Dr. Dale Clayton is an endocrinologist at the Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, BC as well as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at UBC. He holds undergraduate degrees in Physiology from McGill, Bio-Psychology from UNB, and a Masters degree in Community Health & Epidemiology from the University of Toronto. He completed medical school, residency and fellowship training at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

More importantly however, 2016 marks Dale’s 25th year living with type 1 diabetes. Although it can sometimes be challenging, he’s tried to never let it slow him down. His athletic life has ranged from regular gym-goer in his 20’s, to runner in his 30’s, and now in his 40’s he is a self-proclaimed CrossFit junkie.

Dale believes strongly in the benefits of exercise in managing both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and his clinical interest is in helping people with diabetes find strategies to incorporate exercise into their diabetes management.

Michelle Sorensen has been living with Type 1 diabetes since 1998, when she was 24 years old. She was in the middle of graduate school, training to become a psychologist. She is now a member of the Ontario College of Psychologists and has a private practice in Clinical Psychology in Ottawa, Canada. Using a cognitive behavioural approach to therapy, Michelle helps patients with a wide range of issues. Michelle has developed a speciality in counselling patients with diabetes. She combines her knowledge about changing thoughts, feelings and behaviours with the understanding that comes from personally living with Type 1 diabetes herself for over 17 years to help patients change their thoughts and modify their behavior.

Michelle believes adaptation to living with this chronic disease would be more manageable if more psychological support was available to people with diabetes. She hopes to help fill this gap in diabetes care by helping diabetes health professionals become more aware of the ways in which they can support and educate their patients about issues like grief, accessing supports and changing the negative thoughts and behaviours that plague many people living with this challenging condition. She speaks about various topics related to diabetes management, including counseling approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational interviewing.

She considers her greatest accomplishment to be her healthy family. She and her husband Ben are parents to four children: two girls and a set of twins (one boy and a girl). They consider diabetes their fifth child, requiring lots of attention and care if they want it to behave well!

Michelle’s Website: www.sorensenpsychology.com

Teri Currie is a registered nurse and has been a certified diabetes educator since 1994.  Teri’s direction of nursing practice changed when she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in her last term of nursing school in 1989. She went on to become a certified diabetes educator working in pediatric diabetes, diabetes in pregnancy as well as adults with Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes.  She also had been an active volunteer working with JDRF, CDA as well as CWD supporting and educating families with diabetes.

Teri’s passion for insulin pump therapy began 24 hours after she started on her first insulin pump in 1998 after the birth of her twins and rewarded her with her first uninterrupted hypoglycemia free night in many years. She has been a certified pump trainer since 1998 and continues to work in insulin pump therapy as a clinical manager.

Teri has been a nurse at Camp Kakhamela, the CDA camp for children with diabetes in BC for the past 14 years and was honoured to receive the CDA Camp Nurse of the Year in 2007. She is always excited to be a part of education in the North and looks forward to sharing and learning from the attendees who are living and loving those with type 1 diabetes.

Dr. Dan Metzger is a Pediatric Endocrinologist at the BC Children’s Hospital, and a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at UBC.

Dr. Dan has been heavily involved in Camp Kakhamela—the Canadian Diabetes Association’s camp for children with diabetes—in BC, for the past 22 years, including being the Medical Director from 1998 to 2014.

Clinically, Dr. Dan’s focus has been on the care of infants, children and youth with type 1 diabetes, and he has been involved in both clinical and basic-science research looking at the prevention and treatment of type 1 diabetes. More recently, he has helped develop a very busy clinic caring for transgender youth.

Dr. Metzger is excited to spend time in the North meeting kids and adults with type 1 and sharing his knowldge and experience with them.