UPDATED:  October 29, 2011 10:04 PM
to reach Asian Pacific Americans, reach for Asian Fortune news

Google
                        
advertisement

Asian American Doctors Join Forces at Conference

By: Jenny Chen

Fairfax, Virginia – Oki Kwon sits at a round banquet table chatting and laughing with friends. His wife sits next to him and proudly shows his nametag to those who ask about him. In the background, plucked tunes of the Vietnamese dan tranh drift by, mingled with sounds of clinking wine glasses and conversation. Kwon is a Korean American family practice doctor, practicing in Virginia and he is at the first Asian Medical Conference in the United States.

The conference was jointly sponsored by the Korean American Medical Association, the Association of Chinese American Physicians, and the Vietnamese Medical Society of Northeast America. The event was held on October 2, 2011 at Woo Lae Oak, a Zagat rated Korean restaurant in Tyson’s Corner.

The conference, complete with live music, door prizes, and food, was the perfect opportunity for busy medical professionals to relax and have some fun. But some had broader goals.

“The meeting of these three organizations promotes friendship, unity…and will have more voice particularly in political issues,” said master of ceremonies, Dr. Anhn Pham, an oral surgeon and a board member of the Vietnamese Medical Society.

His colleague, Dr. Tran, the President of the Vietnamese Medical Society, agreed. “We wanted to combine forces,” Tran said. “As a small network we can’t do much…this is our first attempt to combine all together, and we can ask [politicians] to do something.”

That something includes a myriad of health issues that are important to the Asian American community including health services for the uninsured, diabetes treatment, and screening for Hepatitis B.

Hepatitis B is a prime example of an issue that looms large in the Asian American consciousness but flies low under the U.S. general health care radar. According to Jane Pan, the Executive Director of the Hepatitis B Initiative, a nonprofit organization that provides screening and treatment for the disease – 1 in 10 Asian Americans have Hepatitis B.

“It’s a silent disease. There is no cure, but there is treatment,” Pan said.

Ji Young Cho, from the Korean Community Service Center felt similarly. She is concerned in particular with the uninsured and low-income families who struggle to fight the disease with limited resources.

“They are not covered by Obama care,” Cho said. “It’s a really big issue…we have to shed more light on it.”

The liver disease certainly had its time in the spotlight at the conference – Dr. Mark Li, president of the Association of Chinese American Physicians Mid Atlantic Chapter, opened the conference with a talk on Hepatitis B and viral hepatitis; Calvin Pan spoke later on in the evening on new breakthroughs in the Hepatitis B scene, and the Hepatitis B Initiative received a $3,000 check from the organizers.

But there was a broad range of other programs as well. After lunch, pharmacists showcased their products during an exhibit, there were roundtables for dentists and pharmacists alike, and Dr. David Brown spoke on diabetes, another common illness in the Asian American community.

Mandy Cohen, an internist and director of Stake Holder Engagement for the Innovation Center at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services spoke on Accountable Care Organizations – the new buzzword for doctors all over the country. She answered questions about the program that creates a network of doctors and hospitals that shares responsibility for providing care to patients in order to help more patients who are on Medicare. Many doctors voiced their concerns about being paid and the extra burden of reporting paperwork, which Cohen acknowledged and promised to bring back to her supervisors.

All in all, Tran noted, as people began filtering out of the restaurant into the cool autumn night, the event was a success. But this is just the beginning.

“We are trying to orient people towards service for their communities. We are encouraging the spirit of unity as Asian Americans who will fight for the protections for Asians and promote Asian contributions to the medical community,” Tran said.

Well fed and buzzing with newly made friends, that kind of goodwill won’t be hard in coming.

back to news
advertisement