I spent the morning with one of my favorite colleagues, Dr. Jeff Gelgisser. Jeff is a family practice doctor in Redmond, Washington who looks after a lot of people who have diabetes.
A few years ago Jeff went through his list of diabetic patients and found a dozen or more who didn't come in very often and who had blood glucose levels and blood pressure levels that were too high and who weren't getting their eyes and feet screened as often as they should.
When he called them up he found:
- Some of these people just preferred to ignore their diabetes.
- Others just didn't like the way they were treated when they came in to the clinic.
- Some felt lonely and isolated as if no-one understood how hard it was for them to deal with diabetes along with everything else in their lives.
They had stopped coming in because they knew that the doctor or nurse who saw them would lecture them about how "bad" they were at looking after themselves.
Jeff then did a rather brave thing. He invited them to come in as a group and vent their frustrations to him and his staff. He encouraged them to share ideas with each other and he took the time to explain things to them that they were frustrated about and didn't understand.
And something magic started happening. Many people in the group changed from feeling hopeless and angry to feeling motivated to change things about how they were living their lives. They shared positive ideas with each other. They set new goals for themselves.
They wanted to keep meeting. They celebrated each other's successes and supported and comforted each other when new difficulties arose. Most all of those people now have lower blood glucose and blood pressure levels, are eating healthier, exercising more, are taking their medicines better and feel much better about their overall lives.
Jeff and his team have held group meetings like this for several years now. Once a year they ask me to join them to answer questions about new research findings in diabetes or anything else that is on their minds. I am honored to attend. I always leave feeling more positive and optimistic about my life, too.
There are lots of different types of "group visits" for people with diabetes and other chronic illnesses. One very successful and popular program was started by Dr. Kate Lorig and colleagues at Stanford.
It is called "Living Well with Chronic Conditions"
You can search for that phrase on the Internet to see if there is a group near where you live. Another great resource for learning how to set up and organize group visits is at www.improvingchroniccare.org.
