Author Martine Ehrenclou, MA, received a thorough education in hospitals with the extended hospitalizations of both her mother and godmother. Having spent the equivalent of a full year in three separate hospitals in different states, Martine was determined to find out if her family members' hospitalizations were the norm.

After interviewing fifty families, she found out that in fact they were the norm. Family members all reported feeling completely lost, overwhelmed and stymied by the hospital system. They couldn’t reach doctors when they needed them, nurses didn't respond to the call button, medication mistakes put their loved ones in peril, and infectious diseases delayed patients' recoveries, if in fact the patients made it out alive. Many were convinced that medical errors had killed their family members.

Alarmed by what she heard, Martine became extremely motivated to undertake further investigation of hospital patient care. She interviewed over eighty-five registered nurses who worked in hospitals, dozens of physicians, physician assistants, hospital social workers, psychologists, and other medical staff to find out what was going on in hospitals and why so many family members were distraught over their loved ones’ hospitalizations.

From all of the interviews and hundreds of hours of research, Martine realized that hospital care was in crisis. She set out to do something about it. She understood there was no way for her to fix hospital care, but knew that if she could educate family members and get them involved, patients would have safer hospital stays. Hence, the writing of her book, Critical Conditions: The Essential Hospital Guide To Get Your Loved One Out Alive.

Martine is a writer and public relations and marketing executive, with clients that include authors, psychologists, and entrepreneurs. As past owner of Love Letters Ink, she was interviewed as the "Contemporary Cyrano" by national TV talk and news shows (Phil Donahue, Jenny Jones, ABC World News Tonight, CNN, etc.), national magazines (Time Magazine, Inc, The Economist, Glamour, and others) and newspapers (The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and others). She has had several of her stories published in bestselling books and has written for newspapers and magazines.

She received her masters degree with honors in psychology from Pepperdine University, Los Angeles, CA. She conducted research for the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital and research for a forensic psychologist. Martine has had a psychiatric article published in The Journal of Forensic Sciences and presented her own research paper at a national AAFS conference. She also worked as a counselor at Southern California Counseling Center.

She currently runs writing groups for at-risk teenagers and adults.

Martine lives in Los Angeles, CA, with her husband, a successful architect, and their twelve-year-old daughter.