independent teaching(not diabetic)

[Agnus]

I have this dream. I want to teach.

There is a diabetic educator already established in a neighboring town and this area is not able to support two such educators.

I know that diabetic education is funded. But I know of no other education that is funded.

There are the usual array or birth educators.

I want to offer teaching that is unique not dupilcative. My background is in Adult Critical Care. I love kids. Just couldn't get into peids or neonate in this geo. area.

I live in the poorest community, in the poorest county in the state. Education level is very low. More dropouts than graduates. MANY grandmothers are in thier EARLY 30s!!

There is a state funded program that is represented in this town for pregnant moms through the 1st year. They have an RN on staff and have cut funding for home visits.

We have lots or seniors.

The community health nurse (State) is heavily utilized. She tells me that people do not want to learn to take care of themselves. There is much validity in this statement. A couple years ago as a student I asked her about doing community wide classes. They tried this. No takers.

I am an optimist. I think it could be done. But again unlike her I would not have an employer paying me I need to get my own funding.

I would even consider teaming with other RNs or professionals in other locals to travel and do seminars and speaking engagements.

There is no company that I know of that does this specific to health maintenance for the general public. There are those that offer programs to professionals.

Any one share this, or already doing this, or working on doing it? Anyone have answeres to how to go about it?

Any insights greatly appreciated.

[Erin RN]

HI

This sounds similar to the disease management job I was in as far as the education component. The philosophy was the RN educates the pt how to keep the illness (chronic) under control which leads to both cost savings and better pt outcomes. Unfortunatly, I was working for a huge corp and working exclusively with medicaid pts. I had a list of 125 pts which I followed monthly. The number was undoable and the program, in my opinion, did not work. By the time I left I was convinced it was only about the money and that my data was being scewed to reflect cost savings that were not really occurring. I do believe the concept could work though. I educated pts on Diabetes, Asthma, and Heart Failure based on the national guidelines. I am wondering if any large MD offices or clinics would be interested in having a contract RN to do something similar? Anyways, just a thought....Erin