Some comments among the diabetes online community #doc and among friends have prompted me to put into words my feelings of relationships with Healthcare Professionals (HCP's) and how to get the best out of clinic visits.
I'm going to use an analogy stream that helps me when thinking about dealing with HCP's and that is think of it like your relationship with your car mechanic before you take the car for an MOT or service.
It happens only occasionally, they are the experts in their field, but they haven't been driving your car every day for the last year etc.
You and your HCP is not much different. They are the experts in their field, but you are the one who has to live with diabetes 24/7/365.
Your visit to your HCP team should be about checking levels, ticking boxes of targets and measures, you are the one though who day to day has to make sure there is enough fuel in the tank to get you from A to B and you have to wipe the dead flys off the windscreen (take that as my analogy for dealing with high blood sugars - equally harrowing and gross)
HCP's can offer you the benefit of their wisdom, they are the experts, but they really haven't got much right to criticise you when they see you twice a year, their job should be to advise you on new developments, check your still happy with your own control and make sure is there anything that can be done for you to improve your control of YOUR condition.
My personal relationship with my healthcare team is great, not everyone's will be, but a lot of it has to come to down to respect, if we go in to them with an attitude 'that you know nothing' you're not going to change that in a 10 minute appointment - you have to build a relationship, if your HCP team is small enough then you can ask about seeing the same HCP each visit for the next few visits, there should be a willingness to do this, even in a big team. The respect though has to be two way, your HCP has to be willing to give you respect back and accept that you might not have the textbook understanding - but you have the bleeding fingers of finger pricking, the dry mouth of high blood sugar and the panic of a low blood sugar to deal with every day, you have developed your tools for dealing with and identifying these things, YOU KNOW YOUR DIABETES.
