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I recently attended the national Canadian Diabetes Association (CDA) conference in Toronto. The conference was attended by a host of professionals and lay people from various walks of life, but family physicians were not well represented. Where were my fellow family physicians with a special interest in diabetes management?
At conferences and continuing medical education events, speakers often make disparaging remarks about mistakes or oversights by family physicians. Everybody seems to be busy compiling treatment guidelines to get those overworked and rusty old family physicians back in line.
I believe that family physicians with a special interest in caring for patients with diabetes mellitus should create a separate group under the auspices of the CDA. The group would hold its own meetings where members could share their knowledge and experience, participate in continuing medical education, share their research findings in a constructive environment and set standards of care for family practice that we can all strive to meet. Such a group could also lobby on behalf of family practitioners for better remuneration for time spent in attending to patients with diabetes. Attendance at the CDA conference and at the meetings of the family physicians' group would be requirements of membership in the “club,” with advantages, such as increased renumeration, flowing back to the members of the group. As family physicians we must take control once again of the ongoing care of our patients with diabetes. I welcome responses to this proposal (drsnyman2003{at}yahoo.com).