i tend to have high hopes for conferences,
and i’m no statistician, but roughly 90% of the time, those high hopes are met or surpassed.
this week i’m in new orleans for #aade15 – american association of diabetes educators national conference 2015. my attendance here is all thanks to the diabetes hands foundation‘s diabetes advocates program. DHF offered fantastic scholarships for this summer’s conference line-up. if you missed some of the conferences and are looking for summary, don’t miss everybody talks – DHF’s brand new podcast covering topics related to diabetes. plus, the hosts are pretty baller.
i have been anxiously awaiting this week’s festivities as it will be my first time attending a conference as a graduate student.
[dusts off shoulder]
pride aside,
whether or not my role at #aade15 will change has been weighing heavily on my mind.
will my lens be different?
i’ve thus far attended conferences solely as a representative of diabetes hands foundation,
or as an individual patient advocate.
now, i’m looking for what metrics researchers are measuring, whether their studies are problem or emotion focused, and how well their findings translate into clinical practice.
should my lens be different?
am i a patient first and a researcher second while here,
or the other way around?
perhaps there is a way i can fuse both hats?
half professional, half lived-experience?
if there is a way to fuse the two, i’ll find it this week.
here are some of the sessions i’ve got high apple pie in the sky hopes about:
Thriving, Not Just Surviving: Empowering Patients with Type 1 Diabetes
Unexpected Blues 
Woo! Have fun! Your two-hat-perspective will serve you well, both at conferences and beyond in your studies and career.
I think what’s beautiful about being in grad-school and being a researcher is that you get to pick how to fuse those lenses. You could decide to go 50/50 and then you get there and the researcher in you goes crazy and maybe you adjust those numbers. You get to do that. You get to make that decision about which lens may be more appropriate at various times.
When getting my MA I had to do research in the classroom about the kids I taught. I had to take something that I was personally invested in, because it’s not really an option for me to not be invested in those kids, and translate all of that into something that showed how well I could do my job objectively, and if I could make improvements. II chose to include what I could about what those kids go through on a daily basis, or their individual struggles and trials that I knew affected their learning, but I couldn’t make it the main focus. That’s not what my research was about.
And I hated that a little bit. I think that what you are going through here is on a different level of personal, and that’s what makes it beautiful. You get to create the lens, rather then stick to one or another.
I know you’ll do fabulously. ❤
I so enjoyed your blog. Like Allie I really enjoyed the two hat picture. I hope you had a great time in NO. It is an interesting city with great history.
Rick