Internists Blow It in Choosing Wisely

I will attempt to stay away from ranting, but this Medscape article did get me going and I will never understand why the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) chose to make this choice. I can only guess they want to keep the diabetes epidemic in full out advancement.


I know from David Mendosa and his blog here that most doctors believe that diabetes is progressive. This is their shame then and they deserve being told this. I know that diabetes can be halted and kept at bay for many years. Each person is different in their abilities, but for the SGIM to take this stance, means that I no longer have faith in their side of the practice. I will say that having a diabetes clinic for my diabetes and being on insulin does make a difference for me.


I just feel very sad for the other diabetes patients on oral medications because of what they will face in the days and months ahead by being kept in the dark about their blood glucose levels. They will not be taught about self-monitoring of their blood glucose and what the readings mean. They will not be able to obtain testing supplies to have any guidance for managing their diabetes.


This means that diabetes will become progressive for them and they will have no knowledge of how they are doing to even manage diabetes. The complications will develop more quickly and become worse quicker. They will probably spend more time in the hospital and help elevate the medical costs everyone is trying to reduce. This is a sad day for people with diabetes.


We in the diabetes online community can only hope and pray that many will come to the internet to learn about diabetes and see some of these blogs and wonder why they are not being told to test. I know that I will continue to promote testing, encourage veterans to apply for assistance from the Veteran Affairs, and be able to learn about testing and test.


Several of my fellow type 2's in our peer-to-peer support group are now emailing me to find out what is going on and they have scheduled a meeting for this Saturday. As of the last email, we now have four support groups that are planning to attend plus two doctors. The room has been reserved to accommodate everyone and this may be quite a discussion. Makes me happy that my blog here got everyone alerted to what is happening.


Tim and I have been in conversation about this and the otherMedscape article here that I have not finished my blog on.