- Messages
- 3,976
- Type of diabetes
- Type 2
- Treatment type
- Diet only
- Dislikes
- Customer helplines that use recorded menus that promise to put me through to the right person but never do - and being ill. Oh, and did I mention customer helplines :)
After being asked for info on this event I thought I would post it here 
No Ladybird there is nothing that will make you uncomfortable, in fact they made a big point of making sure everyone felt at ease.
On arrival there was tea, coffee and chocy biscuits :shock: I imagine they were courtesy of the caterers at the venue, but get past those and its all OK.
Two DUK employees and a Professor of Endocrinology ran the event and were looking for opinions on what would make a good structured learning course for diabetics, newly diagnosed and longer term diabetics as well who are sadly often passed over for DESMOND and XPERT courses. So what they wanted was our opinions on what diabetic training diabetics should have.
They split us into four groups, there were seven or eight people in mine all T2 as the new course will be aimed at us T2's and we all discussed what we thought a good diabetic service should look like in an ideal world and then collectively wrote down our ideas, whilst we were doing this the two DUK employees and a Professor Angus (cant recall the surname ) who is heading up the team responsible for the new course wondered around leading the discussion if and when it went stale or off course.
My table had one lady who has been diabetic for 40 years who didnt seem to know much about it TBH but she cheered me up as she was so cheerful and positive and appeared to be in fine fettle too with no obvious complications that I could see. Imagine what we can achieve by owning our diabetes from an early stage?
Lunch was sandwiches and fruit but at least the sandwiches were wholegrain bread, again supplied by the venue I suspect, the lady I was chatting to low carbs and just eat the filling of a sandwich and some fruit, I had taken my own sandwich anyway so it didnt bother me.
The afternoon was more group discussion but in just two larger groups this time which obviously had to be well chaired to stop everyone talking at once but we were a sociable lot and there were no problems. The afternoon session was discussing what we thought we as diabetics needed to be taught and what we felt would make a good comprehensive course
Three pm we said our goodbyes and headed home, all in all I would say a useful few hours that left me feeling in a positive mood that DUK was working for us and hopefully doing something constructive, something you dont hear on here much these days. It was a pleasure to meet with other diabetics and listen to their opinions and ideas and hopefully one or two of mine may have hit the mark too. It was a bit of a surprise to see how most diabetics are almost completely in the dark over almost every aspect of diabetes and I think it is important that this is rectified and that those who wish to be educated at least have the opportunity to do so.
The one thing that almost everyone was saying was to remark on the confusing and conflicting information they were being given on diet, on one visit being told cut down the carbs and then six months later being told yes you must eat more carbs, and dont forget these are people not as lucky as we to have this great resource to get ideas from.
Overall I came away thinking that diabetics deserve to be better informed about the physiology of diabetes and how to self manage it, we know there is no 'one way' to control it but at least give us the education and the tools (test strips) to do it. The lovely lady I sat next to told me she was OK with injecting her insulin once a day but hated the finger prick test so your never going top please all the people all the time, but at least DUK are trying.
You will have a great day out Ladybird, meeting fellow diabetics and there was non of the bickering that sadly goes on here too much nowadays.
ladybird64 said:Sid, any chance of a bit more info about the event?
I'm hoping to get to the one near me but hate walking into something if I don't have a rough idea what is going to happen!
No measuring of waists or any of that malarkey is there?
No Ladybird there is nothing that will make you uncomfortable, in fact they made a big point of making sure everyone felt at ease.
On arrival there was tea, coffee and chocy biscuits :shock: I imagine they were courtesy of the caterers at the venue, but get past those and its all OK.
Two DUK employees and a Professor of Endocrinology ran the event and were looking for opinions on what would make a good structured learning course for diabetics, newly diagnosed and longer term diabetics as well who are sadly often passed over for DESMOND and XPERT courses. So what they wanted was our opinions on what diabetic training diabetics should have.
They split us into four groups, there were seven or eight people in mine all T2 as the new course will be aimed at us T2's and we all discussed what we thought a good diabetic service should look like in an ideal world and then collectively wrote down our ideas, whilst we were doing this the two DUK employees and a Professor Angus (cant recall the surname
) who is heading up the team responsible for the new course wondered around leading the discussion if and when it went stale or off course. My table had one lady who has been diabetic for 40 years who didnt seem to know much about it TBH but she cheered me up as she was so cheerful and positive and appeared to be in fine fettle too with no obvious complications that I could see. Imagine what we can achieve by owning our diabetes from an early stage?
Lunch was sandwiches and fruit but at least the sandwiches were wholegrain bread, again supplied by the venue I suspect, the lady I was chatting to low carbs and just eat the filling of a sandwich and some fruit, I had taken my own sandwich anyway so it didnt bother me.
The afternoon was more group discussion but in just two larger groups this time which obviously had to be well chaired to stop everyone talking at once but we were a sociable lot and there were no problems. The afternoon session was discussing what we thought we as diabetics needed to be taught and what we felt would make a good comprehensive course
Three pm we said our goodbyes and headed home, all in all I would say a useful few hours that left me feeling in a positive mood that DUK was working for us and hopefully doing something constructive, something you dont hear on here much these days. It was a pleasure to meet with other diabetics and listen to their opinions and ideas and hopefully one or two of mine may have hit the mark too. It was a bit of a surprise to see how most diabetics are almost completely in the dark over almost every aspect of diabetes and I think it is important that this is rectified and that those who wish to be educated at least have the opportunity to do so.
The one thing that almost everyone was saying was to remark on the confusing and conflicting information they were being given on diet, on one visit being told cut down the carbs and then six months later being told yes you must eat more carbs, and dont forget these are people not as lucky as we to have this great resource to get ideas from.
Overall I came away thinking that diabetics deserve to be better informed about the physiology of diabetes and how to self manage it, we know there is no 'one way' to control it but at least give us the education and the tools (test strips) to do it. The lovely lady I sat next to told me she was OK with injecting her insulin once a day but hated the finger prick test so your never going top please all the people all the time, but at least DUK are trying.
You will have a great day out Ladybird, meeting fellow diabetics and there was non of the bickering that sadly goes on here too much nowadays.
