...About two weeks ago, I flew out to LA to take refuge from the Michigan cold. LA was unseasonably chilly, so I didn't quite get the sun and warmth that I had hoped for, but I got something better.
I attended the annual Asian Pacific Americans Medical Student Association (APAMSA) National Conference and spent my three days in LA meeting other medical school students and listening to inspiring lectures and workshops. The majority of the sessions focused specifically on health issues in the Asian American population. These include the incidence of Hepatitis B, the large number of uninsured in the Korean American community, the incidence of lung cancer, health awareness and education, and cultural competency.
California has a very large and diverse Asian population. I visited the Monterey Park/Freemont/Arcadia area on my last day in LA and could have sworn I was abroad! Because of this large Asian population, Asian American specific health issues are very apparent in California and there have been several great stories of progress. We had the privilege of hearing from Assemblywoman Fiona Ma of the San Francisco area and Assemblymember Mike Eng of the Los Angeles area describe the great strides that California has made in making the Hepatitis B issue a city-wide awareness and screening campaign (Hep B Free). We also heard from Dr. Jimmy Hara, Community Benefit Lead Physician for Kaiser Permanente Southern California, Dr. Arthur Chen, Medical Director of Alameda Alliance, Captain Cynthia Macri, M.D., Special Assistant of Diversity to the Chief of Naval Operations in the US Navy, and Dr. Paul Song, Director of Clinical Quality Improvement for Vantage Oncology who have all expanded their medical careers to address large scale efforts and discussions on how to better deliver health care, increase access, and shape national health policy. To top off this list of inspiring speakers and the many not mentioned here, our conference closed with talks from Dr. Sammy Lee, the first Asian American to win an Olympic gold medal for the US and Dr. Eliza Lo Chin, president-elect of the American Medical Women's Association.
Since most of these speakers hailed from California and have done such admirable work in the state of California, I felt a little discouraged at first. My hometown in South Florida's greatest health issues are geriatric and centered around ensuring that our seniors are able to live quality lives and obtain the health care that they need easily. My second home in Boston has nearly achieved universal health care access through its individual mandate, but now struggles to iron out the financial details of managing and continuing this initiative. And my new home in Ann Arbor? Unemployment is everywhere. I have yet to gain a better understanding of the health issues in Michigan, but my guess is that access is one of the top five concerns. With significantly smaller Asian communities in these three locales, how am I supposed to take the inspiring and encouraging words from the APAMSA conference and transform them into action locally?....
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