Advisory Board Bios

Lorena is a registered dietitian, certified diabetes educator and Hispanic Educator Specialist, and maintains a private practice. Ms. Drago also works as a consultant, conducting lectures, self-management workshops and diabetes patient education for managed care organizations, businesses and individuals. Ms. Drago has a special interest in providing culturally competent and ethnically oriented materials to patients and has developed nutrition education and diabetes materials in both English and Spanish.

Her expertise lies not only in translating the nutrition information but translating the sentiment of the culture to encourage self-management. Ms. Drago designs nutrition education tools that convey simple and direct messages based on the patient wants and needs enhancing and maximizing the patient learning experience. The tools are culturally and linguistically appropriate and visually appealing.

Among her many professional memberships, she is currently President for the Metropolitan New York Association of Diabetes Educators, immediate past Chair of the Hispanic Latino Specialty Practice Group for the American Association of Diabetes Educators, member of the New York American Diabetes Association Leadership Committee and Regional Network Coordinator of the Dietitians in Diabetes Care and Education SPG. She has appeared on television, radio and print (newspaper, web, books) promoting diabetes self-management. Recent professional speaking engagements include the following: the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Diabetes Educators in Philadelphia in August of 2002, a poster session titled: “Making Waiting Part of the Education Experience: Teaching Caribbean Hispanics with Diabetes,” the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Diabetes Educators – Salt Lake City- August 2003 “My Español is different from your Español: Creating Educational Tools for Hispanics With Diabetes,” the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Diabetes Educators – Indianapolis – August 2004 “Teaching Hispanics with Diabetes” and “Fun Ways to Teach Carbohydrate Counting,”and the Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo “Effective Teaching Strategies for Dietetics Professionals Counseling Hispanics with Diabetes” – October 2004

Ms. Drago’s upcoming book on diabetes management titled, “Latin American Foods and Diabetes: Meal Planning Made Easy” will be published by the American Diabetes Association in the Spring of 2005.