This month’s issue of Diabetes Care and Education’s On the Cutting Edge (screen shot above) features game-changers in healthcare – how it’s administered, taught, innovated upon. Topics include patient-generated health data, teaching culinary skills in medical school and unique partnerships in diabetes – along with our article.

This is the second piece the hubby and I have written for this nutrition and dietetics peer-reviewed journal. You can access the full article if you are a member. Should you be, or interested to become, here is the website. This particular issue is 2016/Volume37/Number 6.

To give you a taste of the Flourishing Treatment Approach, here is the Abstract from our article:

The predominant treatment approach today for people with diabetes focuses on the biomedical aspects of the condition. We term this disease-centered approach the “Coping Treatment Approach” (CTA). Its aim is to treat the disease and, thereby, help people cope with diabetes. This article examines a fresh perspective and new approach, the “Flourishing Treatment Approach” (FTA). This relationship-centered approach is based on salutogenesis, the causes of health, rather than the pathogenesis of the disease. The FTA provides a strengths-based, customized framework for wellness to emerge. This game-changing philosophy and practice includes practical tools for health professionals to improve patient outcomes.

I am soon leaving for Israel where I will be presenting the Flourishing Treatment Approach, and facilitating a workshop on its skills, for the Israel Diabetes Educators Association. This game-changer in healthcare has resonated with many who work with people who have diabetes.

When the journal was published, I received a postcard from the editor:

It’s a gift to work with like-minded and supportive colleagues. I hope you too feel you have many gifts, of the immaterial kind, as we hold those we love close and reflect on our blessings this holiday season.

March of this year I read an article about Regina Holliday. Regina lost her husband to cancer, and also to a medical system that was thoughtless, inept, at times cruel and secretive.

Coming back from grief, Regina picked up her paintbrush and painted her sorrow. With that paintbrush she became a patient activist and has been painting patients’ stories ever since. Her mission is to help elevate patients to partners with their providers and to push for transparency in medical records and health information.

She paints her murals for a donation. You send her a jacket, tell her your story and when you get the jacket back with Regina’s mural painted on the back, the mutual agreement is you wear the jacket to at least 3 health events you attend.

I immediately sent Regina a jacket, and since I knew it would probably take a few months to get it back, I just as quickly forgot about it. Imagine my surprise when this October I was invited to speak at a health marketing conference and Regina was the keynote speaker.

I mentioned the jacket and told her about my work and, voila, today my Regina-painted jacked arrived in the mail. An early holiday gift!

These jackets Regina says is a way to display our patient stories and keep them alive in the public eye. If you attend health events and would like to be part of Regina’s Walking Gallery, click here for the information you need.

Thank you Regina. My jacket is off to Israel where I’ll be addressing the Israeli Diabetes Educators Association in January, Wisconsin next March for an ADA conference, and I’ll be strutting your stuff at the premiere Charles Best Diabetes Center in Toronto next April.

 

‘Tis the end of an era. This month the last A1C Champion peer-mentor programs are being given across the U.S.  I have known my fellow 70 plus Champions for these past ten years, since I joined the group in 2006. Remarkably, nary a one has dropped out. But then maybe that’s because we’ve gotten as much, or perhaps more, than we’ve given. It’s how peer-mentoring works.

For my reflections over these 10 years and Sanofi’s business decision, click here. It’s a full article on the Huffington Post.

To my fellow Champions, here’s to you who dedicated your time, energy and compassion to sharing, educating and inspiring people with diabetes. Sorry to those I left out, I love you all.