According to Rimel, the field of nursing is great training for whatever challenges life throws at you. “I think the best preparation one could have for management is working the 11 to 7 shift in the emergency room,” Rimel said. “It prepares you for anything. Everything is unpredictable, and you need to make important decisions with imperfect information. The emergency room prepared me for my life course and anything that I was confronted with in my professional career. I really do think that the training I received also gave me a very important perspective about the importance of empathy and caring. Those are key traits that I think all nurses share.”

Another trait is the ability to project confidence in difficult situations. In 1972, Rimel was working in the emergency room when President Lyndon Johnson, visiting his daughter in Charlottesville, was admitted to the ER with a serious heart attack. “That was a little bit shocking,” she said with some understatement. “Charlottesville felt like more of a small town with an important and very good medical center but certainly nothing of the scope and scale today.”

In the late ’60s and early ’70s, Rimel was in one of the first cohorts of women undergraduates at the University. It was an interesting time to be at UVA, she said, with Kent State and the Vietnam War taking up a lot of the day-to-day narrative. “It was a different experience for those of us who were there in the early seventies,” she said. “I was getting my training in the ER and then stayed, thanks to Dick Edlich. He created an emergency nurse practitioner program, the first in the country, and I was in the first class.”

As director of Emergency Medical Services at UVA until 1982, Dr. Edlich worked with others to develop a comprehensive emergency medical system throughout the commonwealth. “Dick and I got to know each other because we fought to get the first air ambulance—I think it's still called Pegasus—because we saw the problems of having no tertiary care, particularly in Southwest Virginia, and the problems that patients were experiencing.” 

After several years in the ER, where she became head nurse, Rimel was hired by Dr. John Jane, then chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, who took her under his wing. “Back then, nurse practitioners were really not welcomed anywhere,” she recalled. “They were resisted by the medical profession, there were very few jobs for us. Subsequently, John hired me to work with his residents to provide pre- and post-op care in the neurosurgery department.”

Working under Dr. Jane’s tutelage and with his encouragement, Rimel was named an assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery. She developed an interest in head injuries, particularly minor ones with few signs of trauma. The thinking at the time tended to downplay neurological problems associated with minor head injuries, but Rimel, in part because of her observation of hundreds of patients, suspected otherwise.

To prove that minor head injuries caused problems with attention, concentration, memory, and judgment, Rimel needed a control group. She came up with an answer: football players. With the cooperation of the head of sports medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, she was allowed to pretest players from UVA, Ivy League schools, and other universities and test them post-injury. 
“We were able to show that minor head injuries have consequences, and getting repeat injuries is really not a good thing,” she said. “We published the research. I guess one of my most thrilling and most nervous-making times was when my paper was accepted to be the lead paper at the 50th anniversary meeting of the Harvey Cushing Society in Boston, which is the leading society for neurosurgery.” 

In the early 1980s, having a nurse as first author meant that Dr. Jane was asked to present the paper. “John said, ‘I'll give the paper, but your name is the senior author, you're the first author,’” she said. “I thought about it, and I said we just won't give the paper as I don't think this is right. Well, they couldn't pull it. I did give the paper, and it was the most nervous I think I've ever been in my life.”

She called her mother—her biggest champion. “I said, ‘Ma, I'm really nervous about this,’ and she said, ‘Well, you should be. What in the world are you gonna wear?’ Remember, this was 1981. So I tell the story to explain that women have come a long way, the nurse has come a long way, times were different then, but that was their frame of reference.”

Before joining Pew in 1983, Rimel earned a Master of Business Administration from James Madison University. Hired as one of Pew’s first staff members with specific expertise, she initially oversaw health care projects such as the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences. One of the first of its kind in the field, the program supports the research of young, promising biomedical scholars, and has produced four Nobel laureates to date. In October, Charles M. Rice, a 1986 Pew Scholar, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Rimel became executive director of Pew in 1988 and then president and CEO six years later, a position she held until June 30. During her tenure, she worked with the board to steward Pew from a grant-making organization to become one of the nation’s most innovative and influential public charities. Beginning in 2002, under Rimel’s leadership, Pew began to build a staff of subject experts, expand offices in Washington, D.C., and open new ones abroad to collaborate more effectively with other partners to meet societal challenges. Pew now joins with a diverse range of donors, public and private organizations, and concerned citizens who share a commitment to rigorous, fact-based solutions and goal-driven investments to improve society and public policy.

Based in Philadelphia, Pew maintains deep roots there, working on health and human services, the arts, and other activities. Its Washington, D.C., office focuses on the environment, state policy, public health, and national economic issues. The Pew Research Center, an internationally known public opinion research center, is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. 

Looking back, Rimel expressed pride in her years at Pew. “I mainly take joy in the extraordinary people that we were able to recruit, how talented they are, and how important they have been to the institution’s success,” she said. “Many of them have stayed and had long and valued tenures or have gone on to be hugely successful in other ways, so for me, it was the opportunity to work with such extraordinarily fun, gifted, creative people, committed to righting wrongs and making the world a better place.”

After she stepped down, Pew’s board of directors searched for an appropriate tribute. “We are incredibly grateful for Rebecca’s many contributions during her tenure as CEO,” Robert H. Campbell, chair of Pew’s board, said. “As she prepared to step down, we considered many ways to create a lasting testament to her impact, and an endowed chair named in her honor at UVA’s School of Nursing was the perfect opportunity. Rebecca’s commitment to improving the health of the public is an important and inspiring aspect of her career. We are very pleased to support her lifelong commitment to nursing, to UVA, and to public service.”

The endowed chair will set a standard of excellence at the School of Nursing. “This incredible gift will have an enduring effect on the future students who will follow in Rebecca’s footsteps here at UVA,” said School of Nursing Dean Pam Cipriano, the Sadie Heath Cabaniss Professor of Nursing. “The investment by The Pew Charitable Trusts to establish this dean’s chair will ensure the transformational educational experience that we are known for will continue for generations to come. We offer our appreciation to Pew and our distinguished alumna Rebecca for this gift.” 

“Pew’s bold and generous commitment creates an enduring legacy,” added Dr. K. Craig Kent, executive vice president for health affairs. “This chair strengthens our ability to shape the future of the nursing profession through the recruitment of outstanding deans who will sustain the level of excellence that has been characteristic of the UVA School of Nursing. We are incredibly proud that the individual who leads our School of Nursing will hold this distinguished deanship in Rebecca Rimel’s name.”

Rimel foresees increased visibility for the nursing profession during the pandemic, noting that the World Health Organization has designated both 2020 and 2021 as the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife in honor of the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth. “I thought, if ever there should be the year of the nurse, it's now, because of what they've been doing during the pandemic,” she said. “For too long, the health care system and the public took nursing a little bit for granted. This is not only a challenging and complicated profession; this is one that requires scientific knowledge, technological skills, and yet also requires nurses to be deeply caring and empathetic to the patients and their families. I hope this increased visibility will lead to recruiting more outstanding young people into the profession as there could be no more gratifying profession that can prepare you for a long career in health care, a career in business or philanthropy, or a lot of other professional and life choices. I could not be more grateful for my training, and I couldn't be more excited by nursing’s future.”

As Rimel credits the education and training she received at the School of Nursing for giving her the necessary skills for a challenging and productive career, she expressed gratitude for Pew’s gift and the implications it raises for the future of nursing at UVA. 

“I believe that a nurse carries with him or her their training for life. I certainly have, and I've been very proud of that training as a source of motivation and direction. I can’t think of anything that will continue to give me more joy than to be a part of something that will give back to future generations of nurses.”