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JANET MEIRELLES: I'm Janet Meirelles and I'm a registered nurse,
a certified diabetes educator, a certified health education specialist,
a public health nurse, and I've done many areas of diabetes.
I've done in-patient teaching in hospitals, outpatient,
gestational diabetes...so I think I can cover the whole subject pretty well.
This diabetes class will cover pretty much everything.
It will cover the incidence, the prevention, medicines, complications,
which diet is better...artificial sweeteners, there's a controversy about those,
I'll discuss that....foot care, sick day care, care of pregnant women, and children with
diabetes.
So, I think if you're, you're going to take care of patients,
you're going to meet somebody with something that applies.
You don't need any background to come in.
I've had foster care providers who were people that had a high school education,
and I've had a doctor of podiatry, and many, many nurses.
So, I think practically anyone will find it useful.
I think most students enjoy the fact that they get a chance to do some practice.
We practice insulin doses by looking at blood sugar logs and doing problem solving.
We also have a checklist of food care. Portion sizes are interesting.
I offer little food models, and a plate,
and we have guessing games on how many carbs are on the plate.
So, I think people will find this useful on many levels, including their families.
The most challenging part of this course might be exactly
the thing students find most interesting;
it's when they're faced with a plate of food and they have to make a decision.
Now, there aren't any tests, but it's just, you've got to use your brain sometimes
because these are real life situations.
There are so many things one can do in the diabetes education community.
There's taking care of children. That's a separate area altogether.
Pregnant women. Seniors have a huge burden of diabetes.
So, if you're going to work in a nursing home or work with the elderly,
you absolutely must know about this.
If you're going to do in-hospital care and you're taking care of heart disease patients,
you're going to find that half of them have diabetes.
If you're taking care of any other area, diabetes will slow down healing,
so I hope that you have a good background.
One, it tends to be less expensive than when people come from out of town,
and they rent a facility, and they give a class.
And it's usually a very big class, with 200 or 300 people;
little chance to actually ask questions of the instructor.
This is a much more personable environment.
I have lots of audio-visual aids. I hold up insulin pens,
it gets passed around. Again, I mentioned the, the food plates.
Rather than just all get this shown to you on a screen,
it's lovely to be able to hold it and ask questions.