Diabetes Afoot

Benson Lo, PharmD ’19, a medical science liaison (MSL) at Abbott Diabetes Care in Philadelphia, was inspired. He saw the importance of medical education programs that keep healthcare practitioners current on diabetes management technology, such as the continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) made by his employer. Dr. Lo also recognized how helpful it would be for this technology to be further incorporated into the doctor of pharmacy curriculum at his alma mater, RFU’s College of Pharmacy (COP). So he connected COP to his MSL counterpart for Abbott’s midwest region, Michelle Yost, FNP-C, and a partnership was born.

With Ms. Yost’s support, COP secured an Abbott Diabetes Care Educational Wear Experience in-kind grant that provides Freestyle Libre CGMs for use in COP’s curriculum. When properly applied, the CGMs and their accompanying app can give patients notifications to take corrective measures, such as administering insulin or eating carbohydrates to raise low blood sugar. Pharmacy students now are able to wear the CGMs to measure their own real-time blood-sugar levels, which builds expertise and empathy before they demo them to patients.

This partnership, approaching its third year, is rooted in common goals of improving patient health through education and medical advances.

“Empowering the next generation of practitioners through empathy and innovation is essential,” Ms. Yost said. “At the heart of medicine lies patient-centered care. Continuous glucose monitoring is a remarkable tool that acknowledges the unique needs of individuals with diabetes, truly a gift in personalized health care.”

Diabetes is 24/7, and the Abbott Labs-College of Pharmacy CGM partnership ensures patients and their providers can monitor it ’round the clock.