H310/N390: Transcultural Healthcare in Hawaii

Students had a little more free time today. Several groups hiked Diamond Head State Park!

Also, this group traveled to Pearl Harbor!

Our group left Tripler Army Medical Center, headed for the Next Step Homeless Shelter. This shelter is operated by Waikiki Health under a state contract. Individuals experiencing homelessness each have a cubicle and pay a monthly program fee of $60-90 a month. The goal is to move people into permanent housing within 90 days. Shelter manager, Richard Kaai, gave a presentation on challenges and successes of shelter management and gave a tour to our group. The shelter is an old warehouse with about 160 cubicles for people to sleep. He stated that for every bed, there is a wait list of 10 people waiting to get into the shelter. I spoke with one of the women staying at the shelter, who said it is a nice, safe place to stay, away from the dangers of living on the street.

This morning, we toured Tripler Army Medical Center. The students listened to presentations on health care at the facility, diversity issues, combat care simulations, and the use of complementary and alternative medicine. Tripler uses multiple CAM modalities in caring for patients.

” The attack on Pearl Harbor led to the construction of Tripler Army Medical Center. For four years following the 1941 attack, the patient population at Tripler General Hospital at Fort Shafter remained at approximately 2,000. Today, Tripler Army Medical Center is the only federal tertiary care hospital in the Pacific Basin. It supports 264,000 local active duty and retired military personnel, their families, and veteran beneficiaries. In addition, the referral population includes 171,000 military personnel, family members, veteran beneficiaries, residents of nine U.S. affiliated jurisdictions (American Samoa, Guam, and the former Trust Territories), and forward-deployed forces in more than 40 countries throughout the Pacific.”~TAMC website

May 12th was dedicated to Japanese culture. We had lunch and deserts at the Shirokiya Japan Village Walk. The walk is supposed to simulate a traditional Japanese village and highlights various types of food and drink. After lunch, Caitlyn, Christina & Cameron led a discussion on the concepts of health, birth and dying of Japanese Americans living in Hawaii.