About
The Emirates Diabetes and Endocrine Society is a non-profit medical society that was established in 1996. It represents a cross section of specialist physicians and healthcare providers who are actively involved in the management of diabetes and endocrinology.
The Emirates Diabetes and Endocrine Society is the primary Medical Society in the United Arab Emirates responsible for research, education, and dissemination of diabetes information to the medical and non-medical community. The society conducts number educational programs, which includes scientific as well as educational programs targeted towards diabetes educators.
Main Focus
- To educate the community about diabetes and its complications and to better enable other healthcare professionals to assist physicians in providing patient counselling and guidance about diabetes by developing guidelines for the management of diabetes with a multidisciplinary approach.
- Primary prevention of type 2 diabetes by decreasing the prevalence of risk factors leading to diabetes in the forthcoming years.
- Decreasing prevalence of overweight and obesity by 10% at minimum, increasing the percentage of physically active people by 20%, reducing the rates of tobacco use among adults by 5%, and reducing the rate of exposure to passive smoking by 100%.
- Encouraging healthy lifestyle adaptations – including proper diet and exercise – among the pre-diabetes group.
- Improving the lives of people with diabetes and teach them to control and manage the disease more efficiently and effectively.
Activities
The Emirates Diabetes and Endocrine Society has, over the years, kept alive the awareness & educational campaigns among people with diabetes, the general public and healthcare providers through activities which include:
- Scientific Education of the Medical Community – through Conferences, Trainings, Workshops, and Certification of Educators
- Community outreach and education – through public education and media, public physical activities organized across communities and education to individuals and institutions, and publication of information for dissemination to the general public in Arabic and English.
Scientific Education
Community Nursing Educators Program and Certification: With the realization that small investments in prevention, awareness and care can go a long way in improving the quality of life for people with diabetes and bring about dramatic reductions in health-care costs; EDS organized courses to develop Certified Diabetes Nurse Educators who can support physicians by taking up the role of educators more effectively. EDS successfully ran 3 courses creating more than 100 Nurse Educators located in the various health facilities across the country.
Emirates Diabetes Congress: The Emirates Diabetes Congress was initiated with the intention of educating its community of physicians and care givers about the latest developments in the field of diabetes. The congress is a CME-Accredited Event which attracts the best of the speakers & experts from all over the world and the region.
Community outreach and education
The Society celebrates World Diabetes Day every year with great ceremony. Awareness campaigns are held all over the Emirates with free health checkups, free consultations with physicians and diabetes educators, and distribution of educational materials. The major landmark of UAE, The Burj Al Arab, is adorned in Blue Lights to highlight the celebrations. Walkathons are also organized in the different emirates to spread the message “Beat Diabetes”.
EDS has a Diabetes Clinic on wheels, aptly named “Win Over Diabetes” – a fully equipped Clinic which travels all over the UAE with a team of 3 Doctors, 3 Nurses, and 1 Diabetes Educator focusing the Rural Regions. It is staffed by members of the EDS and associated nurses. The aim is to boost the overall care of diabetes across the country by screening patients for complications of the disease and revising current management plans to offer better treatment and prevention of the life-threatening complications and an overall health screen is also done including Full Fundus examination using a Fundus Camera and parameters like height, weight, blood pressure, blood sugar and BMI are also estimated. Anyone who is screened with diabetes or a pre-diabetes condition is counselled on control and management of the condition. While visiting local primacy health care centres, the team educates local GPs on the most up-to-date methods of diagnosing, treating and managing diabetes so that once the bus leaves, the knowledge is in place to ensure that the best care continues.
Publications & Newsletters
EDS publishes a bi-monthly magazine “Diabetes Positive Living” since October 2010. This is an exclusive diabetes magazine promoting “healthy living with diabetes”. The Magazine covers all topics related to Diabetes and its management – including education about the disease, latest treatment modalities and medications, update on diabetes research, exercise and diet information etc. The magazine is distributed to the public and health care facilities free of cost, concentrating on facilities with diabetes & endocrinology clinics.
Message from the President
“EDS has been a member of IDF since 2000. The Society has integrated the mission and values of IDF into its own objectives and works in close collaboration with IDF. Membership has given us a global perspective of the condition and its reach and has helped us to effectively understand and confront the issue on a community/regional level. IDF has also served as a platform for discussion, and knowledge & experience sharing between various local societies and this has again helped us in tackling our own region-specific issues more effectively“