Where Do You Work?
Aug 17, 2012, 00:00 AM
During the annual meeting, I moderated and attended Leslie Kolb’s presentation on the AADE’s Diabetes Education Accreditation Program (DEAP). There are currently 504 accredited programs with 1,367 sites. Some of the sites are considered traditional and some are non-traditional. There are also many ADA-recognized programs across the country providing diabetes self-management education/training/support. Thinking about the “non-traditional” programs made me wonder where diabetes education was being provided.
I work at a Joslin Diabetes Center affiliate in Syracuse, which is part of a large teaching hospital (Upstate Medical University). Our office, which is located offsite a few miles from the hospital, is the endocrinology outpatient office. Our team includes physicians (MDs and a DO), physician assistants, nurse practitioners, nurse educators, dietitians, physical therapist (me), a podiatrist, a social worker, and many support staff. We have adult and pediatric teams within the practice. We also have an educator in the hospital to help people within the acute care setting and to train, and provide ongoing support to, the ever-changing hospital staff. I expect many of you are in this type of setting. I guess I consider this one type of “traditional setting.”
I also know that many educators are in a smaller physician’s office, some primary care and some in specialty practices. Are you in a physician’s office? Do you work in primary care or a specialty practice and, if so, what type of practice? How might the education you provide differ from what we provide in the big specialty practice? What are the benefits and/or challenges?
Are you in a “non-traditional” setting? What is your practice like? Whom are you teaching/supporting? What does your team look like? Wh
at might be different compared to “traditional” education programs?
There are many pharmacists in AADE. How do you provide diabetes education? Are you in a pharmacy or within a healthcare center?
Within AADE, there is the Public Health Community of Interest (COI). I am friends with many people in this COI but I have to admit that I do not really know about their jobs. Do you provide direct diabetes education? How? What else do you do in your job?
While at the annual meeting, I was able to spend some time with Carla Cox, a fellow AADE blogger. She had just returned from 3 weeks of diabetes camp. Who goes to camp? What do you do the rest of the year?
Are any of you in academia? In what profession? Do you also provide direct diabetes education or are you solely shaping the future of diabetes education? (Thank you if you are helping to bring up new diabetes educators!)
I would love to hear where you work. I am sure there are many of us that would like to know of the various options. Are you a DEAP provider in a non-traditional setting? What does your practice look like?