Faculty and Staff
Sandi Tenfelde, PhD, RN, APN
Title: Assistant Professor, Director of the Women's Health Nurse Practitioner (WHNP) Program
Office #: Building 125, Room 2528, LUHS
Phone: 708.216.9213
E-mail: stenfelde@luc.edu
CV Link: My CV
Degrees
PhD University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Nursing 2009
MSN Loyola University of Chicago, Niehoff School of Nursing 1996
BSN University of Michigan, School of Nursing 1993
Research Interests
The goal of Dr. Tenfelde’s program of research is to explore and test interventions to reduce symptom burden for women with pelvic floor disorders. As a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner, she is interested in health promoting activities that allow individuals to be actively engaged in maintaining their own health and direct participation of the management of symptoms. Her current focus is on how yoga as a mind/body therapy may reduce symptoms of urinary incontinence and improve Quality of Life. Dr. Tenfelde works with an interdisciplinary team for research, including Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgeons, Colorectal Surgeons and Gastrointerologists. In 2001, she received the New Investigator Award from the Midwest Nursing Research Society Childbearing Section.
Teaching
Dr. Tenfelde is the director of the Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner Program and teaches at the master’s level. She teaches classes on reproductive health and childbearing, helps to coordinate the advanced practice nursing clinical course, as well teaching the advanced concepts in community health. Dr. Tenfelde is recognized as a leader in female pelvic floor health and is an invited speaker at multidisciplinary conferences.
Service
As a WHNP, Dr. Tenfelde began her career in a community health center, working with women without health insurance. She is a strong advocate for community health. As the coordinator for the annual health fair at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago, she leads a team of nursing, medical, health systems management, dietetics, and exercise science students in hands-on delivery of community health. She is actively involved member of the research committee at Loyola, and serves on the research advisory board of the Women’s Health Foundation for pelvic floor health. She is also a certified yoga instructor and teaches free classes on stress reduction and physical asana practice within the school of nursing and in her community.