Debra Lum
RN, BSN

Roseville, CA

Specialties

Hospice / Palliative, Management/Admin/Leadership, Medical/Surgical, OB/GYN/L&D, Womens Health

Details

Professional Achievements:

I am currently the Treasurer at the Local HPNA group here in Sacramento. I have extensive experience in teaching fellow nurses during orientation, and for Performance Improvement projects. I have, and continue to act, as a mentor in the nursing field for several university (online programs) for nursing and advanced levels of nursing in the community. I have developed teaching stategies for education of new Hospice Employees, including pain and symptom management, hospice care, measurement techniques used in hospice, appropriateness, as well as orientation to the roles of my company. I have previously obtained advanced certification in Inpatient Obstetrics, and plan to also pursue advanced certification in Hospice and Palliative care. I love animals, working as a rehabber for Wildlife Care in Sacramento in the past, concentrating on local birds, and small animals. I love organizing, and implementing, Performance Improvement Projects, and find the work as satisfying as personal care of patients, because I know they are directly benefiting from the processes undertaken to effect change.

Favorite Thing About My Profession:

I love the whole process of walking with the patient as they take their ultimate trip through death. This is probably the most intensely private and personal time that each of us will travel, and it is always nice to have someone who you can talk to and share the experience with, as you go. The calling to become a nurse was always "to help people" and this area of nursing truly offers us a chance to help not only our patients, but their families and loved ones to accept, and appreciate, the meaning of life. Life always represents loss, because we all must eventually die, but being a hospice nurse truly is a specialty area, for certain people who have something extra they want to do with their own lives.