Wednesday, January 23, 2013
In my graduate student life, mentoring is a big deal – not only students mentoring other students, but also faculty mentoring students. There is a lot of emphasis placed on this in graduate school, as academics want to breed other academics, and feel that they are instrumental in creating...
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I like the way you divided this topic into informal and formal ways of mentoring within the chronic illness community. I think the more formal mentoring programs need to be run, at least on a higher level, by paid staff who can provide the administrative and program support that can be exhausting for people with chronic illness to do. The Arthritis Society here in Canada has some very successful peer support programs - unfortunately, I don't know much more about them, so can't tell you why they worked when e.g., the Humira program didn't.
lots of things to think about. Thanks so much.
Lene, Our hospital group locally runs several successful support groups: Cardiac, diabetes, alzheimer's caregivers, but unfortunately no inflammatory arthritis support group. Too bad, I often think it would be nice to have some other folks to talk to about what's going on in my life without sounding like a whiner!
is it something you could suggest to your rheumatologist at your next appointment?
That would be a good idea if I saw a local rheumatologist. Unfortunately, it was the local rheumy who diagnosed me with OA and fibromyalgia with no xrays based on my negative bloodwork. After a year of no real help, I ended up driving to the Cleveland Clinic for a second opinion and while I have most of my bloodwork, xrays and mri - if needed - done locally, I still drive an hour to see my rheumatologist. The local guy is getting up there and seems to operate on a pretty old school theory. It's sad for anyone who is searching for that early, agressive treatment. I waited 3 months for an appointment with him and less than a week for an appointment at the Cleveland Clinic. I think though that it's not uncommon in more rural parts of the country that a decent rheumatologist is just hard to come by. I think this guy is close to retirement and just doesn't buy into all of the newest treatment protocals.