Graduation Speech - Spring 2013

The Certified Medical Administrative Assistant and Pharmacy Clerk classes decided to go international. Both classes are learning the elements of health insurance so ROP Administrator, Adele Berg, suggested making contact with an international speaker in order to make comparisons with another country.

As a result, Mrs. Turner contacted Patrice Jissendi, MD, PhD, of Lille 2 University in the North of France and ULB in Brussels, Belgium. Dr. Jissendi is a Neuroradiologist who does research and is also a Professor at the University. He was more than happy to volunteer time from his busy schedule to assist us with our project. Dr. Jissendi is familiar with the SMCOE Regional Occupational Program; he had spent six months doing a research fellowship in San Francisco with UCSF Medical Center in 2007 and learned about our Program from Mrs. Turner. He considered this to be an extraordinary opportunity to enlighten this group of eager students as a means of support in assisting them to maintain a high level of zeal for helping patients.

Ms. Berg wanted students at the ROP Center to experience first-hand how technology can be used in connecting people for the benefit of the patient. Additionally, she felt it was important for the students living in a multicultural environment to learn about health care in other countries. As a result of these combined efforts, SMCOE/ROP conducted its first International Skype lecture.

This opportunity was taken very seriously and the students prepared for the experience by doing research and had a discussion about the goal of the lecture.

These two groups of students were very excited about the opportunity to learn about health care in another country. Dr. Jissendi did an excellent job in explaining how citizens of Belgium are insured by their particular health care organization. He briefly described the government agency, INAMI, that administers health insurance policies to citizens of Belgium. He further explained that coverage is mandatory for all residents in Belgium. He provided a general explanation of how citizens are insured and reimbursed, and since our students will be processing claims in the near future, they compared how it was done in Belgium and discovered there was a coding system in use there as well. The class learned that administrative personnel are as valuable to doctors in Belgium as they are here in the Bay Area, comparing education and salary.

As a group, we deduced that there is no perfect health care system. We merely wish to do our very best on behalf of our patients and to serve them to the best of our ability.

The CMAA and Pharmacy Clerk classes wish to express their sincere appreciation to Dr. Jissendi for his time and excellent lecture. As Instructors, we love challenging ourselves by incorporating new methods by which we can educate our students. Additionally, we are grateful to Ms. Berg for supporting and encouraging us to try new and innovative instructional methodologies with our students.