Week 3: Communicating with Diabetes Patients

Welcome back to my Week 3 Senior Blog, everyone! This week, I was able to sync my circadian rhythm with my night shifts and experience the productivity that many healthcare workers experience at night!

Throughout this week, I continued to put my educational sessions in action and hold them with patients coming into the E.R. With my most recent patient, I learned to convey the material to them in a different way than I had originally planned while making my educational material. Understanding that many patients often have language barriers and may be unable to pick up a pen to fill out the comprehension questions, I decided to verbally read my comprehension questions, taking my time for each question. With each question, I used my hands to act out the questions, used my facial expressions to illustrate the tone of the question, and read each option out in a comprehensible manner. With this new method, I was able to have the patient fill out the comprehension questions in a way both of us could understand and communicate. 

In addition to my E.R. shifts, I worked asynchronously on the survey to be given to patients as a follow-up to their visits to the E.R. Working in the E.R. has proven to be quite rewarding and inspiring, meeting multiple healthcare workers, from E.R. technicians to ICU physicians. With the advice given to me as an aspiring physician, I have began to look at life in a different way and understand the unique experiences of healthcare workers, such as facing the death of their first patient and their strong sense of clinical ethics. 

This week has taught me the value of patience and connecting with patients despite having communication barriers. With this practice, I look forward in the coming weeks to working in the outpatient diabetes center to learn and implement teaching techniques that certified diabetes educators use. 

That’s all for this week, keep calm and LEARN on!