Two UMass Chan Medical Students Created an Elective Course Teaching In-Depth Diabetes Management and Care
Date Posted: Tuesday, March 08, 2022
Two third year medical students, Emilee Herringshaw and Ben Palleiko worked together with the UMass Diabetes Center of Excellence to launch an elective course called Management and Care of Patients with Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes. The course is available to UMass Chan's T.H. Chan School of Medicine, Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing and Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences students. Emilee has experienced the benefits of the Diabetes Center of Excellence firsthand, as a patient who has been managing Type 1 diabetes for more than 25 years. Together, Emilee and Ben wanted to share more about diabetes management and the evolving needs of patient populations living with diabetes.
The course is broadly applicable to any field of medicine the students may choose because they will certainly care for people with diabetes.
“Medical school students acquire a basic science understanding of diabetes pathophysiology but are not exposed to the nuances and complexity of diabetes care delivery, especially in the pre-clinical years,” said Herringshaw. “We developed this course to enhance the understanding of diabetes management and the many elements that impact its care.”
Faculty from the adult and pediatric care teams and researchers from the UMass Diabetes Center of Excellence were among the guest lecturers during the initial semester that the course was offered. They encouraged students to become active thinkers, problem solvers, innovators and advocates in addressing continuously evolving needs of the rapidly growing diabetes population.
Dr. Samir Malkani, Clinical Chief of the Division of Endocrinology & Diabetes at UMass Memorial Health and UMass Chan Medical School presented “Diabetes and Management in Primary Care, with Co-Occuring Conditions.” Pediatric Endocrinologist, Amy Darukhanavala discussed “Diabetes in Children” and Diabetes Educator Cheryl Barry let the students know about The Latest Blood Glucose Management Technology.
Four patients living with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, including two UMass Diabetes Wall of Honor success stories, former U.S. Olympic figure skater Kitty Carruthers and UMass Diabetes Center of Excellence (DCOE) research scientist David Blodgett, PhD, spoke about their experiences during one of the sessions.
Type 1 diabetes researcher, Michael Brehm, PhD, explained the cutting-edge research his lab is conducting at UMass Chan. For him it’s personal, because he also has T1D.
UMass DCOE co-director Dr. David Harlan spoke about “Transplant Approaches to Diabetes” including stem cell-derived beta cells and microencapsulation devices to protect those insulin-producing cells from the autoimmune attack that occurs in people living with T1D.
Among the other topics, Endocrinology Fellow Dr. Prateek Shukla presented “Quality Metrics for Diabetes Healthcare Delivery.”
Emilee knows all too well the frustrations of navigating the health care system as a patient. She credits her family, friends and care team for supporting her. She plans to provide care and support to her future patients as a physician but meanwhile she and Ben have created a curriculum that will help other future physicians and nurses become more educated about diabetes management and care.
Feedback from UMass Chan Medical School Students
"I’ve learned more about the daily diabetes management that people with Type 1 and Type 2 must adhere to and the amount of self-advocacy and education that a diabetic patient requires. It has also provided me with knowledge about technology which will help me understand and care for my future diabetes patients.”
"I was especially interested in learning that things like exercise can sometimes negatively impact blood sugar. Diabetes is full time job. This course has given me a greater appreciation for the time and effort that goes into managing diabetes. I think it will make me a more compassionate physician that to support my patients."
This class provided me with knowledge of a common pathology that I did not realize how little I knew about! Not only must everything be monitored in diabetes management, but activity effects everyone differently. There is not a template for adjusting your blood sugar based on what you do because it's different for everyone. I learned that my patients will struggle with this concept every single day, with "no days off." It opened my eyes to the mental impact of diabetes but also fueled my fire to better understand how I can help guide and advocate for my patients. This class highlighted the value of being a lifelong learner as a physician to better serve your patients. Diabetes is not only a growing pathology but the science and technology is growing too as we learn and discover more about it."
"Diabetes is such a complex yet common disease and we just begin to scratch the surface in first year classes. I'm grateful for this foundation of knowledge, from the basic science to transplant approaches to nutrition, etc., that I learned in this elective. One of the physicians told us that no matter what specialty we go into, we will work with patients with diabetes. I am particularly interested in working with pediatric patients, so I really enjoyed Dr. Darukhanavala's talk about working with both the children and the parents."
"I found this course to be very enriching as someone who hopes to work with children and with preventive/lifestyle-based medicine. It gave a broad look into perhaps the largest preventable/lifestyle-modifiable threat that exists to children's health. Dr. Darukhanavala's lecture about the specific care of pediatric diabetes not only from a medical but a psychological and social standpoint really stuck with me and will definitely shape how I approach this sort of care and what considerations I take into account. Specifically, building a care plan to truly help quality of life, not simply from a medical (i.e. lab-value) perspective will be a big part of my practice. Other speakers provided a great window into the multitude of emerging options for treatment and how they may improve quality of life for diabetic patients. Having this framework to better evaluate diabetes will allow me to take a better look at all available treatment & care to come up with the best plan to monitor and treat my patients."
"This course gave me a lot more context as to who diabetes affects, the research that's been done to help patients manage this condition, and avenues for future research in the field. I don’t have any family with diabetes so most of what I know about diabetes has learned from medical school lectures. This course helped to widen my perspective. I especially appreciated the lecture about diabetes in OBGYN. The doctor stressed the emotional and mental toll diabetes can take during pregnancy and how she makes sure patients understand that negative outcomes are not their fault. That was valuable to hear as medical students. I learned valuable lessons from every session and I’m grateful for the opportunity to have taken this class."
I enjoyed all of the sessions but especially the panel of patients who spoke about their experiences. As a provider, understanding that living with diabetes is a 24/7 full-time job for the patient will help me tailor how I approach our visits and our care plans, keeping their lifestyle and barriers in mind. Instead of making the patient feel at a disadvantage, I can be their advocate to help them make their day-to-day feel more manageable and stable so they can enjoy life, working with diabetes instead of against it."