Hi everyone! My name is Melinda Cater and I am a part of the Washington/Baltimore Campus. I am currently working on my Intermediate Clinical rotation at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC, and I am also part of the MS program through the University of Rhode Island. My concentration is in diabetes, so I was thrilled to participate in World Diabetes Day at our hospital. Along with our inpatient Certified Diabetes Educator, I met with employees of the hospital to provide information about pre-diabetes and diabetes.
For our event, I devised a “Wheel-of-Diabetes” style game. Individuals who stopped by our table got to spin the wheel, and I asked them diabetes related questions, and they won a healthy snack for participating. This was a great way to get people talking about diabetes, and we answered questions and provided handouts about prediabetes, assessing one’s risk for diabetes, starting a walking program, and glucose management, among others.
One of my goals in coming up with the questions for the game was to really open people’s eyes to the staggering statistics related to diabetes. Here are a few that really caught my eye:
Although we only met with around a hundred people, my hope is that our work opened the door for some of them to have conversations with their physicians, or to think about making some lifestyle changes. Trying to make an impact on such a large problem can seem overwhelming at times, but when it comes to diabetes prevention and management we have to start somewhere. As future RDs I believe we can and must work towards turning this epidemic around, even if it is one person at a time!
For our event, I devised a “Wheel-of-Diabetes” style game. Individuals who stopped by our table got to spin the wheel, and I asked them diabetes related questions, and they won a healthy snack for participating. This was a great way to get people talking about diabetes, and we answered questions and provided handouts about prediabetes, assessing one’s risk for diabetes, starting a walking program, and glucose management, among others.
One of my goals in coming up with the questions for the game was to really open people’s eyes to the staggering statistics related to diabetes. Here are a few that really caught my eye:
- About 29 million Americans have diabetes—that’s around 9% of the population!
- 25% of people who have diabetes don’t even know they have it
- The US spends ~ $245 billion a year on health care costs for diabetic patients
- Annual health care expenses for a person with diabetes are almost $8,000 higher than for a person without diabetes
- Diabetes is the 7th leading cause of death in the US
- People with prediabetes can cut their risk of getting diabetes by up to 58% by losing a bit of weight and increasing physical activity
Although we only met with around a hundred people, my hope is that our work opened the door for some of them to have conversations with their physicians, or to think about making some lifestyle changes. Trying to make an impact on such a large problem can seem overwhelming at times, but when it comes to diabetes prevention and management we have to start somewhere. As future RDs I believe we can and must work towards turning this epidemic around, even if it is one person at a time!
