Earlier this week, Professors Jane Speight (ACBRD) and Frans Pouwer (Southern Denmark University) published a blog post on the ACBRD site, with their wrap up of EASD, specifically, the lack of psychosocial sessions at the conference. In the piece, Jane and Frans quite rightly say:

‘Psychology is not an optional extra. If diabetes care is the seat of a three-legged stool, then it is supported by three legs: psychology/education, treatment/technology and complications screening. It seems ironic that so much funding, resource and effort is put into strengthening and promoting the treatment/technology and complications ‘legs’, while the psychology/education ‘leg’ remains short and weak.’

EASD is the largest diabetes meeting on the calendar this year. It draws a truly international audience, with healthcare professionals and researchers from all disciplines. It is possible to speak with endocrinologists, diabetes educators, allied health professionals, general practitioners, psychologists, and researchers from all spheres of the diabetes care spectrum.

And yet, it is undeniable that the conference has a true clinical focus, almost forgetting that diabetes does not only impact specific parts of the body (so, so much about the ‘diabetic foot’!) but the whole person (absolutely not enough on the ‘diabetic mind’!).

I am not for a moment saying that the scientific and clinical elements of diabetes should be removed from a diabetes conference, or that they are not important. But I am saying that by demonstrating ONLY this aspect of diabetes, the picture presented is very, very incomplete.

I have written before that this is a frustration of mine at EASD, along with the continued lack of ‘patient representation’ on the conference program. It astounds me that there are no advocates on the official program, giving the ‘lived experience’ standpoint to what is being discussed. With hours and hours of sessions focusing on complications, how valuable it would be to have a PWD who is living with complications standing up there to give a little perspective to all the science. And a psychologist to speak about how complications affect far more than the part of the body that has become…well, complicated.

I urge the organisers and program committee to step up, and find a way to fill in the gaps and start to present a far fuller and more complete picture of diabetes.

While this would involve including more focus on the behavioural side of diabetes with the relevant professionals on the program, it must also mean including PWD into the program – in a meaningful way. If it is too much of a leap to include PWD alongside HCPs in the scientific program, introduce a Living with Diabetes Stream as the IDF has done in their last four World Congresses. It can be done. It can be done well. (And I say that with full disclosure that I am leading the stream at the 2019 Congress and was deputy lead for the 2017 Congress, and spoke at the 2015 Congress in the LWD stream.)

The thing is, it would actually be very, very simple to include PWD in the EASD program because we are already there. This year in Berlin marked the seventh EASD conference I have been fortunate to attend. I have always gone because of satellite events designed specifically for PWD. Initially, these were run by Johnson & Johnson, and more recently Roche, who has taken the ‘patient engagement’ to a new level, running events with up to seventy bloggers. That’s seventy people who have a story to share about their own diabetes experiences.

And I know that many of those seventy people would want to talk about all aspects of living with diabetes, including the psychosocial impacts.

As a leading annual diabetes meeting, EASD could be better. It ticks a lot of boxes. But it could, quite easily, tick a whole lot more by being far more wholistic in its approach. Focus more on the behavioural side of diabetes. And have PWD front and centre where we belong. After all, we’re the ones all this information and research is meant to be benefitting.

DISCLOSURE

Roche Diabetes Care (Global) covered my (economy) travel and accommodation costs to attend their #DiabetesMeetup Blogger event at #EASD2018 and present at their media event the day before EASD. Roche Diabetes Care also assisted with providing me press registration to attend all areas of the EASD meeting. As always, my agreement to attend their blogger day and participate in their media event does not include any commitment from me, or expectation from them, to write about the company, the events or their products. 

With Jane Speight at EASD in Berlin.