-BSN program as well as the CEP on-line BSN program at Arizona State University (ASU). She has taught nursing for more than 25 years in both the university and community college settings.
Her educational background includes a doctorate in education, a master’s degree in nursing and a master’s degree in business administration. Education and teaching and mission work are Spahr's passions and she has been able to combine both of these through her work with a non-profit organization call Vital Links for Humanity. Through this organization, she has participated in many medical mission trips to Vietnam, providing educational programs for the nursing staff of several large hospitals, clinics and the college of nursing in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. She also helped to provided medical care for rural villages and orphanages.
She lives in Queen Creek, Arizona (although she can often be found in Maine during the summer). She is a widow with three children, six grandchildren and a rescue dog, Abby.
I am the director of a non-profit organization called Vital Links for Humanity. This organization helps to support nursing education in Vietnam. In addition, we send teams of volunteers each summer to provide medical care and outreach to remote villages and orphanages. We have also established water filtration systems to bring clean drinking water to several communities in the MeKong Delta. I have been an active member of this organizations since its inception in 1998.
