The Ampul
¡Azúcar!
NO BARRIER TO CARING
In March 2010, approximately 45 students and faculty members from Ohio Northern University’s College of Pharmacy converged on St. Stephen the Martyr Catholic Church in Columbus, Ohio. They were there to provide health screenings and health education to the large, underserved Spanish-speaking population of the parish. (More than 1,000 people attend the parish’s Spanishlanguage masses each week.) This Spanish-language health-fair project was developed and coordinated by Jennifer Cornelius, a fourth-year pharmacy student from Cincinnati, Ohio, and Emily Kruckeberg, a fourth-year pharmacy student from New Haven, Ind. While second-year pharmacy students, they were looking for ways to become more involved with Ohio Northern University’s American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP) chapter, specifically Operation Diabetes. As Spanish minors, the pair also hoped to reach out to the Spanish-speaking community in some way. After learning about St. Stephen the Martyr Catholic Church from Dr. Donnie Sullivan, professor of pharmacy practice, and after debating many different concepts, the pair developed their idea of a Spanish health fair, one with free health screenings, refreshments and raffle prizes. They called their endeavor ¡Azúcar! “Azúcar is the Spanish word for sugar,” explains Kruckeberg. “It is a play on words because the event began with the idea of educating, counseling and testing patients for diabetes (aka testing their ‘sugars’). Also, in the Latino culture, it is a word for celebration.”
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TRULY A NEED
According to the U.S. Office of Minority Health, as of 2008, 2.5 million Hispanic adults (about 11 percent of that population) had diabetes. Hispanics are 1.5 times as likely to have diabetes as whites. In 2006, the death rate from diabetes in Hispanics was 50 percent higher than the death rate of non-Hispanic whites. “Many times, those whose second language is English have a difficult time communicating with health care professionals and acquiring adequate health care resources,” says Cornelius. “Our goal was to develop a comfortable, convenient setting where a Spanish-speaking population could interact with pharmacists and student pharmacists who speak Spanish.”
“Our Spanish was not perfect, but the parishioners were elated that we were trying to speak to them in their native language,” says Cornelius. “They were so polite and waited in line for more than 20 minutes just to speak to our students and be tested. They welcome us back with open arms each year.”
THE EVENT
THE SWEETEST FEELING
The first Azúcar lasted roughly two hours and involved more than 100 patients. The event featured a brief Spanish presentation on diabetes followed by free health screenings (blood pressure and blood glucose screenings as well as eye exams). “We also had diabetic-friendly cookies and refreshments along with little toys for the children,” says Kruckeberg. In 2011, Kruckeberg and Cornelius added more services to Azúcar. The event offered immunization and heartburn information, blood pressure and blood glucose screenings, eye exams, and a folic acid study group that counseled female patients on the importance of having folic acid in their diet for fetal development.
As the event continues to grow, its two originators have not lost sight of their initial reasons for visiting St. Stephen the Martyr Catholic Church back in 2010. “This project is something very dear to our hearts because we truly feel like we are making a difference as student pharmacists in a patient population that may not be as privileged to receive adequate health care,” says Cornelius. Kruckeberg shares this sentiment. “For me, the most rewarding feeling is hearing ‘thank you’ from one of the patients because they could not receive this service without our help.”