EPJ: A Diabetes Visionary

Diabetes was considered an obscure condition in the late 1800’s. (What a difference a century makes!)  Elliot Proctor Joslin was the first doctor in the United States to specialize in treating diabetes.

He kept careful notes of his clinical experiences and came to believe that “management matters”.  Modern day research has come to the same conclusion: management does matter.

The better diabetes is managed, the lower the risk of developing the devastating long-term complications of this disease.

EPJ, as his team fondly called him, also had a great understanding of why people get diabetes: “Your genes load the cannon and your lifestyle lights the fuse.”

He was also an advocate of diabetes education. As a diabetes educator, I think EPJ was quite a visionary in many different ways.

See the photo page of MyHealthVillage for a look at this physician, researcher, and advocate of nurses as diabetes educators.