General Meeting Minutes (11/19/08)

For those who couldn't attend the last meeting, here's what we discussed. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please email any of the board members or dukemed.apamsa@gmail.com.

1. News from recent APAMSA National Meeting
-Daniel and Victoria attended and gathered ideas.
-Daniel was elected as a regional director and Victoria was elected as a cancer director on the national board. Congratulations!
-Our region, Region IV-Southeast, includes medical schools in AL, FL, GA, MS, NC, SC, TN.
-10 medical schools
-traditionally not a very active region
-possibility of holding a Duke regional meeting in the future?
-USF proposed holding a regional meeting this year
-Do we want to help?
-Mike and Shoshana will look into helping with conference planning.
-Can we host a smaller regional meeting?
-possible lecturers/lecture topics: Dr. Jiang, bone marrow lecture, mental health, how diseases affect Asians uniquely, “bamboo ceiling”

2. Undergrad mentorship
-Recent undergrad Q&A session was poorly advertised and poorly attended by undergrads, but 6 med students (4 from Duke, 2 from UNC) attended and fielded questions.
-questions about admissions
-especially helpful to have former Duke undergrad there to answer specific Duke questions
-lasted ~1 hour
-Future events
-panel for undergrads with a powerpoint presentation and Q&A
-more casual events (i.e., invite undergrads to APAMSA socials)

3. Bone Marrow Registry
-Asia Grand Market would be happy to host us.
-How to attract people—balloons? candy?
-Spring semester goal: 2 bone marrow drives—1 at undergrad campus, 1 at Asian market
-Future idea: have a bone marrow info session from an attending, open to the entire med school (Krish and Victoria: advisor list or ideas?)

4. Recap of Dr. Jiang’s Grand Rounds
After the Sichuan earthquake, there was no mental health infrastructure available. People were silent and showed signs of depression but had no outlets for their thoughts. Dr. Jiang and her team were only there for 1 week, which wasn’t enough time to really help people. They tried to provide an outlet for people to vent. A lot of planning went into what amounted to a very short time with the people. Cultural sensitivity and a do-what-you-can attitude were key.

5. Socials
-Awaaz was awesome—should do this every year
-more socials, please
-1st week of December—end of the semester social (date and activity tbd)
-Spring events: Lunar New Year, monthly restaurant social (eat food and talk about Asian issues), potluck

6. Other updates
-Singapore—no updates yet
-Website—up and running
-community service: outreach to boat workers on the coast—Check http://www.ncfhp.org/fieldwork.asp for more info. Can APAMSA commit to a long-term project? If not, should we just pass this on to the med school community service committee? What would Community Health require before allowing students to participate in this?

7. Future ideas/goals
-Faculty database of people in different specialties—What are people interested in?
-Database of Duke APAMSA alumni, to provide some mentorship
-SNMA: Ethics Minority Discussion with SNMA (Rohit), “Rush Hour” collaboration
-Write an article for one of the school papers or journals related to APAMSA issues (i.e., what it’s like to be an Asian medical student or the experience of being an overrepresented minority)—ask Eun?
-Lunar New Year social
-APAMSA Tshirts?-Book Club?