Claire Blum
MS Ed, RN, CDE, CPT

Claire is a Registered Nurse, Certified Diabetes Educator, and Certified Pump Trainer. Her personal experience of life with diabetes, and her educational background in Family and Consumer Economics, Nursing, Nutrition, Social Work, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, and Experiential Education, provides the foundation for her work in development of diabetes education programs.

Her work experience includes:

• service as Diabetes Educator and Clinical Research Coordinator for University Diabetes & Endocrine Consultants in Chattanooga TN
• Insulin pump specialist and certified pump trainer for all major makes and models of insulin pumps and CGM
• Health and Diabetes Educator for the Hamilton County Department of Education in Chattanooga TN
• Patient Education, Staff Development, and Employee Health Coordinator, for Chattanooga Rehabilitation Hospital in Chattanooga TN
• Customer Service Technical Support Representative for Animas Corporation, of Johnson & Johnson.

She presently serves as Program Coordinator for Partners & Peers for Diabetes Care, Inc., with the organizational mission of empowering people with diabetes to actively participate in their health care through partnerships that promote trust and enhance learning. The board of directors is composed of health care providers and professional individuals, who like herself, live with diabetes.

Diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1978, she has worn an insulin pump for nearly 25 years. As a Diabetes Educator she finds that it is easy to tell others what they should do in order to manage their diabetes, but as a person who also has diabetes, she has learned that it takes much more than factual information. Claire says that living with diabetes requires inner wisdom, a willingness to listen to that inner wisdom, and a great deal of compassion for self and others. She believes that living well with diabetes is an ART which can be cultivated, and when learned, adds dimensions to life which are often missed.