CHI is presenting a series of blog articles on the speakers who will be addressing families attending the Fourth Congenital Hyperinsulinism Family Conference March 17 and 18, 2012, in Philadelphia, PA. In this article, we present Melissa Rearson, Nurse Practitioner.
Melissa Rearson has been working at CHOP with diabetes and congenital hyperinsulinism (HI) patients since 1989. I first met her in 1996 when my son, a newborn at the time, was transferred to the “Endocrine floor” at CHOP. Ms. Rearson completed a master’s degree and started seeing patients at CHOP in the Division Endocrinology/Diabetes in 1993.
Ms. Rearson will be speaking at the Family Conference on diabetes secondary to HI and she will also be leading a session with the pre-teen and teen group at the Conference. Ms. Rearson is a fantastic resource because she has an excellent understanding of blood sugar issues from a medical standpoint and is equally well-versed in day-to- day home management of hypo- and hyperglycemia.
In her own words:
“I was initially fascinated by the endocrine specialty because I saw that there is lots of room for family support and education—all things done well by nurses! I mainly work with patients in our division with type 1, autoimmune, diabetes, but that has changed over the years as we were able to have more and more nurse practitioners who specialized in various parts of our practice. When I initially started in the division, I worked on the floor with all of the endocrine patients—including the congenital hyperinsulinism patients.
Now, nurse practitioners in our division have a group of families that we follow at each outpatient visit. Nurse practitioners work to educate, evaluate health and chronic condition management, support family members with maintaining health at home, refer to various other specialists and act as a liaison for the family among the endocrine team at CHOP.
I am committed to helping kids and families manage diabetes to the best of their ability with the technology that exists. This means that I delve into what ‘real life’ looks like for each family and work with the various members to find a program that will work for the family as a whole. Managing diabetes takes energy, enthusiasm, diligence, patience, problem-solving and coping skills—and often cheerleading! I hope to provide help in all of these areas for each family in a way allows them to do their best with a sometimes overwhelming chronic condition.”
