Recharge and Renew Your Mind and Spirit
Mar 7, 2016, 10:57 AM
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hhh Spring! A time of renewal—new leaves on the trees. New flowers emerge after their long winter's nap. New baby animals frolicking in the warm sunshine.
Time for us to think about our own renewal of body, mind and spirit. New Year’s resolutions have most likely either faded away or are now a part of our daily lives so time to move forward with new opportunities and challenges. Time to rethink our activities for the new season, and to consider how we can renew our minds and spirits, especially when it comes to our lives’ work.
In this busy, hectic, challenging, sometimes frustrating work-day world (did I catch all the correct emotions? I am sure you might be able to add a few more) we need to take time to recharge our battery as Cathy Feste, CDE would say. What better way than to start making plans to attend AADE16?
Work is well under way to make AADE16 a great source of renewal. Educational tracks include: improving proficiency in delivering diabetes care and education to our clients, enhancing our expertise in helping our clients in making those much needed lifestyle behavior changes and promoting the use of technologies to stay connected with our patients to improve care and be cost-effective in this competitive world.
There will be sessions to help the new educators to build new knowledge and skills as well as something for the more mature educators to advance their understanding of the disease process in providing service to clients. Or if you decide that you are ready to consider a new challenge, there will be sessions on how to develop and manage your own business. Check out all the great sessions.
I have attended quite a few AADE conferences over the past 32 years of being a diabetes educator. I got lucky the year I started in diabetes education as the 9th Annual Meeting was held in my home town of San Antonio.
Back then there were very few RNs/RDs who specifically provided only diabetes education as it was considered part of our general nursing/dietary duties. After making a few unsuccessful phone calls, a few colleagues and I took a day off and drove to each hospital in San Antonio to find the person who was considered the “diabetes champion” for the facility and encouraged them all to attend. That first meeting started my obsession with diabetes education and AADE. What a great group of motivated, passionate health care professionals.
No matter how long you have been in the business, you will still find something that can help with your daily work—be it new information from current research on pathophysiology or medications, a new product to make your and your patients’ lives easier, new technology (which is racing ahead of my ability to read, absorb and implement it all) or creative teaching techniques that others have developed—there will definitely be something that will recharge and renew your mind and spirit.
And not to forget a beautiful setting of San Diego—smack dab on the west coast, perfect weather and sunshine—another great way to recharge and renew.
Hopefully I will see you there!
About the Author
Barbara Walz is an RN, BSN and has been a certified diabetes educator since 1986. Since 2000, Barbara has coordinated a multi-site diabetes study examining the macro-vascular effects of diabetes at the South Texas Veterans’ Healthcare System under the supervision of Dr. Ralph DeFronzo.