Feel like you've got more to give your diabetic patients?
Let's change that today.
Do you like nursing diabetic patients but feel confused by how diabetes actually works?
Do you feel confident caring for DKAs in the clinic - or are they a mix of too many CRI calculations and challenging ear prick blood glucose checks?
And do you feel like there’s more you could give these patients - or more skills you could use when caring for them?
If you answered yes to any of those, I totally get it.
I used to find diabetes a really confusing topic.
I never knew what the best thing to say to clients was.
I'd dread being asked a question in case I didn't know the answer.
At times I felt like I was following a hospital sheet, but not like I was really confident in the nursing decisions I was making for my patient.
Sound familiar?
If so, I’ve got some great news...
I am bringing you something brand new to help you nurse these patients confidently and learn a ton of new skills at the same time.
Introducing ‘Demystifying Diabetes’
A brand new webinar to help you know exactly how to treat and nurse diabetic cats and dogs.
Join me for a 90-minute session demystifying diabetes, where we’ll explore:
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How the endocrine pancreas is supposed to work, and what happens when it goes wrong
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How diabetes differs between cats and dogs, and why this is important in how we treat and nurse them, and in the advice we give our clients
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What signs we see in diabetic patients, the typical findings on their physical examination, and the conditions and lifestyle factors that can cause diabetes
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The common tests performed with diabetic patients, how to interpret them, and what they tell us
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The treatment options for diabetes and how they differ between cats and dogs - including the different insulins available, how to use new SGLT2 inhibitors for cats, what to feed your diabetic patient, and more
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How to monitor your patient’s response to treatment, including advanced monitoring options like continuous glucose monitoring and haemoglobin A1c monitoring
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How diabetic ketoacidosis occurs, and how we diagnose, treat and manage this diabetic emergency
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The nursing skills we can use when managing diabetic patients
We can do SO much more with our diabetic patients.
The skills we can use when nursing diabetics are near-endless. We just need to feel confident nursing them.
Let's look at what happens when we do...
Meet Cat
Who went from feeling like she didn't know enough about diabetes to run clinics, to now having 16+ diabetic patients that she sees regularly!
Cat and I began working together in May 2022, because she wanted to learn more about diabetes and develop a diabetic nursing service in her hospital.
Fast forward 2 years, and Cat is running a successful diabetic clinic, with 16+ patients referred to her by her vets.
Here's what she's done in that time:
➡️ Helped get many of her patients stable more quickly
➡️ Supported diabetic dogs and their families through cataract surgery
➡️ Helped get feline diabetics into remission
➡️ Collaborated with her local university hospital on diabetic research
➡️ Visited referral diabetic clinics to help improve her own diabetic nurse clinics
➡️ Performed a study with her vet on outcomes in dogs treated with different insulins
➡️ Written her first ever article for VN times on her experiences creating a diabetic nurse service!
Meet Alex
An RVN passionate about championing care for all his patients, with a special interest in diabetes.
Alex and Cat are affectionately known as 'Team Diabetes' inside of the Medical Nursing Academy. And like Cat, Alex wanted to improve the support given to diabetic patients in his practice.
So he set about doing just that, working with his vet team to get more involved in their care. He now:
➡️ Performs appointments to support clients with newly-diagnosed pets
➡️ Performs regular nurse appointments
➡️ Regularly places continuous glucose monitoring devices after introducing them into his hospital (and is busy gathering lots of data on their use)
➡️ Checks in on his patients regularly and is always providing support to them and their families, remotely or in the clinic
➡️ Manages DKA patients
➡️ Is developing protocols to help provide better care to diabetic inpatients, and support diabetics under anaesthesia.
Pictured above: Alex, Cat and Laura at the BSAVA Congress Diabetes day in March 2024.