Friday, November 8, 2024

Students win awards at Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association regional conference

Medical students attend the regional conference in Atlanta. 
A group of second-year medical students recently won awards for poster presentations and a suturing competition during the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association (APAMSA) Region IV and IX Conference held at Emory University in Atlanta.  

“It was really amazing to see my fellow classmates present their hard work at this conference and flourish,” said Linhan Ha, president of the APAMSA chapter. “It was also such a unique experience learning about diverse types of medicine, such as acupuncture, and practicing our suturing skills with a friendly competition. We were also able to bond and get to know each other better. I know my fellow classmates and I will never forget this experience.”  

Five of the 20 accepted posters presented for the conference were from students at the Whiddon College of Medicine. The poster presentations were made by Isha Patel, Linhan Ha, Mariam Omar, Danielle Flores and Lien Inman (joint poster), and Ivy Nguyen. 

In the suturing competition, Inman took first place, while Ha took third place.  

For the poster presentation competition, Whiddon College of Medicine students captured three of the four total awards distributed. They were:  

  • First Place: Mariam Omar. Title: “Our Approach to Vitrectomy Surgery in Diabetic Retinopathy is Changing Due to Intraoperative Fluorescein Angiography Guidance” 
  • Third Place: Danielle Flores and Lien Inman. Title: QI: Skin Cancer Screening and Perceptions” 
  • Honorable Mention: Isha Patel. Title: “Use of Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring to Predict LVMI in the Pediatric Population: a Single Center Experience” 

“Attending the APAMSA conference was such a great opportunity for us,” Omar said. “We got to meet so many talented and driven medical students within our region, and we presented our research together. It was an invaluable experience and I’m so thankful to OHA for making it possible for us.” 

Flores and Inman, who took third in the poster competition, said they loved meeting medical students from across the Southeast and learning more about the rich history and ongoing drive for progress in the AAPI community, adding “Discovering how traditional Eastern medicine integrates into modern practice and hearing others’ personal experiences at the conference gave us a deeper understanding of the cultures and circumstances of the patients we see in a clinic back home.” 

The Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association is a national organization of more than 4,500 medical and pre-medical students in more than 170 chapters committed to addressing the unique health challenges of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities.