Deborah Trendel, About.com's guide to COPD, is a registered nurse and public health nurse currently specializing in critical care. With a passion for teaching, she has extensive experience mentoring nursing students and has also served as an instructor for the Arthritis Foundation.
Experience:
Trendel's experience has primarily been in the hospital setting, where her focus has been in medical-surgical and cardiac intensive care units. But alas, being a nurse, means that you never work in just one specialty, and Trendel has proven that by having an ability to work as a floor nurse in a variety of different units, including the emergency room.
Receiving her public health nursing certification upon graduation, Trendel is also a public health nurse. She has worked in public health serving the needs of the Native American population of the greater Los Angeles and Riverside/San Bernardino areas. Her nursing practice oftentimes incorporates a public health aspect by focusing on wellness and prevention during patient teaching.
Trendel is also an instructor for the Arthritis Foundation and has taught classes to arthritis sufferers in an attempt to help them cope with the debilitating effects of the disease in their daily lives.
Education:
Trendel graduated with honors from Mt. St. Mary's College in Los Angeles, California with a bachelor's degree in nursing. After graduation, she immediately went to work for U.C.L.A. Medical Center on a busy, neurological step-down unit. Proving that she had a knack for organization and detail, she went on to attend St. Francis Career College in Los Angeles, where she obtained her critical care nursing certification. She continues to work in critical care.
Through a variety of continuing education courses, Trendel continually updates her knowledge and skills and is currently certified in basic cardiac life support, advanced cardiac life support and pediatric advanced cardiac life support.
From Deborah Trendel, RN:
Interacting with patients is the best part of my job. To be able to hold someone's hand at their most vulnerable moment and show them that you care, is a feeling unsurpassed by no other. At times being a nurse is frustrating, given the current state of healthcare, but the patients are what makes it all worthwhile. They keep me coming back!