In March, MEPN Student Emily Tomich presented at the California Tuberculosis Controllers Association (CTCA) Conference in Sonoma, CA. Tomich says she was honored to represent her MEPN class with her presentation, entitled “Bringing Screening and Treatment for Latent Tuberculosis Infection into Primary Care Practice.”
Tomich first became involved with the latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) project on the recommendation of Dean Nyamathi, who was aware of Emily’s interest in global public health. Working with the UCI Health Family Health Santa Ana Clinic with Dr. Lauri Thrupp of the School of Medicine, the OC Health Care Agency and CA Department of Public Health, TB Free California, Tomich participated in the development of a process for identifying and treating LTBI in the community. At the CTCA conference, she described barriers that she and her colleagues have come across, the solutions they are actively working on, and tools and recommendations for implementation in other practices. Tomich and her colleagues were recently accepted for a poster presentation for the National Tuberculosis Controllers Association Conference in Atlanta in April. Their plan is to develop a paper for publication by the end of this year.
“I hope our [CTCA] presentation was inspiring for other clinics and health centers at the conference,” Tomich reflects. “We showed that implementing a short-course self-administered therapy for LTBI can be both cost-effective and feasible.” At the conference, Tomich and her colleagues met representatives from other county clinics and student health centers who expressed interest in developing similar programs. “It was exciting to network and learn about TB initiatives around the country,” says Tomich. “I am honored to have shared about our work at the UCI Family Health Clinic, and I will integrate the proposals from the CTCA conference into our current program and my career aspirations.”
Prior to coming to UC Irvine for the MEPN program, Tomich already had a robust record of public health work in nutrition, water sanitation and hygiene on other countries, including Tanzania and Panama. When choosing a nursing program, UC Irvine really stood out to her. “I was so inspired by the many faculty I met, the attention to culturally competent care and the opportunities to engage in research,” remembers Tomich. “I envision myself working as a public health nurse to gain experience with different patient populations and community health problems to direct future research in a PhD program. One of the reasons why I love nursing is because it is such a multifarious career and I know clinical, education and research will always be a part of my practice,” says Tomich.
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