Today I was asked to teach a high school student who attends a healthcare track program at her school. The purpose was to provide her with an overview of what I do so that she can better decide if she should pursue a career in healthcare. Because she was HIPAA cleared to learn more about the patients, I decided to 'work through' the chart of a patient that had popped upon my list.
As I went through the chart and was showing her how I use the EMR, we looked at the H & P, past visits, outpatient visits, prior to admission meds, current meds and dosages, looked for meds that would contribute to hyper or hypoglycemia, facesheet review for all of the social and insurance information and so so so much more...I suddenly had an Aha! moment. What I thought might be a good way to explain to her about the role of the Diabetes Care and Education Specialist is to describe the role as akin to an orchestra conductor who also performs on his/her own instrument. Our role is to know each part of the healthcare team, to look at everyone's timing, check if there are any missing instruments and be sure everyone knows their music. We are the ones who know if the music blends together in just the right way and then to integrate our instrument in order to create a beautiful piece.
So, from now on, I think that is is a great way to think about what I do and how valuable our profession is to healthcare. Without our conducting, we would not have a great performance and other members of the healthcare orchestra may not find the same level of direction. I like our new name and I hope that other members of the healthcare community will continue to enjoy the beautiful music we help to create for our patients and our patient populations.