Diabetes

I chose to write my leadership paper on diabetes. It has always been an interesting disease and there is tons of research on the subject. Also, this disease hits close to home. My father has been diagnosed with Type II diabetes for about 15-16 years and it has greatly impacted my family's life. My family and I are a little more health conscious and have seen some of the complications that occur with this disease. I am hoping that one day there will be a cure and as a nurse, I can help educate people on disease management and/or prevention.

Through research, I learned that often time's diabetes education is overlooked and critical information is often not explained to the diabetic patient. This leads to patient noncompliance and serious complications (i.e. retinopathy, neuropahty, renal failure, etc.). Many health care providers don't realized that diabetes is a disease where 99% of diseae management is the patient's responsibility. Some strategies nurses could use to to assist with patient self management are: basic education (using simple, easy-to-understand terms and instructions), help with setting specific, realistic goals, engendering a sense of control (self-efficiency), arranging for professional or social support, and providing feedback. Also research is proving that physicians who collaborate with a diabetic educator (usually a specialized RN) can increase patient compliance throgh the evidence of good A1c conrtol (<7%), blood pressure of <130/80 mmHg, LDL cholesterol (<100 mg/dL) and meal/activity plan.

Bottom line is that more education and motivation we provide our patients, the more likelihood that our patients will take on an active role in their disease management. Also, as Phyllis and Tanya mentioned childhood obesity, we as nurses, are going to be seeing a huge increase in diabetes and so we need to take the intitiative now to educate ourselves about diabetes and share this with our colleagues and the public. After all, we are the best care providers to our patients in that we provide better education, spend more time them, are better listeners, and know our patients better than the physician.