Lorena Verdugo, Dr. Julie Armin, and Juanita Trejo

Addressing Language and Education Barriers in Southern Arizona

Two University of Arizona researchers presented posters at a local research fair highlighting interventions underway at UACC aimed at improving patient-centered cancer care for underserved populations.

[featured image – Left to Right: Lorena Verdugo, Dr. Julie Armin, and Juanita Trejo]

On May 2nd, The University of Arizona’s Juanita Trejo, MPH and Yvonne Bueno, MPH, OTR/L, presented posters at the 3rd Annual El Rio Research Fair “Innovations in Community Health”. Juanita Trejo, a recent graduate from the University of Arizona Master of Public Health program, presented a poster on the process of training Community Health Workers (CHWs) for The University of Arizona Cancer Center’s (UACC) expansion of Dr. Catherine A. Marshall’s Un Abrazo Para La Familia™ (Abrazo) program, Embracing the Family. She was awarded 2nd place in the innovation category. Yvonne Bueno, a 4th year Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) student at the University of Arizona’s College of Public Health, presented the results of qualitative survivorship care interviews, an important research tool in the expansion of UACC’s patient navigation program. She was recognized in the relevance category, earning 3rd place.

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Bridging the Communication Divide: Patient-Provider Communication Training at Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins Aims to Increase Patient-Provider communication through web based video training sessions with patients

A cancer diagnosis is a life-altering event. The Journal of Clinical Oncology and the Journal of General Internal Medicine report that patients are often unprepared to discuss their treatment plan with their physicians, and as a result can feel overwhelmed and anxious. These negative emotions can influence the patient-clinician relationship, as Alliance to Advance Patient-Centered Cancer Care Principal Investigator Dr. Adrian Dobs explains: “Doctors are busy, patients don’t know what to ask, they’re overwhelmed with the diagnosis, they’re overwhelmed with the choices that they’re being given and the communication between the patient and the health care provider can be very strained.”

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