I’ve known Dr. Chari for many years now first meeting him at a PanCan Advocacy Day event in Washington. We’ve crossed paths several times since talking about the need for heightened awareness of late onset diabetes, the link and testing that needs to be done by the care provider.

After reading the initial post in this thread, I decided to to see where things are regarding awareness in the professional medical community. First stop today was a UPS Distribution Facility to ship a package. I’m standing in line wearing my PanCan.org sweatshirt and the person in front of me notices. He was a physician and had 4 patients that were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I asked him if he was aware of the relationship of late onset diabetes and the link to pancreatic cancer. He never heard of it and he is not a newly minted physician. So I provided him with the details and the suggestion of doing imaging and frequent surveillance of his patients based on papers that have been published.

My next stop today after UPS was to my PCP for my Medicare Annual Wellness Examination. He has been my PCP all through my pancreatic cancer journey. I asked him if he was aware of the link between late onset diabetes and pancreatic cancer and again-same answer. So my exam turned into making a second PCP aware of the link. My PCP thanked me for making him aware and will now be more vigilant in doing additional testing before concluding a diagnosis.

There are continuing education programs for every medical discipline. Physicians are required to do a minimum amount of continuing education annually. While my sample size is small, I would guess there is significant need in educating PCP’s and probably some endocrinologists on this link so there is less “missed opportunities” at earlier detection leading to a better outcome. If everyone reading this mentions to their PCP or an endocrinologist if they use one about the association, it’s a start in the right direction.