The patients might not get the message about taking care of themselves if they hear it from just one provider, but by the time they are done talking to several people on the clinic's diabetes team, they often change their tune, Dr. Saeed said. “[After talking to] three or four people, the patient listens to somebody.”
Melissa Marks, a nurse on the diabetes team, has an extra incentive to be effective: She was diagnosed with diabetes in 1990. “We didn't choose to have diabetes, but we can choose to be responsible and take care of ourselves,” she said.
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