FELLOWS AND PROJECTS

2011-12

Maria Aleshin and Cherie Blair, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine
Blair and Aleshin are addressing health disparities experienced by incarcerated females in Los Angeles County by creating and implementing health education and empowerment workshops at the Century Regional Detention Facility. Additionally, they will develop and implement a lecture/workshop series be held at the David Geffen School of Medicine, aimed at increasing knowledge and reducing the stigma associated with this population.
Community Site: Century Regional Detention Facility

Angelina Cazares, USC School of Social Work
Aresha Martinez, UCLA School of Public Health
Cazares and Martinez aim to empower female juvenile detainees to adopt safer sexual practices by offering Girl Talk, a comprehensive sexual education course and support group. Through this program, they hope to address the high prevalence of STIs among this population.
Community Site: TBD



Erica Davenport and Sabah R'id, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine
Davenport and R’id will launch Project Beauty, an initiative for at-risk adolescent girls designed to promote empowerment, health, self-esteem, and safe sexual practices.
Community Site: Healthy African American Families

Sadiah Iqbal, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine
Iqbal will provide health workshops targeting South Asian and Middle Eastern communities. These workshops will provide health education, early screening, appropriate referrals, and a community support system for prevalent chronic conditions including hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and depression. The workshops will empower participants with general knowledge of the specific disease, information on prevention and management of chronic conditions using a healthy diet and exercise, and an understanding of the importance of medication compliance. Through the workshops, community members will practice reading nutrition labels, checking blood pressure and blood glucose levels, and performing stress relieving exercises; brochures, pedometers, and pill organizers will be provided.
Community Site: Mandir, Gurdwara, and Islamic Center

Crystal Ives, USC Keck School of Medicine
Ives is addressing the lack of opportunity for controlled detoxification from opiates for low-income individuals in downtown Los Angeles by starting a short-term outpatient buprenorphine detoxification program at an established needle exchange site. Patients will be given the opportunity to experience sobriety without going through opiate withdrawal. In addition to medications and clinic visits, Ives’ program will offer patients the opportunity to connect with community resources and link in to long-term support for maintaining a sober lifestyle. 
Community Site: 4th Street Harm Reduction Clinic, Homeless Healthcare Los Angeles

Ashlee Klevens, USC School of Pharmacy
Klevens will work to develop a bi-monthly medication self-management program for Hispanic residents of Lincoln Heights.
Community Site: Arroyo Vista Family Health Center

Charlotte Oduro, UCLA School of Public Health
Oduro is working to improve the health outcomes of prostate cancer survivors preparing to exit the IMPACT program by implementing a program that focuses on skill development and participant empowerment. In addition to providing focus groups aimed at assisting participants in managing their care and navigating the health care system, Oduro’s program will reach out to members of the participants’ support groups and the clinical team to reinforce participant skills and self-efficacy and provide participants with an opportunity to brainstorm ways to apply strategies and skills gained.
Community Site: California IMPACT Program, Los Angeles County

Jennifer Phung, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine
Phung aims to educate children and families in a domestic violence shelter on nutrition and healthy eating through a community gardening program. Phung will also lead sessions on preventing cardiovascular disease and diabetes through healthy lifestyle and nutrition choices. 
Community Site: Asian Pacific Women’s Center

Kavita Renduchintala, USC Keck School of Medicine
Renduchintala aims to address the need for access to health and wellness education among local underserved minority middle-school and high-school students by creating interactive small-group health workshops that focus on various teen health issues. These workshops will include information on sexual health, drugs and alcohol, nutrition, exercise, and mental health. Additionally, Renduchintala will help create a science curriculum to increase performance levels in science classes and encourage teens to pursue health-related professional paths.
Community Site: USC Neighborhood Academic Initiative Program (USC NAI)

Stephen Speicher, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine
Speicher aims to create and put into function a sanctuary for yoga, meditation, and prayer on the Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times campus in Idyllwild, Ca. The sanctuary will serve as a permanent facility promoting mental and physical wellness for children with cancer, as well as their siblings. The project aims to empower underserved Los Angeles youth by creating a space through which they can cope with difficulties through healthy forms of expression.
Community Site: Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times

David Tran, UCLA School of Public Affairs
Tran is addressing the epidemic of methamphetamine abuse among Latino and LGBT adolescents in East Los Angeles by creating a youth meth task force in conjunction with the Greater East LA Meth Task Force and strengthening mental health resources in the community. The youth task force will provide youth representation and perspectives in the design, implementation, and evaluation of meth prevention efforts in East LA. In addition, Tran will address the lack of mental health resources in the East LA community by organizing and distributing resources to community organizations. He aims to organize youth-specific meth prevention activities (such as an interactive webinar on youth perspectives on meth prevention and reliable referral services to mental health resources) in hopes of empowering and engaging the community to take active roles in the health of their youth.
Community site: The Wall-Las Memorias, the Greater East LA Meth Task Force

2010-11

Saskya Byerly (USC Med), Kimberly DeQuattro (USC Med), and Kristen Gregory (USC Med) will be doing a comprehensive education and mentoring program targeting high risk young women in the East Los Angeles area.  They plan to reach out to those at high-risk for teen pregnancy, assist and educate those already pregnant and to provide support and parenting skills to young mothers.

Matthew Calzetta (USC Med) is developing a community garden project in the Boyles Heights community, as part of the Romero Clinic.  This garden will provide increase green space in a low-income urban neighborhood, promote fresh produce to community member’s diets, promote exercise and movement, and improve mental health.





Lynne Chang (UCLA Med) is planning to do an outreach-based syringe exchange program for the homeless injection drug users in Los Angeles as well as improve delivery of health services and and education to that population.






Lucy Chow (UCLA Med) will be working to develop the Asian Pacific American Helath Collaboration Access Resource and Education (APA Health CARE) to provide health screenings for obesity, hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol and hepatitis B at various health fairs throughout the year in the Los Angeles area.






Adam Cohen (UCLA MPH) will be bringing music to local Los Angeles hospitals as well as recruiting others to join him.  He hopes of bringing psychologic and physical healing to those suffering through music.









Jeffrey Delacruz (UCLA Med) and Brian Raffetto (UCLA Med) will be working together on the KP Kids after school childhood obesity project at Venice Family Clinic, helping to encourage exercise and proper nutrition in underserved youth.  They plan to expand the program to include more children and other sites.






Stephania Hayes (USC Occupational and Physical Therapy) will be working with residents of board & care homes to improve their quality of life, especially mental health,  through goal-oriented activities.







Kenneth Kim (UCLA Med) will be assisting low-income and uninsured patients to access needed medications through facilitating their enrollment in the Patient Assistance Program, which offers no cost medications to the uninsured.







Erin Grieb (UCI Med) and Wonita Youm (UCI Med) will be working with Children’s Hospital of Orange County Primary Care clinics and the Medical Initiative Against Homelessness to address pediatric obesity and cardiovascular disease.  They plan weekly one hour patient education classes and physical activities for the children.

Matthew Hakimi (UCLA Med) plans to work with the UCLA Schoolof Dentistry to provide dental care and eye screening via the UCLA Eye Mobile clinic to the patient populations served by the UCLA Student-Run Free clinics.








Cianna Leatherwood (USC Med) will be providing health education to homeless youth in the Hollywood area, including information on sexually transmitted illnesses, drug and alcohol use.







Carolina Rodriguez (USC Social Work and Nursing) will be developing a case management intervention to better deliver medical and mental health care for low-income and uninsured patients.








Ariel Strauss (UCLA Law) will be working with the UCLA Student-Run Homeless clinic to provide Supplemental Security Income application assistance to homeless clients in order to gain them access to subsidized housing and Medi-Cal health coverage.

Cyrus Taghavi (UCLA Med) will serving the UCLA Student-Run Homeless clinic population that suffers from chronic low back pain, utilizing educational workshops to teach exercises to improve strength, proper lifting technique and proper footwear. 

Jasmine Walton (USC Dental) will be exposing high school students to service by role modeling, developing their confidence in science, teaching them practical skills, and working them through problems based learning cases to encourage the development of underserved inner city youth into future health care professionals.

2008-09

 Courtney Burks, UCLA School of Public Health
Courtney is planning to create a free, student-run clinic or screening service for the Latino community in East Los Angeles, involving medical, dental, nursing and public health students.

Joseph Chan and Henry Guan, UCLA School of Medicine
Joseph and Henry will target diabets and obesity in at-risk teens and pre-teens at the Boys and Girls club and YMCA to provide a safe place for adolescents to exercise and to provide them basic health knowledge about obesity and diabetes.


Stacy Chan and Ashley Quan, UCLA School of Medicine
Stacy and Ashley will provide healthcare professionals language tools to communicate health issues to non-English speaking Chinese patients to improve cultural awareness on patients' views of health as well as address hepatitis B, type II diabetes and osteoporosis.


Tyler Gonzalez, UCLA School of Medicine
Tyler is planning to work with a pediatric diabetic clinic to help educate patients about diet, exercise, and lifestyle change in underserved areas of Los Angeles.


Daniel Karlin and Mark Lin, UCLA School of Medicine
Daniel and Mark will establish micro-clinics where health professionals will provide clinic members with basic education about the disease, followed by hands-on workhops to acquaint patients with equipment and medications to allow individuals to ultimately collectively educate each other.


Victoria Lin, UCLA School of Medicine
Victoria will implement a program to teach Easter Medicine including acupressure and deep breathing exercises for stress reduction to the medically indigent, homeless population in West Los Angeles.


Sonya Soni, USC School of Public Health
Sonya will create a USC student run primary care health clinic adjacent to the USC Dental Health Clinic on Skid Row, to provide medical services, mental health counseling, prescriptions, and referral services to Los Angeles' uninsured and underserved population.


Hilda Wiryawan, UCLA School of Public Health
Hilda is planning to help uninsured populations in the community clinics in Los Angeles by connecting them with social workers to assist in Medi-Cal application in order to improve health care access.


Victoria Yung, UCLA School of Medicine
Victoria will be implementing a smoking cessation program at the Student Run Homeless Clinic in Santa Monica, to provide non-prescription and prescription aids to quit smoking as well as a support system.