Preparing to Present to An Outside Group

We are nearly finished for our November presentation to the group south of us. Their doctor has seen the outline and asked us to add the topic of prescription errors and maybe leave off the sleep apnea topic, as he would have a speaker for that. He was happy that Allen would be talking about the VA and those benefits, as several of his patients were veterans. He has asked us to arrive at 6:00 PM, as he wants to lengthen the meeting because of the topics we will be presenting.

A.J will be presenting about interventions, Allen will be presenting about the VA, Barry will be presenting about self-monitoring of blood glucose, Sue will be presenting about getting off medications, and I will cover the topic of prescription errors. My cousin will answer the questions she could not answer at the last meeting. Tim will operate the slide projector for all the presentations and Dr. Tom will answer a few questions that we may need help answering.

Dr. Tom has reviewed all of our topics and made a few suggestions to help us in our presentations. Dr. Tom asked Max to finish his topic on sleep apnea just in case and to come with the rest of us. Tim and Dr. Tom will be driving. My cousin will be driving alone. We will be attempting to keep our presentations under 15 minutes and allow 15 minutes for questions.

Today Tim received an email and forwarded it to the rest of us. The group will have about 35 members present and they are looking forward to our presentations. Dr. Tom has asked us to have some of the group we will be making a presentation to for our October meeting. We said no, because we wanted to welcome our new members and work with them during a meeting before exposing them to a meeting with other groups. We feel that it is important for them to get to know us and be able to ask questions in front of a smaller group.

Dr. Tom also informed us that Dr. Jay would not be discouraging our two groups, but he would not be promoting us. He said that he appreciated our honesty and that we did not dodge his questions. Dr. Tom did say that he was disappointed that we did say that we would not be favorable to doctors leading our groups. He continued that he told Dr. Jay that we encourage people to be testing their blood glucose levels more often than the ADA or the AACE. He told Dr. Jay that we encourage patients with diabetes to be tested for vitamin B12 and vitamin D, particularly those that had been on Metformin for several years.

He did ask if we had people with prediabetes in our groups. Dr. Tom said that each group only had at most one person with prediabetes. Dr. Tom did warn him that if he was not encouraging people to test or not giving out prescriptions for testing supplies, we would be opposing him and encouraging his patients to find another doctor. He said Dr. Jay was surprised by that, but said he was encouraging people to test and was requesting extra supplies for patients for at least six months even including the prediabetes patients who could not receive reimbursement. Dr. Tom did say that he was encouraging people to shop around for the testing supplies, but had found that the most reliable and least expensive was the Relion meter and test strips. He also suggests the Relion Prime and that people check Amazon for prices.