A Common Bond: Sharing Diabetes Diagnosis Tales

Bob,

I loved your comment!  I have to comment on something you wrote:

"You are correct that we have a giant need for education in this country.  Where do we start?  I suggest mandatory adult education for prospective parents, mandatory continuing education for the medical community, and should include changing some attitudes for the way the medical community deals with patients and what patient rights means."

In fact, doctors do go through continuing education classes!  Some maybe more than others, but continuing ed is required.  I think it comes down to the personality of the doctor and whether they decide to engage with their patient.  Many don't! Your comment of "changing some attitudes for the way the medical community deals with patients" is probably more accurate description of what is needed!

As for your comment on mandatory adult education for prospective parents, LOL!  I have always said every woman who thinks she wants to have a baby should be a camp counselor to teens as a prerequisite! I was a camp counselor for years and worked with preschoolers too and I loved it!  But I never had kids of my own!  

Ann,

I do know that they have some continuing education, just how much good it does is up for discussion.  I should have stated continuing education in dealing with patients as people.  Granted, some doctors are starting to talk with us and not at us.  This is appreciated as it makes solving problems of health issues more a cooperative effort.  I am aware of the fact also that many patients depend on the doctor to prescribe a pill or an operation to fix the problem and will go no further than follow the doctor's advice.  This needs to be changed and education (mandatory adult) is the only way to accomplish this.  This should be a requirement of some agency or maybe the insurance company before coverage is continued or put in place.

Next question - who teaches these classes.  Again many doctors do a lot of volunteer work in some communities and some additional volunteer work could be expected.  Here I will not forget nurses, and knowledgable non-medical people.  This has to be a cooperative effort for it to succeed.  Probable - not likely, until the mentality of people is changed - and this includes the medical community and public (patients) in equal measures. 

There are people who would welcome this, but it will take a lot of effort and I would be willing to spend some time at it, but not likely to happen in this community.  Support groups for people with different maladies seems to work, but by then it is too late to teach people about what to look for or how to do anything preventative - damage is done and support groups do help some people.

I am aware that some of my ideas are somewhat radical, but I put them out for discussion and maybe somewhere, someone will be able to translate them into something useable.

Bob