There’s this neat little feature enabled on Amy’s blog that allows you to click on the person’s name and go to their website. You should try it.

I have always been open as to my motivations and it is important for me to promote technologies and programs (both mine and others) that don’t always get referenced like they should.

Next time you post it would be great if you would use the disclosure feature that I use by posting your name and making sure that you also add your website address or some other way of disclosing who you are.

Full disclosure, respect and accurate reporting are critical to the health and wellness of the online diabetes community.

(see the posted by: Kevin? – go ahead and try it out.)

The way his posts are written seemed to make me think he was a “surprised” person by what the company is doing, but he’s the guy who runs the operations.

It’s a great idea, and I’m sure it will help thousands of parents, and he went through the difficult rounds of getting FDA approval. But he should at least disclose what he’s up to.

I remain wary of telemedicine in general, after having worked in the medical field for 6 years. However I have not yet begun my clinical rotations, so perhaps my ideas will change as I begin to take care of patients myself. All that I’ve been taught, however, says that face-to-face encounters with patients are crucial to proper diagnosis and care.

As for the dearth of endocrinologists, there is no shortage of people trying to get into medical school. I speak from experience. The year I applied was insanely competitive. Maybe we need to open up more seats in medical school classes around the country, to increase the diversity of specialties chosen by graduating classes.

Sounds good, anyway…

…

Just in case you were curious like I was about what Gary Scheiner (CDE) is doing, he has a website that does a very good job of explaining it located here:

http://www.integrateddiabetes.com/index.shtml

Further, there are fewer people entering medicine today and drastically fewer entering the field of diabetes care including endocrinologists specializing in diabetes let alone pediatric diabetes. There is no alternative but to leverage technology to allow increased access for patients with diabetes to a rare specialist.

In general I don’t believe that the State of Texas is any more under served than any other State. However, at the largest diabetes summer camp in the country, which happens to be located in Texas, approximately 50% of the kids attending are seen by their pediatrician and not by a knowledgeable endocrinologist.

Let’s take steps now to improve access to passionate, experienced and highly skilled specialists today vs. lobbying med students and trying to convince them to enter a specialty which pays poorly compared to their alternatives.

To cite a personal example, my brother was diagnosed with type 1 as a child. He was very, very sick for days and my mom was communicating with his pediatrician over the phone. My brother had no fever but he was lethargic, nauseated, and listless (no doubt because my mom kept giving him juice and Gatorade, skyrocketing his BG). The pediatrician wasn’t alarmed. Once we dragged my brother to the doctor (he was barely conscious), the medical personnel knew within five seconds what was wrong with him. The fruity breath was a giveaway for DKA. There’s just no substitute for an in-person visit, even for routine care. (And I say this as someone who HATES going to doctors myself. I saw an endo once to have my T1 diagnosis confirmed, and didn’t go back for 8 months.)

I know there are underserved areas where telemedicine is useful, but I think the focus has to be on serving those areas by getting more doctors and specialists out there, not doing everything by phone and internet.