The nurses at the outpatient clinic at Steno Diabetes Center

The clinic has 32 nurses, 16 of whom are trained diabetes nurses. To work as a nurse in the outpatient clinic in the diabetes Unit and its special clinics it is necessary to be a trained diabetes nurse.

The training for the diabetes nurse is a two-year, internal course of training. The trainee will work one year in our day-bed unit, six months in our type 2 clinic and six months in the outpatient clinic. Before nurses begin the training to become a diabetes nurse they must have worked at a general medicine or a surgical department and have at least two years’ experience as a nurse.

A number of our diabetes nurses have taken further training in a special function and worked concurrently in one of the clinics under the outpatient clinic.
In addition to the diabetes nurses the Center has four clinical specialists who besides being trained as diabetes nurses are also clinical specialists in an individual field, e.g. pump treatment and type 2 diabetes.

The diabetes nurse has comprehensive theoretical and practical knowledge of the field and must be able to teach and pass on knowledge and counselling in a comprehensible way.

The nursing must take place in active cooperation with the patient, where the key words are co-responsibility and co-determination in the learning and decision process.

The diabetes nurses’ fields of responsibility
• The nursing tasks are to teach, counsel and give knowledge and support to the person with diabetes

• Independent consultations in the outpatient clinic and collaboration with the other therapists in teams

• Working together with patients to help them identify their problems in a way that enables patients to make decisions and to act on these decisions

• Help to trace and treat specific complications arising from diabetes as early as possible 

• Trained to read and interpret blood glucose fluctuations, identify causes and connections, with the competence to frequently adjust insulin doses on the basis of 24-hour profiles

• Trained to give advice and guidance on the types of problem the person with diabetes encounters, such as low glucose sugar (hypoglycaemia), unstable blood glucose levels, lifestyle conversations

• Trained to supplement with quick-acting insulin for high glucose sugar within set standards

• Staff the Center’s 24-hour telephone counselling service

• Offer shorter- or longer-term nursing care

Teaching
The diabetes nurses teach diabetes patients
• In the type 2 clinic
• In the outpatient clinic
• In the day-bed unit

The diabetes nurses also teach other specialist groups and staff and form part of the teaching team at Steno Education Center.