standard amount of education hours for new onset pediatric diabetes

[kidsrnluvs2sew]

hello all,

i am a pediatric rn, diabetes nurse educator. i educate our families when they are inpatient as new onset

and on a continuing outpatient basis in the clinic. our new onsets spend 3 days inpatient to learn and practice.

they receive education from myself, our pediatric nutritionist who is also a cde, and reinforcment from their peds floor nurses.

i have a question for any of you who give diabetes education to new onset pediatric patients

either inpatient or as an outpatient. how many hours of education do your families receive? from the

dietician? from the nurse/ cde educator? to learn the basic skills they need for safe discharge?

thanks in advance for your input!

kidsrn

[Klimpys]

I am just a student so I can't give you input from that viewpoint. However, I am the mother of a Type 1 diabetic who was diagnosed last year. What you described sounds like what we went through at the hospital. The cde also had us watch videos in the hospital that were somewhat helpful. All in all, I think there is a balance between giving patients enough info so they can keep their kid alive when the get home, versus giving them too much info and they won't want to leave the hospital! The first weeks are a mess! No matter how much training you get, Type 1 diabetes is a roller coaster.

[mmc51264, BSN, MSN, RN]

I am a student and a mother of a Type 1. Our local JDRF chapter was really involved with the transition from hospital to home. We had hands-on training with the nurse at the hospital, the dietitian met with us a couple of times and we went for CDE through the hospital's D education program. Very intensive. They also offer advanced pumping, etc. It will be 6 years that ds was dx and we still struggle daily. Overall, I would say that we had 8+ hours of training before we left the hospital (combined) and we are still being taught.

This may not affect you, but I am concerned about those dx late. We went the eye doctor the other day and the eyeglass tech was newly dx at age 28. NO idea about pumps, drove to work, didn't feel well and discovered his BS was 38!!!! Scary.

I am hopefully headed for your kind of position. I feel so strongly about D education. There needs to be more for T2 as well. I am a senior student and I still don't understand the rationale behind some of the things I see in the hospital regarding T2.

Sorry I went down a bit of a rabbit trail!!

[CDEWannaBe]

mmc51264-

After reading online posts from newly diagnosed T2 I too became inspired to become a diabetes educator. It shocks me how little information newly diagnosed diabetics are given. Some are prescribed insulin and not told about low blood sugars!

I've had type 1 for over 30 years and continue to learn more about diabetes and D management. With diabetes, knowledge is power. Good luck in your future endeavors.

CDEWannaBe