First Chronic Disease Conference on Patient Self-Management

The Shanghai HOPE team hosts the first chronic disease conference focusing on patient self-management at the Jiao Tong University School of Medicine on Friday May 18th. The conference was a partnership between Project HOPE, Shanghai CDC and the Jiao Tong University School of Public Health. Over 200 attendees participated (I know as I saw Gu Shuping working hard behind the scene coordinating including last minute changes to ensure everyone was fed for lunch!) Charlotte Block, Project HOPE’s Program Officer – Global Health Chronic Disease/Nutrition from the HOPE headquarter office gave a nice noncommunicable diseases overview and there were many key leaders that shared great ideas on self management concepts and methods as well as learning from existing programs.

My personal thanks to HOPE’s Tracy Huang for all the help with interpreting and putting up with my questions as I always have lots of questions! In fact, I actually had two questions of my own that I prepared to ask especially if there were no questions from the audience, but luckily there were plenty (another sign of the interest and passion of the topic.) The participants asked the same questions I had so I got my answers!  I also learned many medical terms in Chinese so that was a nice personal accomplishment!

After the conference, Project HOPE Program Director Lily Hsu, Charlotte and I attended a farewell dinner for  HOPE volunteer John Triedman, a cardiologist fellow from Boston Children’s Hospital.  This dinner was hosted by Shanghai Children’s Medical Center (SCMC) to thank John for his contribution to the cardiology unit during his three-month fellowship. Both SCMC leaders and John thanked Lily and Project HOPE for making the “health opportunity” possible! It was rewarding to see forged relationships and friendships that resulted from the fellowship that I’m sure will be carried forward!

Connie Lieu, a Global Health Fellow in Shanghai