Patrick earned a PhD in English Renaissance Literature from the University of Iowa in 1994. He teaches a full range of courses in the Rhetoric Department.

Patrick's teaching interests include writing, early modern literature, wilderness literature, narrative, hospice, and death and dying. His research interests include Thomas More, early modern literature, literary representations of coercion, and literary representations of pain, disease, and death. He is also interested in medical and social work research on narrative, hospice, death and dying, and chronic/terminal illness.