Читать книгу 1,000 Years of Diabetes Wisdom - David G. Marrero - Страница 5

This book is a collection of stories told by health care professionals about special experiences that transformed how they regard their work in diabetes. Why stories? Stories are a powerful way to teach and to learn. In fact, storytelling is one of the oldest forms of education. Throughout history, listening to stories has provided us with a way to connect the actions and experiences of others to use in our own lives.

Through stories that we share, we make our own memories and experiences available to others. Stories can make empathetic connections, helping us to more closely identify with others who share our world, yet are exposed to different forces that influence how they move through it. This is an essential ingredient for helping others to develop strategies to transform their lives so they can effectively adapt to a chronic illness. Stories can also help us clarify and examine our value system. Storytelling is central to the expression of the human condition. Without stories to give us a sense of connectedness to the earth and its inhabitants, we would be stripped of the awareness of who and what we are.

The stories told here were collected from a wide range of health care professionals who work in diabetes. Many of them are well known, and others less so, but they all share with us stories of memorable experiences that helped to shape how they viewed themselves, diabetes care, and their patients.

We invite you to share in their stories and in doing so we hope that you will reflect upon the relationships you have with your patients and the ways in which you relate to them. We hope that you too can relate their experiences to your own practice and hopefully gain a better understanding of the way in which our patients shape and enrich our lives.

We spend years acquiring the knowledge to be experts, problem solvers, and teachers so that we can help our patients. We are committed to helping the patients who come to us with problems they cannot solve on their own. Our ability to help others is a source of pride and satisfaction, however, if we listen, really listen, to our patients, we may discover that they are also experts, problem solvers, and teachers. If we allow our patients to also be our teachers, we may someday realize that although we began with knowledge, we ended up with wisdom.

David G. Marrero, PhD

Robert Anderson, EdD

Martha M. Funnell, MS, RN, CDE

Melinda D. Maryniuk, MEd, RD, CDE