Rita K. Chow, EdD, RN, AHN-BC, FAAN, CAPT. (Ret.) USPHS, Senior Volunteer Fellow at the National Council on Aging, has demonstrated an enduring commitment to nursing and improving health care delivery throughout her storied career.

Dr. Chow’s legacy is demonstrated through her dedication to helping society’s most vulnerable, which has ranged from prisoners, especially older prisoners, individuals residing in nursing homes, those with Hansen’s disease hospitalized in leprosariums, to communities served through the United States (U.S.) Indian Health Service. 

Over the course of her career, Dr. Chow has held several federal positions. She served as an officer in the Army Nurse Corps and as an active-duty United States Public Health Service (USPHS) Commissioned Corp Officer for nearly thirty years, where she ultimately became deputy Chief Nurse. Dr. Chow directed a cardiovascular nursing research project at the Ohio State University Hospital, one of the first to utilize closed-circuit television to record nurses’ real time actions and responsibilities in the intensive care unit. This project served as the foundation for her nursing textbook, Cardiosurgical Nursing Care: Understandings, Concepts, and Principles for Practice, and is a precursor of many technology utilizations in practice today. 

Dr. Chow’s expansive career has focused on improving health outcomes in historically marginalized communities and through innovative programs. She served as a supervisory clinical nurse and quality assurance coordinator at the Rosebud Lakota facility in South Dakota, a facility that had some of the worst health outcomes statistics, where she diligently worked to improve conditions. Dr. Chow was also the Director of Patient Education and Assistant Director of Nursing at the Hansen’s Disease Center, Carville, Louisiana. In this role, she worked with people suffering from Leprosy and led programming for patients to improve their lives holistically, by developing a music/movement therapy program. Dr. Chow became the Director of Nursing in the Federal Bureau of Prisons in 1989, where she was the catalyst to establish the first long-term care facility for aging male federal prisoners in Fort Worth, Texas. Her role included planning the site, design and construction. From this experience, she went on to create the nation’s second-ever inmate-to-inmate hospice program.

Following her USPHS retirement with the senior rank of Captain in 1995, she returned to Washington, DC as the Director of the National Interfaith Coalition on Aging of the National Council on Aging. After serving over a decade in the position, she now volunteers and identifies resources for the Council’s national network of Senior Centers. Dr. Chow has been honored by nearly every group with which she has been associated, including, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the U. S. Department of Justice, the USPHS, and the World Congress of Cardiology. She has been recognized with a plethora of awards from the Distinguished Service Medal, the highest honor of the USPHS for Commissioned Corp Officers; Holistic Nurse of the Year Award; and induction into Columbia University’s Teachers College of Nursing Hall of Fame. Dr. Chow was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ National Academy of Medicine and was inducted as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing in 1974. She is a Fellow in several other national organizations, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Gerontological Society of America, and the American Association of Integrative Medicine.