About
We promote interprofessional student involvement within UCSF to raise awareness of Chinese culture.
The Goals of CHPSA:
I) To promote respectable understanding of Chinese culture and its diversity to students at UCSF.
CHPSA emphasizes Chinese culture relevant to medical and dental treatments and facilitate culturally sensitive patient-centered care at UCSF. We hope to not only promote interprofessional cooperation amongst various health professional schools, but also to promote such cooperation amongst students of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds, not limited to students of Chinese ethnic background.
II) To promote healthcare outreach to the Chinese American communities in San Francisco.
Chinese Americans make up 20% of the population of San Francisco, making them the largest minority group in the city. CHPSA's primary goal of outreach is promote health education to this large population in the city, and specifically, to reach out to the elderly as well as pediatric population. The seniors often face language and cultural barriers in seeking medical care while children are clearly dependent on their legal guardians for support. As a result, many fail to understand proper medical knowledge and suffer from unanswered questions to their ailments. We hope to provide useful health information to the Chinese American population to enhance their ability to communicate with healthcare professionals in the future.
III) To promote UCSF in the Chinese American communities.
If patients perceive health professionals as individuals unable to relate to their health concerns, they would never seek help. This will only cultivate a negative cycle within one of the most vulnerable communities despite great effort in providing culturally sensitive care by healthcare providers. As a long term goal, we wish to change the perception of a doctor's visit from a stressful, unhelpful and unpleasant experience to a positive experience. We hope to promote UCSF as a friendly and competent agency in providing low barrier healthcare and to give the underserved Chinese American population the confidence in seeking medical and dental care at UCSF.