Why I Want to Become a Certified Diabetes Educator

I want to study diabetes education because of every educator who helped me. I mean I don’t care about making money so much as I care about helping other people. If I can have full control over my diabetes, so many people will be inspired to follow this. Diabetes self-management is an interactive process with an educator who tells you what to do to fix various problems, such as my middle of the night high blood sugar at 2:00 AM, which means that I had an undocumented low blood sugar before 2:00 AM.

Fixing this is not a matter of raising a basal rate but rather lowering a basal rate and capturing the time I was actually low because I must have slept through the symptoms. I woke up at 6:45 AM today, which is a world record for sleeping in. Diabetes educators must figure out the specific educational needs of the individual as well as piece together the official goals that person will need to set. Educators must have an education and individual intervention about their diabetes management goals. The educator has to document all subsequent encounters and educators are found in different settings such as hospitals, doctor’s offices, clinics, home health and wellness programs.

Some could even be in business for themselves. The organization that certifies educators is the National Certification Board for Diabetes Educators (NCBDE). Certification must be done by a healthcare professional. This is something that can wait for me to get my M.S. in psychology. Professional practice with 1,000 hours of practical experience of diabetes self-management experience is necessary along with 40 percent of hours done in a recent year. Yes, this goal has to wait until I make more money for starters.

The CDE test is how you get your credential as a certified diabetes educator. There are other requirements besides the test. Licenses required to sit for the test include clinical psychologist, registered nurse/nurse practitioners, CNS, an occupational therapist, an optometrist, a pharmacist, a physical therapist, a physician, a podiatrist or a dietitian, health educators, physician’s assistants, and exercise physiologists. A social worker with a Master’s degree in social work is also a particular credential that a CDE can have. I need to get that law degree first, though. I can indefinitely live in Southern California if I could somehow afford on-campus housing at UCLA given that I have to apply to other schools as well.

I will have to read books like The Art and Science of Diabetes Management Self Management Education Desk Reference, Diabetes Education Review Guide, and Quick Guide To Medications. Whenever I see an educator, I’m able to do things a bit better for myself. They help me figure out problems I may not be able to figure out on my own but I could probably take the certification test in my sleep. I would like to take it someday once I get my Master’s degree in psychology. Diabetes can be a huge unknown to many people since for me it was.

My family could not conceive of the disorder happening to a child. They knew about type 2 since grandma was, but not a kid. It was beyond their frame of reference. Of course, it scared me to death. I mean, I didn’t know if I’d be alive 10 years later. Insulin does prolong your lifespan quite a bit. Or so I’ve found since I’ve been using it from the age of 10. My diabetes was not caught in time, so I was in a diabetic coma by the time it was diagnosed. Or maybe not. There are things I cannot mention directly just yet. Shall we say that my family didn’t know what it was at all and leave it at that?

Works Cited

https://www.diabeteseducator.org/docs/default-source/legacy-docs/_resources/pdf/general/Become_a_CDE_DE_Resource.pdf

https://www.ncbde.org/certification_info/eligibility-requirements/