Education Seminars, When Delivered the Right Way, Improve the Community's Understanding of Health In

Asian Heart and Vascular Center presents: Women, Heart Disease, and the Importance of Receiving Standard Health Screenings - Thursday, March 27, 5 - 6:30 pm Community education events at the Asian Heart and Vascular Center (AHVC) are helping members of the Asian community take control of their doctor visits. "I appreciate AHVC's classes because they're directed to the lay person, which makes the content useful to me," said Joyce Chan, an attendee and supporter of AHVC's community educational events. "Health information classes should be helpful to the audience. When there is too much medical information all at once, it's very hard to digest." AHVC's education classes are well attended by the community for this reason. Diana Lau, RN, MS, CNS, administrative director of AHVC, reminds invited speakers that, even when given in Cantonese and Mandarin, the audience needs help understanding many medical terminologies. "When talking about healthcare, audiences can get intimated by reading bar graphs and pie charts on things they might not fully understand. Examples need to be culturally appropriate," Lau said. "Pictures, more than Power point presentations, do a better job of conveying the health message and medical information that our demographic needs to hear." Dr. David Liu kept this in mind when giving his class: "Talking to Your Physicians the Smart Way." Author of the book Stay Healthy, Live Longer, and Spend Wisely, Liu used a story-telling technique to describe easy-to-understand scenarios that the audience related to about how patients should prepare before seeing their doctor. According to physicians, patients are often reluctant to share their needs, which keeps problems from being solved. Proper preparation includes writing down a patient's three most important concerns before seeing the doctor. Patients should also describe their symptoms using the "Four Ws" - when, what, where and how. Culturally, Liu wants to break the psychological barriers that many Asian patients have about speaking on the same level with their doctor. Another AHVC presenter, Dr. Peter Teng, also used pictures and helpful, easy-to-understand language in his presentation about the eight ways to maintain a healthy heart. AHVC's next set of two classes will be on women and heart disease. The classes will be given by Lau, an advocate for heart disease awareness among Asian women and an expert in patient education. Liu will also return to speak about the standard health screenings that patients should receive with each decade's advance in age. These classes will be given in a combination of English and Mandarin, and translated into Cantonese. Culturally appropriate examples will be used for illustration. Topic: Women and heart disease, and standard health screenings

Date: March 27, 2008 (Thursday)

Time: 5 pm - 6:30 pm

Place: The Herbst Auditorium at the UCSF-Mount Zion Hospital Campus 1600 Divisadero Street (at Post), 2nd floor, San Francisco

RSVP: (415) 885-3678 Related Links: HepB Free Project Joins with UCSF Staff to Offer Prevention Strategies to Community
UCSF Today, Feb. 26, 2008