Internal Medicine provides Diabetes Education and Counseling at Springfield Housing Authority Sites

During the last two weeks of July, SIU Department of Internal Medicine clinic staff and faculty, along with 10 medical students, visited each of the three Springfield Housing Authority (SHA) facilities (Bonansinga High Rise, Hildebrandt High Rise, and the Villas at Vinegar Hill) to provide free Diabetes Education and Counseling to a total of 40 SHA residents. The sessions included a presentation by a Certified Diabetes Educator, educational handouts on several related topics, blood pressure checks, fingerstick blood sugar measurements, and one on one sessions for the SHA residents with our terrific SIU Medical Students. The sessions were very well received by the attendees and SHA officials. Big thanks are due to Cheryl Burns, Cindy Yergler, Cindy Pointer, Tammy Monnier, and Christine Jarmer, as well as our remarkable SIU Medical Students, for their informative, positive, friendly work with a deserving population.

The Diabetes Education sessions were the second in a planned series of health education events that faculty and staff of the Department will provide at the Housing Authority. In June, the Department helped to organize smoking cessation counseling sessions with SIU Medical Students to help SHA residents adapt to the new “Smoke Free Public Housing” policy that the US Department of Housing and Urban Development has implemented nationwide. That series of meetings was attended by more than 20 SHA residents, who must avoid smoking in the SHA facilities by later this year.