The Unsweetened Truth
Published: 18 Dec 2013
Over two days from 16 to 17 December, 300 members of the public were educated on diabetes and took a finger prick screening test.
The event was organised by Asian Medical Students’ Association (AMSA) Singapore as part of a series of pre‐conference activities leading up to the East Asian Medical Students’ Conference 2014 on chronic diseases in Korea. Five stations were set up and public were engaged in learning about the various aspects of diabetes in an interactive way.
The public were educated on topics which ranged from risk factors to complications of diabetes. Much emphasis was placed on lifestyle measures such as having a healthy diet and increasing physical activity. In addition, the public posed quite a number of challenging questions, and it was a great learning experience for our Phase I to IV student volunteers.
The free screening was also warmly received by the public and saw a steady stream of people wanting to be tested. Through this, several people with abnormal capillary blood glucose readings were picked up and referred to the necessary family physicians or polyclinics. AMSA Singapore would like to thank the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS Medical Society, National University Health System and Novartis for making this event possible.
