About Pam

 After the war, I grew up in Whittier, a small Quaker college town in  Southern California surrounded by orange and avocado groves. I studied  nursing at Mount Saint Mary’s College in Los Angeles; received my  master’s degree in psychiatric nursing from The Catholic University of  America in Washington, DC; and, my PhD in cultural anthropology from  Boston University. 

 I have worked as an evening clinical nurse at St. John’s Hospital in  Santa Monica, California; as a psychiatric nurse at Norwalk State Mental  Hospital in Norwalk, California; the Brentwood VA hospital in Los  Angeles, California, as an office nurse for Erick T. Yuhl, M.D., a  neurosurgeon, in Santa Monica, California, and as a head nurse of the  admissions unit on the psychiatric pavilion at the University of  Cincinnati hospital, Cincinnati, Ohio. I taught psychiatric nursing as  an instructor at the University of Cincinnati School of Nursing and as  an assistant professor at the UCLA School of Nursing. 

After receiving my PhD, I held joint  appointments in nursing and anthropology at UCLA and later at the  University of Alberta. In between, I was on the nursing faculty at the  University of Iowa. It was at UCLA that I met Marilynn J. Wood, RN,  Dr.P.H.  and we collaborated on two books: Basic Steps in Planning  Nursing Research followed by its sequel, Advanced Design in Nursing Research.

 Also, while I was at UCLA, I taught an elective graduate nursing course  called “Nursing in other Cultures. I wanted to introduce anthropology to  nursing. After the course was over, I pulled the required readings  together into a book called “Transcultural Nursing: A Book of Readings.” The book was later reprinted.

 When I was still at UCLA, I was approached by a book printing company  (KNI) that was interested in expanding into publishing. The owner asked  me if I would be interested in creating a nursing journal. They didn’t  care what kind. I immediately accepted and suggested a nursing research  journal. With their approval, I sought out collaborators from colleagues  I had met over the years with the Western Conference for Higher  Education in Nursing. They too were enthusiastic. Together, we created The Western Journal of Nursing Research. The early years were a learning experience and expensive as I paid for  much of the expenses other than the actual production. It was not until I  was at the University of Iowa that KNI sold the journal to Sage  Publications. There I met Terry Hendrix, a Sage Editor, who was the most  supportive editor I ever worked with. Almost thirty years later, I  turned over the editorship to someone else. 

 As a clinical nurse, as a patient and as an instructor in clinical  nursing, I was often struck by the difference in the treatment of  certain patients by physicians, nurses and nursing staff. Periodically,  patients were ignored, bossed around, and given poor care. Some patients  were treated differently from others. I wondered why. So I wrote a book  about it called “Patientology.” 

 I have a passion for German Shepherd Dogs. I became a breeder, under the name Vonderbrink Kennels and showed my dogs in both obedience and conformation. High points  included a Best in Show for one and Best in Puppy Show for two. I put obedience and rally titles on most of my dogs and managed to get high in class but never high in trial.   

Ever since my war experiences, I have had trouble controlling my weight  until I discovered the low carbohydrate diet. I became a devoted  convert. This picture was taken when I was a keynote speaker at a  nursing research conference in Japan in 2005. 

 Since retirement from academia, I have been able to ride my hobbies of  gardening, reading, writing, breeding and showing my dogs. Today,  however, I have had to slow down. I continue to read and write but had  to give up breeding and showing.