Home Management of diabetes with GPs Webinar – A Collaborative Effort between UK-Medu and Chinese Community Doctors Magazine

The global pandemic, COVID-19, is still affecting the globe despite the commendable effort by few countries who have it under control. Therefore, we must still remain vigilance against the virus, it is particularly important for patients with chronic conditions. This group of patients are comprised of mostly elderlies, and usually live with more than one long term conditions. They have a lower immunity against these infections which made them extremely vulnerable. There are literatures that shows that mortality rate and treatment outcome of COVID-19 patients with high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney damage, liver failure and heart diseases are also worse than the average. Thus, during the attempt to limit the spread of the virus with lockdown, the home management of diabetes becomes extremely important. The GPs bear the critical responsibility to educate patients about effective home management of their blood glucose levels.

As an effort to combat COVID-19 and provide advice to better manage diabetes, UK-Medu collaborated with the Chinese Community Doctors Magazine for the second time this year with the support of Novo Nordisk (China) on 3rd of July 2020 to host a webinar for the GPs from UK and China to discuss about the topic. The webinar starts from UK time 1200 – 1400 (Beijing time 1900 – 2100). The guest speakers are Mark Slevin, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Dr. Zahid Chauhan OBE, Shen Jie, Director of Shunde Hospital of Southern Medical University and Cai Ying Ge, Head of General Practice Fangzhuang Community Health Service Center in Beijing. The webinar was hosted on Medmeeting.com and had attracted over 20,000 viewers from various parts of China.

The experts from both countries focused on how to provide advice for diabetic patients about effective management of their condition during lockdown. The experts from the UK introduced the possible use of activated micro fragmented adipose tissue (MFAT) for the treatment of diabetic wounds and shared their experience on diabetic treatment management, whereas the experts from China introduced the infection characteristics of COVID-19 with regards to diabetic patients and their treatment principle. The webinar lasted for 2 hours and had received high commendations and supports from the viewers.

The viewers are also encouraged to ask questions through Medmeeting.com, some of the questions asked are, possible situation when patient faces a shortage of diabetic medication due to the fear of leaving home to collect their medicine and contract the infection, if consultations were conducted online with the GPs how would the patients receive their prescriptions, the accuracy of the selfmonitoring blood glucose level etc. The viewers found that the webinar had benefited them a lot. UK-Medu will also continue to work with the Chinese Community Doctors Magazine in the future to increase the sharing of knowledge between the two countries. The International Association of Marx and Engels Humanities Studies (The MEIA) had also helped to organize this event.

UK expert Mark Slevin sharing his experiences through Zoom

Viewers interacting with the experts through Medmeeting.com