|
 Theresa Shumard, BA started her allied health career in respiratory care 27 years ago and has over 18 years of experience as a sleep technician after a career as a medical journalist and news reporter. She has been with DeVilbiss Healthcare since 2000 with positions as a sleep specialist and most recently as North American Manager of Sleep/Respiratory Education, Planning and Clinical Services. Her responsibilities include management of clinical support to administration, engineering, marketing, and sales departments as well as sleep and respiratory training both internal and external to Sunrise Medical. She studied at the Atlanta School of Sleep Medicine in Atlanta, GA and then went on to study under Dr. Lawton Delisser of Philadelphia. She worked as a sleep technician at several sleep laboratories including the University of California at San Francisco, Stanford University, and the University Medical Center at Princeton. Theresa served as the director of the sleep center and educational program for Lynn Health Science Center in Oklahoma City under sleep pioneer Dr. William Orr.
In the 1990s, Theresa was disappointed at the lack of written materials and brochures about sleep disorders and the technology surrounding it available to the general public and those in the field of sleep. She decided to use her journalism experience and dedicate her time to writing about sleep to educate patients and colleagues as well as increase awareness about sleep. Her devotion to help everyone learn the benefits of sleep medicine has turned her into an international success, as she is contacted by people around the world requesting her published materials and for her to deliver lectures. She has mentored countless technicians and encouraged many others to enter the sleep profession.
Theresa is well-known as an international lecturer in the areas of drowsy driving prevention, disease management, treatment compliance, health literacy, patient education and social issues sometimes associated with CPAP therapy, polysomnographic technologist professional development measures, trends and applications of sleep technology, and strategies to decrease allied health workforce shortages.
Theresa is currently a regular contributor for several sleep-related publications and is involved in writing several books of several genres on sleep. She is the founder of REMgazer Communications. She served on the Board of the American Association of Sleep Technologists (AAST) (formerly called the Association of Polysomnographic Technologists [APT]), for 10 years was the Editor in Chief of A2Zzz Magazine, AAST’s publication for sleep technologists. Theresa was an AAST delegate to the Allied Health Professions Network (HPN) and currently represents the National Patient Educators Network (NPEN) in the HPN. She has been chosen as an Associated Press Award winning medical journalist, selected for the 2003 Coalition for Allied Health Leadership and is a recipient of the AAST 2000 McGregor Award and the 2005 National Sleep Foundation Humanitarian Award.
|
About