#ADA2012 Philadelphia: The City of Diabetes Love

I believe that the patient perspective is important when it comes to diabetes, and disease or illness for that matter. That’s one of the reasons we all blog, leave comments or lurk in the Diabetes On-Line Community.   

Blogging allows us to share our experiences and point of view with others in the diabetes arena, including other patients with faulty pancreases, type 3’s and others in the world of diabetes like Doctors, Clinicians and Pharma.. 

The American Diabetes Association 72nd Annual Scientific Sessions begins on Friday June 8th in my neck of the woods, And "The City of Brotherly Love"  (Philadelphia, PA,)  will become "The City of Diabetes Love!" 
And I’m very happy to say that I’ll be attending those sessions and will be tweeting, vlogging, blogging and just trying to take it all in.

Now here’s the disclosure part:  When I found out ADA was going to be in Philly, the folks at Roche and I chatted and together we decided that having a patient point of view was not important, but was necessary. So I’ll be as acting their  

“ Special Guest Social Media Correspondent” (they came up with that fancy title btw,) and I'll be tweeting from both my twitter account and Roche’s @accuchek_us twitter feed and updating their Accu-Check US Facebook account and my own. 

All tweets and statuses on the accounts listed pn the above Roche accounts and ending with “k2” will be 110% my thoughts, and no one else’s. And I'll be posting daily recap vlogs at: accu-chekdiabeteslink.com. 


All the while I’ll be updating  Diabtetesaliciousness on a daily basis with all types of ADA happenings! 

Disclosure: Roche is covering my expenses and paying me a small honorarium and I appreciate that very much. 

With that being said, you know me well enough to know that I’m not shy about telling you or anyone else for that matter what I think and how I feel and ALL thoughts expressed via the the various forms of Social Media Outlets ending in “k2” will be from my great brain only. Any thoughts sans the "k2" won't be from me. 

I’m happy for the opportunity and I believe that attending the sessions will give me (and by me I mean all of us,) all types of useful diabetes information and a perspective on the clinical, scientific and personal side of the thousands of diabetes healthcare professionals in attendance. 

And on the flip side, I think having patients (I’m not the only blogger attending from the DOC , And I know I've most like left a few people out - My apologies in advance) helps remind diabetes clinicians that patients are people, not just numbers, case studies or graphics on a chart.  


Seriously, we are so much more than that! We are very real people with very real wants and needs whose lives depend on medical and technological advances in diabetes.  And as people living with diabetes we have no choice but to take an active part in our disease because our day to day treatment and care is in our hands.  Diabetes clinicians act as are our partners and pit crew regarding our our diabetes care.
And together we MUST stay continually informed about the latest and greatest  in the diabetes world - Diabetes knowledge not only equals power, but it also equals diabetes ownership - And I'm all for that! 

Here’s a tentative schedule of what sessions I hope to cover and you can all the ADA 4-1-1 by following the hashtag: #ADA2012 on the twitter. 

Guys, please post any and all questions on this blog that you’d like me to ask or inquire about and I’ll do my absolute best to do just that!   
Also, if you happen to be in town and or attending the sessions, let's try and meet- up!