Get Set Free: Five skilled diabetes educators offer lessons, tools, and inspiration

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Get Set Free
Five skilled diabetes educators offer lessons,
tools, and inspiration
 
Janet Crockrel, 40, Ironton, Ohio
Inspiration to be a Diabetes Educator (DE): Was working as a nurse at a nursing home when she learned of a job opening to work with 5- and 6-year-olds with type 1 diabetes within the local school district. “They’re so young and innocent.”
Reason to see a DE: “Because we keep up on our diabetes education.”
Important lessons: 1. [Aimed at her very young patients]: “ ‘You are no different from anyone else.’ I try to instill that in them at this young age.” 2. Eat healthy and exercise. 3. Always ask questions.
Greatest achievement: Getting to know the children’s families and learning more about diabetes every day.
Greatest challenge: Working with such young children. “Their little bodies are growing and things are changing, so their numbers can start to fluctuate. Or sometimes, if they get a cold, the numbers will fluctuate. Those are the most challenging things for me.”
 
Linda Aman,57, suburb of Detroit, Mich.
Personal relationship to diabetes: She and her husband have type 2 diabetes, as do her brother, father, mother-in-law, and grandmother-in-law.
Reason to see a DE: “A DE is able to ask the right questions: How many kids do you have? What’s your lifestyle like? Do you exercise? What are the demands on your daily life? Seeing a DE is essential to learn what to do if you’re ill, what to do when your blood sugar drops, and the proper way to administer insulin.”
What those with diabetes often overlook: “The need to take extra-special care of themselves when they are ill. Some think that, if they’re ill and not able to eat, they shouldn’t take their insulin.”
Important lessons: 1. You are a person who has diabetes, not a “diabetic.” It’s part of you, not your entire being. 2. Understand that you are in control. You can take medication like you’re supposed to, check your blood sugar, and call your healthcare provider when you’re having problems. 3. Be accountable.
Greatest achievement: “My ability to relate to my patients and to help them help themselves.”
Greatest challenge: “The same thing: helping people to help themselves, convincing them not to throw in the towel by getting them to understand their disease and what they have to do.” 
 
Laurie Terrio, 49, Pepperell, Mass.
Personal relationship to diabetes: Diagnosed type 1 in 1996.
Reason to see a DE: “If you have an understanding of what it takes to become a certified diabetes educator [CDE], you value the person’s commitment to seek constant education on this topic.”
On being a DE with diabetes: “Patients like to work with me because they recognize that I know, for instance, what a low blood sugar experience feels like. That personal experience is huge. I have a better sense of what the patient is thinking, what the next question will be, and what information he or she wants to know.”
Important lessons: 1. If you fall off the wagon, you can always get back on. Don’t beat yourself up too much. 2. You can’t be an ostrich. Keep an eye on your blood sugar levels and try to improve. 3. Success doesn’t have to be perfection. “My goal is progression. Success is keeping your numbers overwhelmingly in a good range.”
Unique tool: “Motivation Island,” a map-type tool she created to help keep patients on track.
Greatest challenge: The patient who does not care.
 
Suzanne Laws, 62, Tallahassee, Fla.
Personal relationship to diabetes: Her husband has type 2, as do his three brothers and her mother.
Inspiration to be a DE: One of her students, an 18-year-old girl, was blind due to diabetic retinopathy. “She did not read Braille, so I had to read all her assignments and tests to her. We became very close.”
Reason to see a DE: “We have a multidisciplinary background, are qualified to deliver education, and understand the social service system and the psychological problems of self-management.”
Important lessons: 1. Be motivated to self-manage your diabetes. 2. Know your survival skills; be able to recognize and deal with symptoms of hypo- and hyperglycemia. 3. Diabetes management and diabetes education is a lifelong process. 4. Diabetes is not the end. You can lead a normal, productive life. 5. Take simple steps to prevent kids from developing diabetes, such as taking a daily family walk and substituting water or milk for soda.
Best experience: Volunteering at the Florida Diabetes Camp in Tallahassee every summer, and “making a difference with these kids at camp.” Also, creating a “Mission Control” carb-counting note pad for 
her campers.
 
Joyce Malaskovitz, 49, Las Vegas, Nev.
Inspiration to be a DE: Grandfather’s death due to diabetes-related heart disease.
What people with diabetes often overlook: How serious the disease is and the damage it can do to internal organs without the patient realizing it until it’s too late.
Greatest achievement: “Instilling in a patient the education, information, and inspiration to make a lifestyle change. Sometimes the small changes make the big difference. It’s a collaboration of creating and setting goals together.” Also, as director of the Diabetes Treatment Center at Desert Springs Hospital in Las Vegas, she developed a Leg Circulation Center that offers free ankle brachial index screening, an exam that helps detect peripheral artery disease.
Important lessons: 1. It’s not what you did wrong, it’s What can I do to make it better? “I just had my health-and-wellness physical, and my fasting glucose came back at 100 mg/dL. I think the alert sign came on in my mind, because 100-125 is classified as pre-diabetes. I had to take a step back and ask myself, What are the things I’m not doing today that I better start doing to make this better?” 2. Take positive steps and actions to make small but significant lifestyle changes for your own benefit.  
 

All these women are vying for the title Diabetes Educator of the Year, awarded by American Diabetes Warehouse, a provider of diabetic supplies to people without insurance, in an effort to recognize dedicated healthcare professionals who are fighting  the diabetes epidemic.

 


 


Update: July 6, 2010