Our Services

Team Diabetes provides a comprehensive high level diabetes service and works closely with families, school staff and other professionals to strive to attain the best outcomes for all our patients and their families.

We have the advantage of a general paediatrics background including grief and trauma, behavioural and developmental paediatrics, family therapy, school problems, adolescent medicine, and co-existent paediatric conditions including thyroid disorders, coeliac disease and common childhood conditions. Hence we feel our service can offer more than simple diabetes endocrine assessment and follow up. We work closely with other health professionals and believe very strongly in skilled multidisciplinary team care. If our patients very occasionally require hospital admission, we will assist management as necessary at the consent of the treating doctor and patient.

Diabetes assessment

Our aim is to provide proactive personalised team care to assist families manage Type 1 Diabetes – an unexpected, unwanted and currently an incurable autoimmune disease. We understand the immense and relentless burden that families must deal with on a daily basis to maintain very good control and our mantra is to support and not judge. We offer strategies to deal with some of the issues of powerlessness, anger, frustration and grief that accompany the diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes in children adolescents and young adults.

We pride ourselves in keeping abreast of world’s best practice including management strategies and technological progress. We believe in active contemporaneous insulin adjustment with a heavy reliance on teamwork through telemedicine including phone calls, SMS and videoconference.

Our team are committed to quality not quantity management. Because of our commitment to over 100 families with diabetes, we have currently reached capacity in our Melbourne and Geelong services. Hence we cannot currently take new referrals until some children and young adults are transferred from our service. In addition, for our team to accept a new referral that might be a transfer from another diabetes team, we give deep consideration to not further burden the family with a situation (geographical issues or associated medical or family issues) in which we cannot do our very best for the child and family.

For those seeking our team’s input, we expect an ongoing long term bilateral commitment from the family. We have expectation that both parents will communicate with our team, be diligent and supportive of each other with diabetes care and hopefully attend appointments together with their child. We expect that we will be contacted early and rapidly by phone or SMS if there are any significant diabetes problems and we offer a 24 hour, 7 days a week service in emergencies. Administrative issues (appointments /scripts/ forms) MUST be put through the secretarial  staff on 52227721 or admin@drgoss.com.au

While our team continues management of our paediatric patients into young adulthood (generally to 21 to 25years) we generally do not accept new referrals of patients over 16 years.

For your first appointment please bring whatever past medical records you have and a summary from the child’s previous medical specialist. We are a family oriented practice and pride ourselves on leaving patients and parents with a clear safe pathway for the future with diabetes, including clear goals, strategies and communication plan.

Insulin Pumps

There is clear, irrefutable evidence that insulin pumps can provide overall better quality of life, better glycaemic control, greater flexibility in lifestyle and less hypoglycaemia than injection regimens, particularly the outmoded twice daily regimen. Insulin pumps are the internationally recommended treatment of choice for most children under 7 years of age with Type 1 diabetes. Hence we have over 80% of our patients managed with insulin pump therapy. We are very familiar with and use Tandem, Medtronic Ypso and Roche pumps. Our team will assess, educate and commence insulin pump therapy in candidates who wish to trial the delivery device and we feel will use the technology safely. Those families must commit to our team and management philosophy long term – we do not offer a short term “pump start then transfer” service.

Continuous Glucose Monitoring

ISPAD guidelines encourage the use of Continuous Glucose Monitors. Our diabetes team is experienced with both Dexcom, Medtronic and Freestyle Libre continuous glucose monitors. We use this technology on almost all young people with Type 1 Diabetes and find it an invaluable educational tool for effects of different foods, exercise, emotion and alcohol on blood glucose levels. These devices are subsided by the Federal Government for all with Type 1 Diabetes under 21 years of age. We are strong advocates for improved access to this technology for all living with Type 1 Diabetes.

Diabetes in schools

Our diabetes team are leading Australian authorities on management of Type 1 Diabetes in schools. Our interest has led to research and over 20 presentations on Diabetes in Schools in Australia and internationally and several published articles including the parental perception of the effects of school management on their child with Type 1 Diabetes. We were awarded the 2019 ISPAD international Award for Diabetes Innovation for creating an online learning program based on ISPAD guidelines to assist training school personnel to manage children with Type 1 Diabetes safely and legally at school. This program, launched in 2017, has proved popular with parents and schools, is highly effective and is freely available at https://www.t1d.org.au

We have been part of an international collaboration to create the first international guidelines for diabetes in school. These guidelines and the associated 2018 ISPAD Position Statement on Diabetes in schools are sentinal documents, outlining the highest standards for school management of Type 1 Diabetes. The ISPAD  Position Statement is available here:

We have been lead authors in 2 important guides for Diabetes in Schools – the Parent Guide and the Clinician Guides to best practice of training and implementing ISPAD guidelines in schools. Both guides are available for download at t1d.org.au Optimal diabetes care for children or adolescents with diabetes in schools is to provide appropriate support, including safe administration of insulin at school, to achieve the best possible diabetes control so to prevent any present or future risks of harm to their health and wellbeing. This will give the child/adolescent the best opportunity to concentrate, participate and learn whilst at school.

The child with Type 1 Diabetes should be managed so they have the same educational and social opportunities as children without diabetes. The child has the right to participate equally in all school activities, including outdoor activities and sponsored events away from school and to receive adult support for diabetes care during school hours.