Diabetes Hope Conference...Thoughts?

Let me start of by saying that I really loved the conference that Scott Johnson put on today. Very informative. The first part with The Doctor is In, was great. Excellent panel, great questions, lots of information that I'm actually going to go back and watch the recording, when they get it posted.

Second panel was about blogging. While this could have been a great panel, the first person they had speak was from the academic world and her study of blogging was really informative, except that it sounded like I was in an auditorium at a college getting big worded on a simple topic. She took so long talking about her items that it hardly allowed time for the other two panelists to interject or speak on the topic at all. The information was still good, just not as well done as the first panel.

Third panel was about the psychology side. Very informative and interesting. Jen Nash and George Simmons were brilliant together. I got really excited to go out and grab her book, then it hit me...I went to Amazon. The book in Kindle form is 27.99$. What? for a 282 page eBook? Kindle editions aren't really supposed to be over 15$, unless they are a true medical or technology books, then they can be higher, because they have a multitude of pages in them. So my thoughts get the best of me. Really? just because it has the word Diabetes on it, you're going to charge extra for it?? It might not even be her doing, because it's released through a very well known publisher. But $28 for a Kindle eBook?!?! I won't be purchasing it right away. Why can't folks focus on helping others out. The cost of Diabetes is so high in the first place. Why make the book high priced. Make it 12.99$, I'd buy it then.

So I walked away from the conference with some great information and a little bad taste in my mouth about Jen Nash's book.

How did everyone else, who attended, like it??

I watched and listened to the whole thing. I thought it was good but I didn't hear anything that was a unique idea or something that I wanted to do immediately or read more about.

I submitted a question to the first panel but Scott was not able to get to it. He later added that about 500 people attended the webinar so that means that very few of our questions were answered simply due to the audience size.

I was interested in enriching my understanding of the doctor/patient relationship and also improving my attitude towards it. I heard some good info in this but nothing really grabbed my attention.

The doctor/patient relationship was touched on in more than one panel. While several comments alluded to some dysfunctional relationships in the past, I would have enjoyed more exploration of the psychology of the term "compliance." Is this just a way for doctors to off-load responsibility for poor outcomes or should we as patients up our game and put out more effort. Another aspect of the psychology of diabetes with respect to doctors is the general lack of respect I've felt in past doctors. Is there anything that we as PWDs can do to try to bridge that gap?

All in all, the effect that doctors have had on my diabetes health has been small. I sometimes wish I could just write my own Rxs for D supplies and then go to a lab a few times per year, get my blood drawn, and have the doctor call me if there's some issue. There's 8,760 hours in the year that I deal with diabetes and I see my doctor for only one of those 8,760 hours.

Even though I like the endo I see now, I just don't think she, or any doc, can have a great effect on my D life. A lot of the panelists I heard this morning mentioned that they really like their doctors. They used the "team" terminology quite a bit when referring to their doctors.

The reality of D is that you make most of your day-to-day decisions on your own. I'm very grateful for the peer-to-peer social community that we participate in here, however. It's strange, and fitting, that most doctors look askance at social media and the role it plays with supporting chronic disease states like diabetes.

I liked the webinar conference and I would attend again.

Thanks Terry. :)

Hi Dave! Hi Terry!

Thanks SO MUCH for taking time out of your day to tune in - I really appreciate it!

I'm glad to hear that you both found some value from it and enjoyed it. And I also really value your thoughts on the parts that didn't sit so well with you, which we'll make sure to address next time.

You're right about the questions, Terry, they were coming in fast & furious and I was only able to actually ask a tiny portion of what we received. I feel bad about that, but am not sure what we could have done - maybe add another hour to each panel for Q&A? :-)

Please don't hesitate to let me know if anything else comes to mind.

Thanks again, guys!

Scott - I appreciate the time and energy that you put into the webinar. Perhaps you could hold it to one panel, three times per year. And then leave more time for the Q&A. Just a thought!

If 500 people attended, then you've obviously tapped into some serious unmet demand. Good luck!

That's a great idea, Terry. We're learning more and more each time we do this, so we'll see what we can make happen.

Thanks again!

I'm so sorry I missed it, Scott. Have been a little under the weather. Feeling better now---is it archived anywhere accessible?

No apologies necessary! I hope you're starting to feel better.

Yes, it was recorded and we're hoping to get the videos online next week sometime. Great question!

Cool! I really want to go back and watch the first panel again, the Doctor gave so much advice that I couldn't take the notes fast enough. :)

Terry has a great idea. If nothing else, hold two panels ever 6 months or something like that. I would've sat through that first panel for 90 minutes to 2 hours, and then sat through an hour of questions. :)

I was unfortunately unable to see this live but I look forward to viewing the videos when they are posted. I have to comment on Jen Nash. She is Dr. Jen Nash and is a clinical psychologist and T1 herself since the age of 6. She is distinctly qualified to write a book about the mental aspect of diabetes. I've always felt that dealing with diabetes is 90% mental. I joined her site some time ago, she gives away a 57 page ebook on diabetes "de-stress." I also have her book "Diabetes and Wellbeing." If you truly are feeling depressed and stressed over your diabetes it is well worth the money.

$0.02

Just piling on to what was said above: given the high level of interest, more frequent and tightly focused sessions might make more sense when it comes to getting more questions addressed and topics explored in greater depth.

Thanks for sharing, Brian. I hope you'll let us know what you think once the videos are posted.

Thank you, David, that's great feedback and much appreciated!

To be realistic, though, any session that generates strong interest is likely to produce more questions than there is time for. That often happens here on tuD with our live videochats. You're always trying to strike a balance.

Awwweemmaan! I just saw that I missed the conference. I was really looking forward to attending it! I'll def check out the video of it!Can't wait!

Unfortunately I have to work, but sounds like it was good.

Perhaps a way to deal with the "more questions than we have time for" problem is to add a post to the video archive where the quests address some of the more interesting questions.

Thanks, Lex!

Thanks for the interest, Jim!

Just got some bad news about the recordings, folks, and wanted to let you all know right away. The video files are corrupt and unrecoverable. We worked very closely with the support folks from the software that was used, but they weren't able to recover any worthwhile footage.

I'm terribly sorry.