The Faculty
The Johnson & Johnson Diabetes Institutes have a curriculum developed and run in English by an independent and distinguished pan-regional teaching faculty of diabetes experts.
The faculty members include:
Dr Arun K Baksi
Dr Baksi is currently an Emeritus Consultant Physician at the Isle of Wight NHS Primary Care Trust. Following his retirement, the Health Authority named the diabetes centre after him. Dr Baksi has had a distinguished career as a physician; he was the recipient of The Outstanding Achiever of the Year in 2003, granted by the Department of Health, UK.
He has had a long-standing interest in diabetes education, and remains closely involved despite his retirement. He served DESG for many years as a committee member as well as a spell as its treasurer. Dr Baksi was the founder editor of Practical Diabetes International. He has led the development of Peer Advisers in diabetes; he firmly believes that people with diabetes are a valuable resource to any health service.
Mani Basi
Mani Basi is a Nurse Consultant working in South Derbyshire and leads a team of community based Diabetes Specialist Nurses (DSN).
Having commenced nurse training in Leicester in August 1979 his interest in diabetes gained momentum when appointed into his First DSN post in 1995 and in 2004 he was appointed as the first male Diabetes Nurse Consultant, a distinction which he still holds.
Local developments in diabetes service provision has focused on the management of complex T2DM patients previously managed by the Diabetes Clinicians in the Acute Trust, expansion of DSN led insulin management clinics, across the City of Derby and Derbyshire County and ensuring that the Professional & patient education programmes, literature and handbooks are consistent across the whole of Derbyshire.
He has presented both locally and nationally and had posters at international diabetes conferences. His thesis for his MSc was on screening and prevention of type 2 diabetes.
Dr Donatella Bloise
Specialist in endocrinology since 1989, Dr Bloise obtained a PhD in Endocrinology in 1991. Since then she has worked in the field of diabetes; her major interests are the therapeutic patient education (TPE) and healthcare professionals' training in TPE. Dr Bloise organises and conducts several courses for healthcare and school camps for diabetic teenagers.
Dr Bloise is currently a diabetologist at S. Giuseppe Hospital in Marino, a village close to Rome.
Dr Mohamed M Hassanein
Dr Hassanein is currently a consultant in Diabetes & Endocrinology in North Wales NHS Trust. He's also an Honorary Tutor at Cardiff University.
His research and MPhil degree has been in the diabetes field. He has great interest in medical education and he's a faculty board member for the Cardiff University Diabetes Diploma. He's also responsible for running diabetes educational workshops for general practioners which is jointly co-ordinated with the Royal College of General Practioners in Wales.
He participates in many International diabetes Conferences as a speaker and a faculty member. He's an examiner for the MRCP exam for the Royal College of Physicians of London. He has also helped in writing many regional and international documents and guidelines on the management of diabetes such as the management of diabetes in the month of Ramadan.
The application of some of this work has won the 1st prize in Diabetes-UK and the EASD conferences for structured education for the year 2008.
Fiona Kirkland
Fiona Kirkland trained in 1980 in Leicester.
Fiona has led on some key areas of service development, care of the older person in care homes, diabetes service redesign, leading an innovative nurse led diabetes team in the community setting and approach to care delivery. Fiona became a diabetes specialist nurse in 1997 and a nurse consultant for diabetes in 2004. Her philosophy of care delivery is based around the physical and psychological needs of person with diabetes. A major part of the service delivery is to share knowledge and skills with other health care professionals, leading by example and also with people with diabetes, aiming to increase confidence in self management.
The best part of her role for Fiona is clinical practice whether this is directly in specialist clinics of by working in general practice indirectly influencing care being delivered through mentorship.
The interesting part is matching the tool box of pharmaceutical approaches and lifestyle choices the person is prepared to make, to the individual clinical picture. Fiona feels extremely lucky to work within such a satisfying but at times very challenging role.
Dr Line Kleinebreil
Doctor Line Kleinebreil is a primary care physician with a special interest in diabetes and chronic diseases who is also a master of mathematics. Her interests in communications and education are reflected by her position as Vice Chairman of Primary Care Diabetes Europe and her role as Head of the telemedicine unit at Georges Pompidou Hospital, Paris. She also currently holds the position of Vice President of UNFM (Université Numérique Francophone Mondiale).
Dr Kleinebreil has been working part time at public hospitals in Paris, developing strategies for medical records and using IT as an educational tool for both patients and professionals.
She has been involved for many years as a board member on a number of the major French patient associations for both adults and children and is an active member of the World Health Organisation. Her unique background led to her joining the faculty of the Johnson and Johnson Diabetes Institute.
Prof Aldo Maldonato
Prof. Maldonato is diabetologist, Research Professor in Rome University La Sapienza where he has worked since 1971, specialized in Geneva with Jean-Philippe Assal. He regularly organises and conducts Therapeutic Patient Education, as well as training of healthcare professionals in TPE.
Prof. Maldonato is also co-founder, and between 1998 and 2006 was Chairman, of the Diabetes Education Study Group (DESG) of the EASD, and the Italian DESG (GISED). He is the current President of the Committee for Therapeutic Education (ComET) in Rome.
Natalia Piana
Dr Piana is a pedagogist and educator specialising in autobiographical approaches. She obtained her PhD at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, La Bicocca University, Milan, Italy.
In 2003 she introduced the narrative-autobiographical approach in Therapeutic Education of patients with chronic diseases, particularly diabetes, and in the training of Healthcare Professionals co-operating with both the DESG and the GISED.
Dr Piana collaborates with the European Institute of Oncology in Milan for the education and care of people with cancer by using narration, self-writing and theatre as therapeutic tools.
Harbinder Sunsoa
Harbinder Sunsoa has been working as a Community Diabetes Specialist Nurse working in a west midlands PCTs for the last 7 years. She is an active member of the FAD group (Focus on Asians with Diabetes) and very successful in producing audio-visual resources in Asian languages such as DVDs to help promote and improve the understanding of diabetes in this high risk group of people with diabetes.
Harbinder is currently undertaking a diploma course in Education. She is qualified at cert in Education course and has run Warwick courses in the local venues.
Her passionate for diabetes and enthusiasm to help people with diabetes understand their condition better is what she aims to do. Part of MSc thesis, she has designed a Statement to Assess Diabetes Knowledge questionnaire which was used in a pilot study. This SADK tool allows to assess the existing knowledge of patients with type 2 diabetes and can be utilised post education to ascertain how much their understanding and knowledge has increased.
Working with J&J and on TPE workshops, her passion for education has increased further, in that she is now doing the diploma in Education programme which will allow her hopefully to a registered qualification with the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
Maureen Wallymahmed
Maureen Wallymahmed is currently a Nurse Consultant at Aintree University Hospitals, Liverpool where she leads a team of 7 diabetes specialist nurses.
Her interest in diabetes spans a period of over 20 years, from ward sister to nurse consultant. She was appointed as a Diabetes Specialist Nurse in 1988 and in 2002 went on to become a Nurse consultant. Her clinical role includes the management of in-patients with diabetes, cardiovascular risk factor reduction in type 1 diabetes and the development of patient education programmes. She has over 50 publications in peer reviewed journals and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Diabetes Nursing. Although employed by an acute trust a major part of her role is working with Primary Care Trusts to improve standards of diabetes care across organisational boundaries in line with National Service Framework standards.
Dr Mike Walton
Dr Mike Walton is a full-time National Health Service (NHS) General Practitioner (GP) in Harvey Group Practice, St. Albans, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, where he has been since 1999.
He cares for over 12,000 patients together with his partner GPs in a group practice. He is a GP Trainer and is involved in teaching junior doctors and medical students.
He has a particular clinical interest in diabetes care both within his own practice and in the broader community. He is Clinical Lead for Diabetes within his local Practice Based Commissioning (PBC) Group and is actively involved in the commissioning and delivery of diabetes services in the West Hertfordshire locality, serving 21,000 people with diabetes.
He has previously been a Lecturer in General Practice at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in London.
His teaching interests include communication and consultation skills, patient-centred care and inter-disciplinary learning.