Major Asian/Pacific Islander health issues
The book Never Eat Alone suggested going to conferences to meet people: folks who share similar interests and passions, folks who can quickly become your peers, friends, and mentors. I found this to be very true at the APAMSA Western Regional Conference in UC San Francisco last weekend (Steve's very first conference! He's growing up!).
I met new people from different walks of life, including a physician and director of SF General Hospital's clinic. I even met some of my former students from way back when I taught organic chemistry at the SLC (Student Learning Center at Berkeley). I also breathed in knowledge from other folks, folks I haven't gotten a chance to meet, folks who are really at the forefront of Asian-Pacific Islander health issues, folks who run whole hospitals, clinics, and medical institutions.
But I believe Keith Ferrazzi (the gentleman who wrote Never Eat Alone) claims that you might as well read a book to learn, instead of going to a conference. Here, I disagree. Conferences are like university lectures. You, as a student, learn. But, you and the rest of the audience voluntarily sacrifice a weekend to attend because everyone wants to learn, and as a result, the room fills up with a lot more energy than the typical university lecture. I learned a TON about Asian-Pacific Islander health issues.
The following are two main things I've taken away from this conference.
1. Asians are not a very well-researched group, in terms of medicine. A lot more attention has been paid to malaria and HIV/AIDS (both devastate Africa), or breast/lung/etc. cancer, but not to Hepatitis B. According to Dr. Samuel So, who drives the Jade Ribbon Campaign, there are 350-400 million folks in the world who have chronic Hepatitis B, compared to the 40 million afflicted with HIV. Hepatitis B leads to liver cancer, and is transmitted nearly in the same fashion as HIV. But it's not really on people's radar because, again, it mostly afflicts Asians.
2. Not all Asians are the same. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Vietnamese, and so forth are generally lumped into one single category when really, each group has their own distinct culture, distinct language, and distinct characteristics. This generally makes medical treatment more difficult since the doctors and nurses often cannot communicate with an "Asian" who can't speak the language, and getting ahold of an interpreter can be difficult. You can certainly cover the Latino group (they speak Spanish) or the African-American group, but in general, non-English speaking patients will have longer wait times in hospitals and clinics, and less satisfaction with the whole healthcare system.
Plus, Asians are not really the "model minority" that is often stereotypically portrayed. (My favorite quote is that "there will always be a 10-year-old Asian girl who can play the piano better than you," but maybe this Asian girl is uninsured and can't speak English.) Asians aren't trouble-free. In San Francisco, according to Dr. Alexander Li, 45% of the Asians are Chinese and Vietnamese and can't even speak English, and 22% of all Asians are uninsured (compared to 38% Latinos, 11% African-Americans, and 11% whites). First off, that means that, at the very least 1 in 10 people are uninsured. Second, I'm guessing that means people who really need the care put off seeing the doctor until these people hit the emergency room, thus clogging up the healthcare system. These patients often get seen too late when, say, their illness reaches a terminal stage, when they could have been treated at an earlier stage when the disease hasn't manifested wholly.
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I will be blogging more and more on health and med issues, more issues that affect people (not boring nitty-gritty stuff like "ohhhh, these alkyl halide reactions are teh L33t, LoLz"), along with the random grab-bag of things I usually post. :) Smiley face!
