FELLOWS AND PROJECTS

2008-2009

Ifey Asiodu, University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing
Ifey plans to provide workshops for the African American Community of San Mateo County to establish confidence in prospective mothers, promote early prenatal care, minimize fears around childbirth, promote skin to skin contact after delivery, encourage breastfeeding, and provide information about contraception.

Thomas Azwell, University of California, Berkeley, Environmental Sciences
Thomas is developing a plant ecology program at Mt. Diablo High School, which includes a health foods initiative in collaboration with John Muir Medical Center.

Sona Bekmezian, University of California, San Francisco School of Dentistry
Sona is developing a bilingual oral health education program for the San Francisco Homeless Prenatal Program and the San Mateo Medical Center Dental Clinic.

Mary Ann Dakkak and Alexis Jannicelli, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine
Mary Ann and Alexis are creating a women’s clinic and support group for homeless women in San Francisco.  This will be the first such clinic in San Francisco specifically geared toward women’s health.

Patricia Foo, Stanford University School of Medicine
Patricia is working with the Opportunity Center in Palo Alto to coordinate the case management of mental health and social needs of homeless individuals in Palo Alto. 

Jamila Harris, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine
Jamila is in the process of reconstituting a Community Advisory Board to help residents of the Western Addition in San Francisco and to improve services at the Maxine Hall Health Center.

Serena Huntington, University of California, San Francisco School of Pharmacy Serena is working to develop a Passport to Wellness program, which will create a role for pharmacists as preventative healthcare providers. The goal of the program is to empower patients to take control of their own health through education and counseling sessions on health maintenance activities.

Analiza Mitchell and Bright Chen, Samuel Merritt College, California College of Podiatric Medicine
Liza and Bright are assessing needs for podiatric care in the homeless community around the Bay Area, providing podiatric screenings and educating homeless individuals on the importance of preventative foot care.  They have already begun organizing collection drives to help provide clean shoes, socks, and foot hygiene items in order to promote healthy foot care practices among the homeless.

Shirin Mullen, University of California, San Francisco, School of Dentistry
Shirin is building on a project from 2007-2008 to provide oral health and nutrition education to children from the Boys & Girls Club of San Francisco during their summer period at Camp Mendocino.  She will also follow-up during the school year at the Boys & Girls Club in the Tenderloin of San Francisco.

Karen Phung, University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health
Karen is working with Easy Does it Services to provide outreach to the general elderly and physically disabled population in Berkeley, to advise them of services that are available to them, and to find out what other services they may need.  She is also helping to create a Berkeley Disaster Registry to determine the location of individuals who are at special risk during a disaster.

Arielle Simmons, University of California, Berkeley, Environmental Planning and Geography
Arielle is helping to alert community leaders in West Oakland about the potential health risks in their community.  Specifically, she is working with local high school children to produce a publishable map documenting the air and metal toxins surrounding West Oakland schools.

Hugo Torres, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine
Hugo is expanding on the work of a 2007-2008 Fellow at the Clinica Martin Baro to provide information about the health care system in San Francisco to immigrants from Spanish speaking countries. 

Tanner Zane, University of California, San Francisco School of Dentistry
Tanner is designing and implementing an oral health education program geared towards disadvantaged high school students in the Bay Area.

2007-2008

Jennifer Cameron, University of California, Berkeley Joint Medical Program
Jennifer worked as a psychosocial liaison for Berkeley Primary Care, a safety-net community health clinic providing primary care to uninsured and underinsured Alameda County residents. The goal of the project was to develop and strengthen community mental health networks in order to reduce the number of patients who fall through the cracks.  One of her programs involved a writing project for the clients to help them give voice to their concerns. 

Elizabeth Chao and Steven Lin, Stanford University Department of Biochemistry and School of Medicine
Liz and Steve designed and implemented the first comprehensive Hepatitis B Initiative and located it at the Pacific Free Clinic in East San Jose.  They worked with the Asian Liver Center at Stanford to provide free hepatitis B testing, vaccination, treatment and education for all Asian and Pacific Islanders in East San Jose who had low-income, no insurance, and low English proficiency. Open only on Saturdays, this clinic saw approximately 500 patients from the time it was opened in July, 2007 to the end of the Fellowship year in April 2008.  It will continue operation under the direction of other Stanford students and a number of dedicated volunteers.

Vincent Chong and Monica Hahn, University of California, Berkeley Joint Medical Program
Vince and Monica worked with the Asian Health Services Youth Program in Oakland to develop, pilot and evaluate a Young Male Involvement Program focusing on at-risk Southeast Asian Youth in the area.

Mai Dinh, University of California, San Francisco School of Dentistry
Mai created a community-campus partnership to provide oral health education at a Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco summer camp.  The objective was to help children understand the importance of their teeth by giving them basic information about dental hygiene and the supplies with which to carry it out.  During the school year she was involved in quarterly follow-up screenings.

Esther Hong, University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine
Esther collaborated with the Boys and Girls Clubs of San Francisco to implement a health career mentoring program for young female teens.  Esther was able to provide academic guidance, health professional shadowing programs, internship possibilities and community service projects to several teen-aged girls.

Jennifer Okonsky, University of California, San Francisco, School of Nursing
Jennifer collaborated with Southeast Health Center in Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco with a focus on HIV prevention and treatment. She created health education materials and provided HIV education sessions to the community as well as designed and implemented a HIV medication adherence support program for patients receiving care and treatment at the health center.

Janelle Palacios, University of California, San Francisco, School of Nursing
Janelle taught Native American women (school age and older) how to dance in different Native American styles at the Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland, California.  She also collaborated with women from that facility to carry out workshops addressing women''''s health issues that were of concern to them (which included: nutrition, physical activity, reproductive issues, mental health, violence and substance use).

Francisco Valles, University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine
Francisco worked with the Clinica Martin Baro in the Mission District of San Francisco to develop patient education modules on cancer that are culturally sensitive and specific to the needs of the community.  His target population was mainly comprised of Latino day laborers. 

Lauren Vose, University of California, San Francisco, School of Nursing
Lauren volunteered at the ACCESS English and Spanish hotlines that provide rural, poor, minority women with information referrals, health education, peer counseling and advocacy.  Once she became familiar with the hotlines, she also helped the organization update and streamline their hotline data bank to ultimately provide a more user-friendly data bank.