Project will aid diabetics

What began as a class project for six students in the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine could become a way to help keep diabetics in Savannah out of the hospital.

As part of an annual project, groups of first-year medical students are assigned a county in Georgia and focus on an area where the county is not meeting the national standards set in the Healthy People 2010 program. Many students were assigned counties in the Coastal Health District around Savannah, where MCG is developing a clinical campus.

The group looking at Chatham County focused on the high rate of complications from diabetes, particularly among black men, which is 40 percent higher than the state average, said student Alan Zevallos.

The students decided to partner with four large churches in the black community to conduct blood glucose screening and diabetes education classes.

"(We're) basically letting people know that they have diabetes so they can treat themselves," student Kyle Mitchell said, "and also increasing the proportion of those who get formal diabetes education. The goal of this being just to lower health care costs because people are maintaining their diabetes and not having to go to the hospital."

About a quarter of those with diabetes -- 5.7 million people in 2007 -- do not know they have it, according to the American Diabetes Association.

A diabetes-related hospital trip costs $11,500 on average, so reducing visits by 25 percent over five years would mean "big savings," student Carson Sanders said.

The project ideas attracted Coastal Health officials to the group's presentation Thursday at MCG.

"Listening to these proposals and projects may open our eyes to potentially worthwhile interventions that we can embrace or potentially adopt," said epidemiologist Robert Thornton, who helped with the Chatham County proposal.

And there may already be a vehicle to help implement the idea -- a group called the Community Cardiovascular Council, said Kathryn Martin, assistant dean for the MCG Southeast Georgia Campus in Savannah. That group works with those who have cardiovascular disease and is involved in grass-roots activities, such as teaching barbers and hairstylists how to take blood pressure readings, she said. Cardiovascular disease often accompanies diabetes.

Even if the idea doesn't come to fruition, it has been a learning experience, said student Sarahbeth Wills.

"This project provided an opportunity for us to just be exposed to how difficult it is to not just have an idea but figure out how to actually implement it," she said. "There are so many things that go into that you really don't think about."

Reach Tom Corwin at (706) 823-3213 or tom.corwin@augustachronicle.com.