‘What was your favourite thing about ADA?’

I’ve been asked this question a few times now since returning from San Diego. And even though the meeting was so busy, with a lot of super interesting information being shared, it was actually an easy question for me to answer.

‘Language’, I answer without hesitating. ‘Specifically, that language was on the agenda at the meeting for the first time.’

On Sunday, there was a whole session dedicated to language in diabetes: ADA – AADE Joint Consensus Statement on the Use of Language in Diabetes. I attended eagerly because, of course, #LanguageMatters is my thing. It’s also the ‘thing’ of others far smarter than me, including these two women who let me sit with them and jump up and down like an excited puppy:


Professor Jane Speight led the development of the Diabetes Australia Language Position Statement, and Ann Morris, last year’s Australia Diabetes Educator of the Year, has been a champion of people with diabetes for a very long time.

There were some highlights in the language session for me, particularly from the first speaker, Dr Jane Dickinson. Jane recently wrote about a piece for Diabetes Spectrum about the effect of language on diabetes. She has type 1 diabetes herself and is a CDE, and her presentation was peppered with personal experiences of the role of language in diabetes care. (You can read more from Jane via her blog here.)

One particular comment Jane made really highlighted the rock and hard place between which PWD often find ourselves:

Susan Guzman was the second speaker and she pointed out that words not only affect the person with diabetes, but also create a bias for people working with us. The second that a PWD is described as ‘non-compliant’, ‘uncontrolled’ or that they ‘don’t care’, HCPs feel differently about the person. Appropriate language use isn’t important only for the person living with diabetes. It also matters if we want those working with us to treat us respectfully.

The final speaker was Melinda Maryniuk, CDE, from the Joslin Center and she spoke about the ADA-AADE Language Consensus Statement, and the five guiding principles that form the basis of the document as captured in this tweet from @MarkHarmel:

It’s not surprising that I was excited that this session was on the program. It was the first event I added to my calendar and I rearranged meetings to ensure that I didn’t miss it.

But I left wanting more.  A lot more. And tomorrow, I’ll write about why.