Re: [IP] A1C and efficacy of regimen

["Randall Winchester" <email @ redacted>]

On  9 Mar 98 at 23:05, JUDY102 wrote:

> Well Michael,  I was about ready to give up in this forum. I am not trying to
> come across as a medical expert, I am not.  I'm a diabetic before I am
> anything else.  I also can be wrong, and often am.  It is seldom, however,
> that I've tried participating in a forum where the participants are hostile
> towards healthcare workers.   Mistakes have been made in every area of my
> life, from financial to physical to personal, but I don't get angry at all
> lawyers, doctors,nurses, construction workers, etc.  I have only tried to
> share my many experiences with others, while searching for answers to my own
> questions about my disease.  I get scared and confused on occasion, but I
> always know there is someone out there, somewhere, who is willing to give me a
> hand.
> Judy P. RN, BSN

Many of us are often hostile towards the healthcare workers because 
of our experiences with individuals in that industry who have hurt us 
or been a negative influence on us.  I've had diabetes for over 15 
years and I constantly encounter doctors and nurses who pull a stunts 
like coming up to your table in a restaurant or at a church dinner, 
family get together or where ever and loudly announcing with shock 
and horror "YOU ARE A DIABETIC... YOU SHOULDN'T BE 
EATING THAT!" and then launch into a disciplinary monologue about how 
if you don't follow their particular rules you are going to die in 
moments.  

It is especially painful when this is done in a public setting and 
you cannot explain to people that that particular "professional" is 
about forty years out of touch with the treatment of diabetics.  My 
wife is an RN (BSN) and we were amazed at what she was told in the 
nursing program - not just about diabetics but about many other 
things.  We have friends who have gone through the same program and 
have been watching the textbooks - and they are sadly out of date in 
many areas.  One of these books had this advice for the nurse to give 
to the parents of a child born with Down Syndrome - "Tell the parents 
that it will be best to have the child put in an institution quickly 
and quietly.  Advise them that it may be possible to 'spread the 
word' that the child was stillborn."  And this was from a book that 
was less than six years old...  The same book advised a "tough" 
stance with diabetics who will "invariably rebel against the 
treatment plan and will not cooperate with such important items as 
urine testing.."

One endo in a nearby city still tells his patients not to do bg 
monitoring, but to come into his office and he will check their bg 
and tell them how to adjust their insulin dose.  He's still running 
his patients on one or two shots a day and telling them that if they 
are only spilling trace amounts of sugar in their urine that they are 
OK.  I've talked to several of his ex-patients who woke up one day 
and wondered why so many of the people they saw in his office had so 
many complications...  but other doctors still call him the "diabetes 
specialist" and refer patients to him.  

Many of us have battled people like this for years, and still battle 
their influence on others each day.  It's not the entire medical 
profession - just the select few and the way that they make life 
tough for us.  

Just look back at the list and read the horror stories from emergency 
rooms we've seen in the recent past....  Some of us don't interact 
well in a situation where some uninformed medical professional starts 
"taking over" an area where we have assumed responsibility, and they 
aren't trained to deal with patients who will not yield to them in 
those areas.  And it gets worse when we discover that we know more 
than they do about handling our bg...

So please don't get upset when we share our frustrations with each 
other about these individuals.  Remember that we don't talk much 
about the good people who are actually trying...   
Randall Winchester

************************************************************
* The views expressed here are mine and do not necessarily *
* reflect the official position of my employer.            *
************************************************************
* There's no guarantee on anything said here...
* If I say I understand something completely the only thing
* we can both be assured of is that I must have completely
* misunderstood something. 
***********************************************************
Insulin-Pumpers website   http://www.bizsystems.com/Diabetes/