Mom is always fond of telling me that ‘no man is an island.’ I am not sure if she also believes that no woman is a peninsula, but I’ve never asked. In any event, I dedicate this blog posting to the men and women in our lives that truly make a difference as we live with the challenges of diabetes: our endocrinologists.

I may have been lucky with endocrinologists, but I have to say they’ve uniformly been my best experience with the medical profession. I’ve had uncaring, harried general practitioners and nurses who didn’t care (the minority, I hasten to add), but my endocrinologists have always been kind, caring and patient.

And very, very busy. During my week-long stint at the Diabetes Education Program in St. Paul’s Hospital [1]in Vancouver, I’d get exactly five minutes a day for the endo to look over my chart, check the blood work for the day, and answer any questions I had. I didn’t have all that many questions that the nurses and educators weren’t already answering...but I was freaking out from the implications diabetes was going to have on the rest of my life.

With only five minutes to spend, the endo soothed me. It was quite amazing. The closest thing I can relate it to is my veterinarian’s magic touch with animals. Shadow, my black cat, would be jumping off the ceiling at the vet’s office until Dr. Hartney took him in his hands and calmed him down instantly. Truly the sign of a gifted physician, and I admired it in my endo as much as my vet.

The endo’s grace under pressure was even more amazing given how many patients he had to see in such a limited time. Aside from rounds at the Diabetes Education Clinic, he had general rounds and his own practice. I learned later the price of that pace of working: three endocrinologists passed on, resigned, or left for other work in rapid succession at the practice. Whether that was due to stress or just coincidence, I don’t know. What I do know is that an occupation whose demands could have turned those doctors into snappish, brusque clock-watchers inspired just the opposite.

Here were doctors who truly took an interest in their patients, despite the limited time they had available. Unlike many physicians who practice a friendly yet distanced attitude, my endos had an unusual empathy for their charges.

Disclosure: I feel guilty admitting that I don’t currently have a regular endo here in Toronto. My GP – a wise, yet sometimes difficult man – monitors my diabetes, which is doing fine. The time, however, will come.

Have you been fortunate to have truly remarkable doctors or laypeople in your life that have changed the way you’ve looked at diabetes and how you’ve faced its challenges? Let me know in the comments below.

P.S. Shadow the Cat is still in Vancouver, alas. But since he’s in the same neighborhood where I used to live, I know he’s in good hands with my vet. I miss my Vancouver endocrinologists, however – they were a breed apart.