LAUREN-RN, BSN 2002-2006 Bachelor of Science in Nursing Arizona State University, Cum Laude Graduate Lauren was raised in Arizona and after graduating high school in the top 10% of her class, she attended Arizona State University where she studied nursing. After four years, she graduated Cum Laude with a nursing degree and soon after, received her nursing license for the state of Arizona. Lauren worked at a local hospital where she started as a Medical/Surgical nurse. After the first year on the floor, she became interested in specializing in Medical Oncology and later became certified as a chemotherapy infusion nurse in 2007. In the four years of working at the hospital, Lauren continued her educational credits by attending seminars regularly related to the care of oncology patients and pain management. She made a change in late 2009 and got hired on to a national oncology company where she worked with oncology patients in an outpatient setting. Each day, Lauren not only infused chemotherapy but strived to provide the best patient care, education and emotional support to the patients and family members. Lauren continued to work as an outpatient oncology nurse in Chandler and saw the many challenges that these patients faced every day. Chemotherapy and cancer in itself truly compromise a patient’s overall health and well-being. Even with the many medications out there to help control pain and nausea, sometimes, they are not enough. She saw patients struggle each day with attempting to maintain their weight while battling the loss of appetite, change in taste and nausea all at the same time. Chemotherapy-induced nausea, vomiting, anorexia, and cachexia are conditions that affect many individuals with cancer and she believes some, if not all of these issues, could be relieved with the use of medical marijuana. Overall, Lauren believes that medical marijuana can improve the quality of life for many patients and therefore, took part ownership in the tru|med Dispensary and now works as their full-time patient educator/Registered Nurse. Each day in her profession, she strives to promote health, prevent illness and alleviate suffering and this is exactly why she has a medical marijuana dispensary where she can do just that.
