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Hello. My name is David Strain.
I'm a Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School.
I'm a lecturer actually in geriatric medicine,
but with a special interest in diabetes.
I'm going to be talking over the next 40 minutes or so
about the impact of treating diabetes in older adults.
Why that is different?
The rationale behind the new nice and core guidelines
that we've recently implemented in the UK.
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Before I start any presentation,
I must declare my conflicts of interests.
At some point in my career,
I've interacted with most of the pharmaceutical companies that engage in diabetes.
That being said, everything that I tell you here are my own thoughts,
and my own words, and this presentation has been heard without any outside influence.
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I also start every presentation I do with this slide.
These are the words of Abraham Lincoln,
who very famously said,
"Never allow scientists to partake in government.
When you give them a new piece of information,
a scientist will change their mind."
Now, I use this for two reasons.
The first is it's my excuse.
If at some point in the future,
you see a presentation that is telling different information,
then you may wonder, was I lying today?
Well, the answer is simple, no.
I'm presenting the most up-to-date evidence that we have.
However, as the evidence changes,
I do reserve the right to change my mind in the future.
The other reason I use this is to find out whether we are
practicing medicine as scientists or politicians.
Because if we're practicing medicine as a politician,
we will continue to do what we've always done
irrespective of the way the evidence appears.
But if we're practicing medicine as a science,
then as the evidence changes,
we will review those data,
we'll determine how that affects our patients.
Then if the data are better,
we will improve our practice accordingly.
There is no bigger area in medicine this applies to than diabetes.
