Patricia Osborne Shafer, RN, MN, is a neuro/epilepsy nurse specialist and nurse researcher at the Comprehensive Epilepsy Program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and an instructor in the nursing program at Emmanuel College. Since 1992, she has served as a professional adviser to the Epilepsy Foundation. She is a member of the editorial advisory board for the Journal of Epilepsy and the external advisor for the Epilepsy Public Health Education and Health Promotion Campaign of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An epilepsy sufferer herself, she also chairs the Epilepsy Foundation's Women and Epilepsy Adviser Committee and the organization's National Cost of Epilepsy Advisory Committee.