Living with Chronic Kidney Disease and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: The Patient and Clinician Perspective.

People living with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D for short) and chronic kidney disease (CKD for short) may have worse health over time. Managing long-term health conditions can be expensive for those living with the conditions and for healthcare systems. To optimize their quality of life, people with T2D and CKD need the necessary resources to better manage their conditions. Healthcare professionals desire the best outcomes for their patients. Currently, communication between healthcare professionals and their patients is suboptimal, and ineffective communication creates a barrier to effective optimal care. The aim of this article is to describe the experiences of three people living with T2D and CKD (patients), who are also authors of the article. They outline their thoughts on how communication between patients and healthcare professionals might be improved when managing multiple conditions. We also present responses from three healthcare professionals (clinicians), who are co-authors of this article, to the points made by the patients, as well as their views on how to manage these long-term conditions.