Dr. Gunasekaran talks to us about her specialty in treating low income diabetes patients and the importance of building a relationship with the patient to help them successfully manage their disease.
Dr. Gunasekaran is an endocrinologist who specializes in diabetes care. She provides care mainly at Parkland Health, a safety net health system, for persons with diabetes.
“I feel like people who are from a low-income background or a disadvantaged background, often find barriers to accessing healthcare in general… And so, the changes that I can enact, or the help that I can give them, allows them to spread that beyond themselves, to potentially even their family and even as far as even their community.”
Question of the Day: Have you ever had to compromise caring for your health due to a lack of income, food, or housing?
On This Episode You Will Learn:
Endocrinology
Diabetes Treatments
Low Income Patients
Community Resources
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Key Points:
00:00 - Intro with Shireen!
01:10 - Can you give us some insight on how you found your way to medicine as a profession and how you decided to specialize in endocrinology and diabetes treatment?
01:40 - Why did you decide to focus on low income diabetes patients in your clinical practice?
02:26 - What is one of the most common challenges you hear from your low income patients? How do you tend to address this?
06:23 - What are your priorities when treating a patient who has insufficient or intermittent access to money, food, and housing?
14:35 - How are you viewing diabetes overall and the impact that diabetes having, especially given COVID-19? What are some of the things that you've observed there?Can you walk us through what you saw over the past couple of years?
22:25 - How can our listeners connect with you and learn more about your work?
23:27 - Outro with Shireen!
