IAH-CECAP Continuing Medical Education at UP-PGH

Kobe University, through the Interactive Activity for Health in Asia (IAH) Program, has made cervical cancer prevention as their flagship program under the numerous reproductive health issues that they cover, and has collaborated with Cervical Cancer Prevention Network (CECAP) Philippines and the University of the Philippines (UP) Manila to start a reciprocal relationship and agreement on working together for this cause. And as part of this collaboration, Professor Matsuo from Kobe University has granted Ms. Hitomi Hashimoto, a registered nurse, to come to our country and speak about this agreement during the Continuing Medical Education (CME) activity held by CECAP entitled 'Towards an Effective Cervical Cancer Prevention.'

The program was begun by words from the Chancellor of UP Manila, Dr. Ramon Arcadio, welcoming our Japanese partners from Kobe University, as well as our participants. He expressed his gratitude for choosing the University as their partner and expressed his support as well.

Dr. Cecilia Ladines-Llave explained the CECAP framework to the audience, to give them a better grasp of what its advocacy is all about. In her lecture, she tackled the Single Visit Approach. She had also introduced the said collaboration to our participants and gladly welcomed the nurses and midwives to take part in the exchange student/staff program that has been proposed.

Before cervical cancer prevention can effectively take place, the audience must first know what cervical cancer is all about, its cause, the risk factors associated with it and a brief discussion on the multimodal treatment that is needed to be undergone. Dr. Jaycee Almaria gave a lecture, 'What Every Woman Should Know About Cervical Cancer'. Dr. Grace Chan had then discussed the different levels of prevention against cervical cancer, after adequate knowledge that the audience had gained through Dr. Almaria’s lecture. An open forum facilitated questions and issues raised by members of the audience and were clearly answered by our speakers.

A pretest and posttest on the audience's knowledge on cervical cancer were administered before and the lectures, respectively. These questions, prepared by professors and members of Kobe University, will serve as a tool to assess people’s basic knowledge on cervical cancer as well as the effectiveness of the CME. Questions and answers for the said tests were discussed by Dr. Llave to generally gauge the audiences’ response and correct any misunderstandings that they may have had during the event.

Ms. Hitomi Hashimoto gave a short course summary and briefly discussed the situation and burden of cervical cancer in Japan, further supporting the need for a collaboration. Dr. Lourdes Capito Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of UP-PGH and President of the Philippine Obstetric and Gynecological Society (POGS), followed Ms. Hashimoto discussion with her closing remarks promising to make the collaboration a presidential program that would continue on beyond her term as President of POGS, as part of her personal advocacy.

See more photos of the event here.
Click here for a summary of the entire IAH-CECAP Collaboration with UP-PGH and the Enverga University.