Welcome, new Internal Medicine interns! We’ll quickly go through what’s expected from you for Journal Club this upcoming academic year. It’s gonna be a blast, I promise.

What do CHWs and Home Visitors need to know about diabetes in pregnancy?

• What is gestational diabetes

• Identifying risk factors

• Early identification

• Risk of developing type 2 diabetes after pregnancy

I’ll be moderating this meeting, and doing two sessions from 12:30-2:00 on pharmacist-physician collaboration around diabetes care with a special emphasis on gut health.

I’ll be talking about thyroid disease with members of the Kansas Academy of Family Physicians

Depending on feedback I get ahead of time, I think we’ll talk about:

• Adrenal nodules

• Adrenal insufficiency

• Non-classic congenital adrenal hyperplasia

• Assessment of adrenal function (that is, ruling out Cushing’s or adrenal insufficiency)

The focus will be very bedside-oriented, with just enough molecular biology and whatnot to make the clinical points make sense.

Learn how the prevention and management of diabetes not only improves quality of life for your employees, but saves your bottom line.

Diabetes and its complications are the first- or second-most expensive disease state in American health care. Many cases of diabetes are preventable, and proper management of diabetes can make a profound impact for those who are living with the condition.

Join us as we explore ways to detect pre-diabetes, prevent progression to “full blown” diabetes, and provide more effective treatments for people with diabetes.

Learning objectives for this program are:

• Learn why diabetes should be top of mind for employers.

• Discuss solutions to address the issue.

• Share information on resources and local programs available to employers.

This program is being offering in partnership with the Health & Wellness Coalition of Wichita.

We’ll talk about:

Screening for binge-eating disorder

The Diabetes Prevention Program

Diabetes Self-Management Education and Support

Fiber supplementation

The NOVA food classification system

Intensive Behavioral Therapy

and other topics!

I’ll be talking with the KU-Wichita Internal Medicine residents about management of common inpatient endocrine emergencies like thyroid storm, adrenal crisis, and DKA.

The talk so nice, I’m doing it twice, this time geared toward family medicine docs and prenatal care.

The Diabetes Prevention Program reduces the risk of progressing from pre-diabetes to type 2 diabetes by ~58%. How does it stack up against other interventions like metformin, GLP-1 agents, and other lifestyle interventions?

We’re still working on this one, but I think we’ll probably cover treatment goals for elderly folks with diabetes, avoiding overtreatment/polypharmacy, and initiating insulin safely.

What makes American health care so expensive?

A patient arrives in clinic with a blood glucose of 600 mg/dl and mild ketonuria. What do you do? We’ll talk about it.

This is a redux of my talk at the KU Winter Symposium in 2021. I’ve updated the slideset to include more recent studies on dietary strategies that meet our highest standards of evidence. Examples are fiber supplementation, the Mediterranean diet for cardiovascular risk reduction, less-processed foods for weight reduction, and others.

Dr. Anne Meis and I will be talking about screening (including early screening), management, and post-partum management of gestational diabetes. We’ll include some data from a clinic where we’ve worked on quality improvement around gestational diabetes detection.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, social isolation was a growing public health problem. We will discuss strategies for mitigating isolation in the era of remote work.

Let’s talk about all the reasons we should be careful with newfangled hormonal therapies in menopause.

How can pharmacists and physicians more closely collaborate to provide high-quality diabetes care?

Your company might benefit from covering the Diabetes Prevention Program as a benefit. Valery Sokol and I will talk about it.

We live in a constant churn of diet information. What will we still believe in ten years? Let’s sort through the data to see what has staying power.

The Kansas Business Group on Health is partnering with the Health & Wellness Coalition of Wichita to offer an educational session on social determinants of health. We will discuss what social determinants of health are, and also look at how they can impact a person's health in the context of a medical setting, a community setting, and an employer setting.

This program is free to all.

I’m thrilled to talk to the membership of the Kansas Business Group on Health about the various forces that have caused American health care to be the most expensive in the world, while delivering mostly mediocre outcomes. By the time I finish this talk I hope that folks can:

• Understand that increased health care expenditures are not associated with improved outcomes

• Outline the possible societal benefits of excess health spending

• List the three dominant sources of excess cost in American health care

• Consider potential strategies to reduce health care spending while maintaining or improving outcomes

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a transition to telemedicine in the United States. The practice of telemedicine highlights that medicine is by nature a team-based activity. Community health workers are a vital part of this team. In this presentation we'll go over the basics of delivering telemedicine, including the role of community health workers. 

We’re rapidly transitioning toward more care delivery via telemedicine. How is endocrine care different via telemedicine than it is in person?

We’ll also talk about prioritizing care during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, does your patient really need that TSH level today, or can it wait until the pandemic cools down?