A Great Continuing Education Program to Raise Awareness of Viral Hepatitis Screening
In an effort to raise community awareness of viral hepatitis screening, the Asian Pacific Health Foundation organized a Continuing Education Program and dinner at China Max Seafood Restaurant (4698 Convoy St C101, San Diego, CA 92111) on May 10, 2019. The program was a success, with great food, excellent CE talks, and a large crowd of health professionals, caregivers, and APHF supporters!
We would like to thank our speakers, Drs. Robert Gish, MD and Naveen Gara, MD for their informative presentations. Dr. Robert Gish, a globally recognized hepatologist and APHF Medical Director, spoke on “Treat Patients with High HBV DNA & Healthy ALT? or Treat All Patients?”, which covered the natural history of Hepatitis B, current recommended screening, issues in HBV therapy, and new HBV therapies in the pipeline. Dr. Naveen Gara, a hepatologist at the Gastroenterology & Liver Institute, presented “Chronic Hepatitis C: An Overview,” a comprehensive review of the disease with updates in diagnostic imaging and therapies. Their presentations prompted many good discussions and many audience members voiced their appreciation to our presenters afterward.
The program would not have been possible without the financial support from Gilead Sciences. To Dawn Moore, Greg Nolan and Scott Moon from Gilead Sciences, thank you for your hard work in securing the funds. The support from Gilead Sciences has been crucial to the continuation of the Asian Pacific Health Foundation’s mission to reduce silent, chronic diseases in vulnerable populations within our communities.
The Continuing Education for Pharmacists was realized via UCSD Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences California Accreditation for Pharmacists Education (CAPE) program. We thank UCSD SSPSS for approving 2 CE units. We were also joined by Margaret Beers from the American Liver Foundation, who brought a variety of additional educational resources for attendees
As always, our volunteer team members were an essential part of the success of the program. Tram Nguyen, PharmD and Joey Nguyen, PharmD worked together to moderate the talks, while Dr. Kayla Giang, Dr. Binh Tran, Vivian Nguyen, Tam Ho, Kevin Lam, James Cordero ensured the smooth execution of the event. Some of our team members were unable to attend, but their behind-the-scenes work was no less important to the success of the event: Dr. Andrew Liu PhD, James Pham, and Nguyen Vo have our gratitude.
Our organization always appreciates the generosity and involvement of people like you, with every contribution going towards making Asian Pacific Health Foundation an even better nonprofit organization.
Liver Life Walk with American Liver Foundation
In recognition of Hepatitis Awareness Month in May, the Asian Pacific Health Foundation (APHF) joined the American Liver Foundation (ALF) for their Annual Liver Life Walk event at Liberty Station in Point Loma on May 11, 2019. The rain could not dampen APHF’s team spirit as we marched together with dozens of other organizations to the end!
Representing APHF team’s, we had Dr Kayla Giang, Dr. Binh Tran, Dr. France Nguyen, Dr. Andrew Liu, Kevin Lam, Brianna Crain, Amy Liu and Grace Suh. Our friends and families also came to show their support with APHF. Dr. Amy Dao, a pharmacist at Ralph’s supermarket in San Marcos and avid half-marathoner, was joined by her mother Vien Tran, a regular Tai chi practitioner. France’s daughters, Katya and Viviana, also walked with us. We all feel so fortunate to be part of this exciting event to fundraise, support those with liver disease, and increase hepatitis awareness. Many thanks to Scott Suckow, Laurie Ganz, and Margaret Beers from ALF for organizing the walk!
Click here to see more pictures of this event.
Successful Implementation of Clinical Skills Workshop 2019
On May 11, 2019, the Asian Pacific Health Foundation implemented the first Clinical Skills Workshop on Diabetes in collaboration with the UC San Diego School of Medicine (SOM) and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SSPPS). The program aims to increase knowledge of students and volunteers about silent diseases that APHF screens at health fairs as well as help participants develop clinical skills through case-based learning. Seventeen students participated in our first program by the end of which APHF received overwhelming positive feedback from students as well as requests for future workshops.
The mission of APHF is to advance health and wellness for the vulnerable groups in San Diego and Imperial Counties by providing health education and free community health screenings for hepatitis B and C, diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol disorders and osteoporosis at community centers.
The Clinical skills workshop started with a 50-minute lecture on the disease followed by two patient-case workshops. During patient-case workshops, medical and pharmacy students facilitated students and volunteers in small discussion groups to complete two patient cases using a SOAP-ME format (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan, Monitoring, and Education).
Lecture Presenter: Tram Nguyen, PharmD, MBA
Lecture and Case Evaluator: Kayla Giang, PharmD, MS
Program Coordinator: Megan Cheng
Patient Case Workshop Facilitators:
Medical Students: Terrence Lee, Jennifer Bu, and Jennifer Tram
Pharmacy Students: Tran Bui, Nguyen Vo, and Andrew Dang
APHF Support Staff: Dr. Binh Tran, Tam Ho, Vivian Ngo, James Cordero, and Kevin Lam
Thank you to Megan Cheng, our APHF Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator, for her hard work and innovative ideas in developing and executing the entire program! Success of our first program was also due to strong support from the UCSD SOM, UCSD SSPPSS, and the APHF volunteer team. APHF is deeply thankful to all supporters for taking the time to be at the program during Mother’s Day weekend. Great teamwork!
This program is a work-in-progress towards the development of an educational program which complements students’ academic work through exposure to a variety of real-world situations.
APHF is looking forward to continuing good work for the community. Please feel free to spread the word about our activities! Click here to see more pictures of this event.