Abstract
Hello to everyone! I am both honored and excited about the opportunity to serve as your President for 2023. And what a year it will be. If you weren’t aware, ADCES is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. It is hard to believe that ADCES is half a century old. Our Association, which has grown to over 12 000 members, started with just 18 visionary women. Eighteen diabetes care and education specialists (then, diabetes educators) believed in the importance of diabetes education and truly wanted to make a difference, and they did! It all started with a letter. Allene Van Son, a registered nurse working and living in Buffalo, New York, opened a letter inviting her to a 1-day workshop focusing on diabetes education. That same letter, sent by Ames Company, a division of Miles Laboratories, went to 1800 hospitals that Ames had identified as delivering diabetes patient education. Eighteen diabetes education program leaders from various parts of the country came to Chicago on a blustery winter’s day to discuss the delivery of quality patient education and the professional needs of what was then called “the diabetes educator.” After much discussion and deliberation, the workshop participants unanimously agreed to establish a professional membership association, with Allene serving as the very first president.
We are all so grateful for those 18 forward-thinking leaders. To show our thanks and to honor our past, ADCES will be honoring many of our leaders and members throughout this 50th anniversary year. But that is not all we have planned! You will not want to miss ADCES23, where we will be able to celebrate in person. Held in Houston, Texas, we plan to follow one of Texas’s mottos, “Go Big or Go Home.” We are planning a BIG CELEBRATION, celebrating our past leaders, our members, and future leaders. May be one of them will be you.
Talking about mottos, the motto for Houston is “The City With No Limits.” This is so appropriate because our celebration is not limited to ADCES23. We will be highlighting the critical work you do all year long in both your role as core members of the diabetes care team and dedicated volunteers to ADCES, the specialty, and within your community.
We are here, by your side, championing your role in improving outcomes, both clinically and psychologically, and offering you resources, particularly ADCES Connect, to support one another and raise awareness of what we all do so well. We must all strive, and at times “put” ourselves at the table with decision makers, to ensure that diabetes care and education specialists are an integral part of the health care team. ADCES is committed to providing coaching, tools, and resources to help each and every one of us be successful in this vision for our specialty. I try to visit our website often so that I can take advantage of all the wonderful resources to help me in my role and journey as a CDCES. In particular, I found the podcast featuring Kristen Yehl interviewing Dr Jane Seley at ADCES22 talking about diabetes technology so helpful. In 22 minutes, I learned so much that I kept listening to this podcast over and over again so that I could take notes and bring back what I had learned from the podcast to my team at Catholic Health Diabetes Education Program and people at risk for and living with diabetes that we educate each day. This is just one example of the many practice pearls ADCES offers our members. If you haven’t yet done so, visit ADCES Connect and danatech and take advantage of all that has been created for our members and provider colleagues, right at our fingertips, to help us be the most successful diabetes care and education specialist and health care provider we can be.
I hope my excitement for this year-long celebration, looking back on the rich history of ADCES and applauding our wonderful members and partners, both past and present, has created excitement for you as well. But remember, we are not only celebrating the past! We are also celebrating our very bright future for the Association and for our specialty. We have much to be grateful for and to look forward to.
In closing, I want to thank each and every one of you for your interest in this letter, for your support of our Association and one another, and most importantly, thank you for all that you do for people at risk for and living with diabetes. ■
Happy New Year!!!