MOD does another health fair!

Last week, MOD had a diabetes education booth at a health fair at the Genesis Bible Fellowship.



35 people stopped by our booth to learn about diabetes and diabetes prevention. Our most frequent question was if it is possible to cure diabetes. Once you are diagnosed with diabetes there is no cure. However; you can control your diabetes so that you need fewer medications or no medications at all.

Teaching about Healthy Snacking at Middle Schools

Last month, some pharmacy students partnered up with 'The Challenge Program' and helped out at the Green Street Academy Health Fair to teach the students about healthy snacking.

 

We made delicious fruit and yogurt parfaits and trail mix. We also showed students how to read a nutrition label. It is healthier to limit the amount of fat and sodium. If you have diabetes you want to monitor the amount of carbohydrates in each meal. Check the fiber and vitamins section of the label to see if the item is healthy for you.To maintain a healthy diet it is a good idea to look at the nutrition label of all the foods you eat. Below is an image from the National Kidney Foundation providing more information about nutrition labels.

MOD does blood pressure screenings

MOD conducted blood pressure screenings at Professional Pharmacy and at a local health fair as part of the Million Hearts Initiative. The initiative is to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes by 2017.

It is especially important for people with diabetes to control their blood pressure.

 

 

Below you can see a section of the fact sheet from the million hearts website. It explains what the blood pressure numbers mean. People can reduce their blood pressure by eating less salt. Try to eat no more than 1500mg of sodium a day. That is less than 1 teaspoon of salt! Most people with high blood pressure need 2 or 3 medicines to lower it. Work with your pharmacist and doctor to find the medications that are best for you. 

 

MOD goes to the UMB Wellness Fair

MOD went to the wellness fair to educate University of Maryland staff, students, and the community about diabetes. We talked to 62 people and conducted the diabetes risk assessment. We also provided hand-outs on how to prevent type 2 diabetes and about blood glucose.

Below you can see clips from the handout we gave up on how to delay type 2 diabetes. The handouts came from the American Diabetes Association website. http://www.diabetes.org/

Operation Diabetes Training Session - October 10th at 5 pm!

Please join us tomorrow October 10th at 5 pm for a synchronous Operation Diabetes Training session!!  The training session will be held in N 111 at the Baltimore campus and SG 2131 at the Shady Grove campus.  Dr. Deanna Tran, Assistant Professor and APhA Advisor, will help you feel more comfortable talking to patients at health fairs.  Through her interactive presentation you will learn general information about diabetes, complications and tips for managing diabetes.  She will also introduce the Operation Diabetes screening tool and how to use it.

Please don't miss this opportunity to become involved in patient outreach!  Food will be provided!!

New Recipe Cards from MOD!

Happy October 1st!! Today marks the beginning of American Pharmacist Month, an exciting time for MOD and everyone at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy!

Just this afternoon 2/3 of the MOD leadership + many of her fellow student Pharmacists went to Washington, DC to participate in a healthfair at the APhA national headquarters. They were educating APhA employees as well as members of the US State Department. We just posted a video diary entry of the day to kick off American Pharmacist Month, check out our videos scrolling to the left or here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjFweceonKI

We made some recipe cards today to hand out at the health fair, and I thought I would upload them here for everyone to see! Enjoy :)

MOD SG’s 1st Health Fair!

As you all know, this is my sister MOD SG’s freshman year in pharmacy school! She attended her first health fair last weekend at Mount Jezreel Baptist Church in Silver Spring, MD. She was accompanied by her BFFs MOI SG and MOH SG who were advocating for immunization and heartburn respectively. She had a great time educating the community about diabetes and its consequences if it wasn’t controlled. While there were about 200 people at the fair, she personally had an opportunity to talk to over 50 people and listen to their personal stories. MOD SG had a risk assessment form that showed that some of these patients were at risk for diabetes. Some of them already knew that they had diabetes and were there to ask some specific questions about their medications to MOD SG’s lovely professor Dr. Sullivan. When she told me all about her first successful health fair, I decided to blog about it so that everyone who couldn’t accompany her could read about her first pharmacy school adventure! I am glad that she had an exciting start to her pharmacy school career and will continue with her noble work of educating the community about diabetes. 

<3 MOD UMB.

Two Health Fairs down and on the move!

MOD has been busy lately, thanks to school, but we finally got around to writing an entry:

Saturday was our second health fair this fall, although it was more like the first because it was a joint APhA event. MOD teamed up with Operations Heart Burn, Immunization and the Maryland Regional Operation Hypertension at the CommUNITY Fest at "The World Famous Lexington Market" http://www.lexingtonmarket.com/.  Check out the local Baltimore Flare!!

CommUNITY Fest was hosted by the University of Maryland School of Medicine Chapter of the SNMA (Student National Medical Association).  The theme of the event was “CommUNITYFEST 2009: Healthy Childhoods, Healthy Futures.”  Many services were provided to reach the goal of making CommUNITYFEST festive and informative for a diverse audience of all ages and backgrounds.  There were  free health screenings including: glaucoma provided by the medical students, blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar provided by nurses from Maryland General Hospital, and mini oral exams provided by the dental students. Health information and education on topics such as diabetes, immunizations, hypertension, heartburn (by our ASP chapter) and asthma, mental health, children's health, tobacco use prevention, teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections was also provided by various other organizations.  ASP members also represented the school of pharmacy by teaming with the Maryland Poison Center to give medication safety information to parents and children.  Overall, it was a fun event attended by over 600 people.  It was great to see the health care professional students working together for the undeserved populations in the immediate area. 

Our first video entry with both of us was taken outside of the market.  Be sure to check it out, but give us a break, it's our first time on camera :P

<3 MOD

 Ashley and Erica welcoming the community!

 

 It was slow at the beginning.

Entrance to Lexington Market.

 

Student National Medical Association Board

View from above.