Early in my career, I helped an 8-year-old girl give her own insulin injections so she could go on sleepovers with her friends. After asking her parents to step out for a few minutes, I coached her through the injection. I still remember the pride in her step and the biggest smile you can imagine across her face as she walked out to tell her parents that she had been successful. Her mother cried, and her father shook my hand. I thought I was just “doing my job,” but in realizing what a milestone this was for this family, I knew I had made a difference for them. This memory has stayed with me all these years, along with the Christmas ornament they gave me. It has a prominent spot on my tree every year, where it serves as a continual reminder of the important part we play in the lives of the people we serve.
As DCESs, we are challenged to explain the value of our work to key decision-makers. We tend to focus on the numbers—A1C, blood pressure, lipids, etc. Although those are important, how do we help them understand that our ultimate goal is to help the person with diabetes live their best life? How do we go from just presenting facts to telling a compelling story?
Think of a time when you knew you had an impact on someone’s life. Not just a better A1C—but a better life. One of those times when you said “wow” to yourself as you realized that something you said or did had an impact beyond the numbers. A time when you realized being a DCES is more than a job; it has purpose and meaning beyond measure for your patients and for you.
In telling your story, keep it simple and personal. Robert McKee, author and speaker, reminds us that our patients are the stars of our story rather than the numbers. Read Lucille Hughes’s letter in the September issue, where she reiterates the story she told during her President’s Address at Annual Meeting in Houston. It’s a simple story, but she tells of the impact she made on a family’s life and just as importantly, what it meant to her as a DCES.
Be real and authentic in sharing what the interaction in the story meant to you. How did you know you had an impact? Did the patient or their family say or do something that made you realize the impact? If so, what did they say or do? What were you feeling? Make your audience feel that, too. Think of it as showing someone with words what happened and how you felt about it. In Lucille’s story, it happened when the parents began to cry, stating they had been used to living their life according to their son’s insulin schedule. The pump freed them from that schedule.
Be concise. Share just enough background to provide context for the story. Lucille’s story is short. She tells us a bit about her interaction with the family but not everything that happened during that session. We know starting someone on a pump takes more than a few minutes—but she provides enough detail that we can imagine the entire scenario and then gets to the key point she wants to make—she had made a difference in this family’s day-to-day life. And—it made an impact on her, too. There is no need for a lengthy conclusion. Lucille uses a short statement at the end that describes well what she was feeling. That is all that is needed.
Our patients are the stars of our stories rather than the numbers.
I once did focus groups of participants of our DSMES program to find out if we were meeting their needs and helping them meet their goals. Then I asked them what their goals were. Without exception, not one of them said they wanted to improve their A1C or lose weight or any other clinical measure. Instead, they said things like “I want to see my children grow up, get married and have children”; “I hope to be able to golf well into my retirement”; “I’m planning to do a 10k this year. And maybe a marathon next year”; “I watched my brother lose his leg 6 inches at a time. I don’t want that to be me”; “I need to be around and healthy for my family.” These were goals about living their best life. The numbers were just a means to get there. How we were able to help them get there became the stories we would tell.
With November being National Diabetes Month, beginning with National Diabetes Education Week the first full week of November, AIP is launching a new department in this issue titled “Career to Calling: Stories of Transformation,” which will highlight stories of how we as DCESs have impacted someone’s life and how those encounters have impacted us, making us realize what we do is more than a career. I hope this will trigger your memory, and we invite you to share your stories with us.
Thinking back to that 8-year-old girl, I can still see the surprise and excitement on her face when she successfully gave herself her first insulin injection. I know there is no set of data that would leave that kind of an impression on me. We need to tell our stories. Stories bring the human side of our work to life, the part of our work not reflected in the data. Author Libba Bray says, “There is no greater power on this earth than story.” Our stories will enrich us as DCESs and as human beings.
We need to tell our stories. Stories bring the human side of our work to life, the part of our work not reflected in the data.