A lifetime of service: A conversation with Barb Schreiner, PhD, RN, CDCES, BC-ADM
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Key takeaways:
- Barb Schreiner, PhD, RN, CDCES, BC-ADM, is the recipient of the ADCES 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award.
- Schreiner has worked for more than 40 years in diabetes as a nurse specialist, educator and consultant.
Barb Schreiner, PhD, RN, CDCES, BC-ADM, has seen a lot of changes in diabetes care and education during her career.
Forty-one years ago, when Schreiner first joined what was then known as the American Association of Diabetes Educators and is now the Association of Diabetes Care & Education Specialists, there was a lack of population-level data on how to manage diabetes, and the diabetes devices that are commonplace today were nonexistent. During those years, Schreiner said, diabetes care and education specialists relied more on instinct and anecdotal professional opinions to make decisions on diabetes management. However, while technology has progressed and researchers have accumulated a lot more evidence on best practices for managing diabetes, Schreiner said, the basics have not changed.
“[Diabetes care and education] is about that one-to-one connection,” Schreiner told Healio. “It’s our understanding about people, how they learn, how they set goals and how they live their healthiest life. Those things haven’t changed at all. The tools we use to help them get there have changed a lot and will change in the next 20 years. But our basic fundamental aspects of provider-to-person with diabetes hasn’t changed a whole lot.”
As diabetes care has evolved over the past 41 years, Schreiner’s career has also evolved. She has served in a number of different roles as a certified diabetes care and education specialist, a diabetes nurse specialist, a developer of curriculum and assessments for multiple certifications, and as a volunteer at diabetes summer camps. Today, Schreiner continues to work in the field as an independent consultant. In recognition for her years of service, ADCES is honoring her with the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award.
Healio recently spoke with Schreiner about her career, the changes she has witnessed in diabetes care and education and what she enjoys most about working in the field.
Healio: When did you decide you wanted to work in medicine and why did you want to become a diabetes care and education specialist?
Schreiner: I was always interested in the sciences. My early work was as a volunteer or as a nurse’s aide, so I had the whole hospital experience in my background.
I started nursing in 1975 and right out of school worked on a pediatric floor. Back in those days, when a child was diagnosed with diabetes, they were in the hospital for a week or more. I had a lot of opportunity to do patient education. That’s what I loved to do, I loved taking care of kids, and I loved teaching.
It wasn’t long before I went to grad school at University of Florida. I focused all my clinical work in diabetes. I was there in the era when we were trying to figure out what an HbA1c was. All the students were guinea pigs, and they were collecting blood on us every week to find what happened with the HbA1c over time. Now, it’s a no-brainer, but back then, we were all part of research projects.
The other thing I did in grad school was work with Arlan Rosenbloom, MD, and his group at the Florida Diabetes Camp. That was a cool way to teach children and to work with families. Diabetes camp back in the day looked very different than it does now. We had limited blood glucose monitoring, so we did urine testing on these kids four times a day. It’s very different than what we have today now in camps, with pumps, continuous glucose monitoring and all the technology.
Healio: When did you first join ADCES and why did you get involved with the organization?
Schreiner: It’s exciting we’re at 50 years now. I joined when the organization was 9 years old, so I was there for the 10th anniversary and ever since.
I moved from University of Florida and did some work in South Carolina, then Georgia, and then moved to Texas, where my career blossomed. It was a natural progression to look for other people who were doing diabetes education. There happened to be a chapter in the Houston area which had about 100 members. I joined that group and that led to a connection with the national organization. I have a little bit of leadership skills, so I moved up in the ranks quickly and did some leadership in the committees that were at the local level and then worked my way into the volunteer organization at the national level and have been on their board of directors twice.
The last time [on the board] was when we changed our name. So that was an exciting time to be part of ADCES. The [name change] took months, years, to make it happen and to do it in a way that was meaningful and thoughtful and had some science behind it.
The reason I joined initially was that it helped me learn about the local talent and then helped me recruit some of those folks to a program that I was setting up where I was working. That worked out because within our network we knew where there were openings. We did this little kind of “apple basket turnover” periodically, and people rotated around to different programs. But that was a great way to get to know folks in the field. We were growing and learning as we went. There wasn’t any guidebook at the time, we sort of had to use each other to figure out what diabetes care and education was all about.
Healio: What do you enjoy most about working in diabetes care and education?
Schreiner: I love being with people when they’re making choices in their lives, transitioning and learning new things. It’s the learning part that I love. I’ve always enjoyed trying to simplify things, I guess part of that’s my pediatric background. I do a lot of games, but it’s gaming from an education standpoint.
That has evolved to teaching and mentoring colleagues. What you got to do at my age is to make sure there’s other folks coming up that understand some of the history and some of the things that that we’ve gone through to get us where we are. We all stand on the shoulders of those behind us who made great strides. It’s kind of fun to share that.
What I like most about working with folks with diabetes is that they have a need for information. I have some skill and experience in providing that, and it’s a nice kind of marriage.
Healio: Is there an achievement in your career that you are most proud of and why?
Schreiner: With my work with ADCES, I was part of their core curriculum in the early years of developing CORE Concepts, which is their training program. I was their lead instructor when we were doing a face-to-face program. When it went digital, I was asked to come in and help make micro-learning sessions, which was fun. People are learning on the go now. They don’t have time to sit down for 60 minutes on a webcast to trying to get their continuing education credits or trying to learn something about diabetes, but they can do it in 10-minute blocks of time. So what I did with CORE Concepts was to help develop the program in these micro-learning segments.
From a clinical standpoint, my most fun was being assistant medical director at Texas Lions Camp. We took care of children every summer, two sessions of 200 kids. My job was to get the medical staff together to make sure we had all the supplies and to keep the kids safe. I didn’t have to go out and do the ropes course or show them how to swim. But I had to make sure they were safe doing all of that, and that was a great deal of fun. I did that for 10 years and still have very dear friends that worked with me in that environment. In fact, we’re going to have a reunion in October. All of the medical staff that can get together over those decades are going to try to get together.
Probably 10, 20 years ago I started working in the credentialing field and worked with what was then called the certified diabetes educator (CDE). I sat on their board for a while in its infancy. That launched my interest in credentialing as a whole. And I’ve now been involved with ADCES’s board certified-advanced diabetes management (BC-ADM) since its inception in 2001. That means writing test items, looking at exams and creating exams. It also pushed me into two other credentialing areas, one in pediatric nursing, and the other as a certified professional in learning and performance (CPLP). I was involved with the American Society for Training and Development and help them develop their exams. so it’s been an interesting little side twist there to my clinical career.
Healio: What was your reaction when you found out you were the recipient of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award from ADCES?
Schreiner: I was stunned, first of all. Having been on the board before, I know how the selection process is, they spend a lot of time picking the person. So I was stunned to hear it from [ADCES President Lucille Hughes, DNP, MSN/Ed, CDCES, BC-ADM, FADCES]. Then I got excited and then got humbled, all those emotions kind of merged together. Coming from an organization that I have given a lot of my career and volunteer time to, it’s wonderful to have that recognized by my peers. I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to shaking Lucille’s hand and accepting the award.
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