Last Wednesday, we hosted the Health 2.0 Sacramento’s inaugural kick-off to a crowd.

I couldn’t believe the energy in the room.

A few of my new friends in Sacramento and I put together a new group, Health 2.0 Sacramento, to bring together people interested in mobile devices, Internet technologies, and healthcare. With some generous financial support from Health 2.0’s Jennifer Lee, two amazingly talented speakers, one Costco run later with my sweetie, and the Hacker Lab co-working space, we put together the inaugural kick-off event in a few short weeks.

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I’m proud to announce that a group of talented inviduals — plus myself — have started a new volunteer-run group in Sacramento for people who are interested in the intersection of healthcare plus Internet and mobile technology. Keisuke Nakagawa (a UC Davis medical student who founded his own DC-based nonprofit that uses interactive voice tech to advance maternal-fetal health), Jay Sales (a leader at VSP Global’s innovation center), and Gabriela Lee (a leader at the NSF Center for Biophotonics) have banded with me to start this group. We thought that Sacramento needed a way to bring together all of these elements, especially since UC Davis is such a powerhouse in health informatics and is expanding into wireless devices for healthcare.

Eric Ullrich at the newly-founded Hacker Lab co-working space, plus support from Jennifer Lee at the larger Health 2.0 international group, and VSP Global, have helped get us off the ground. We’re indebted to them.

Ron Jimenez, MD, FAAP, one of Stanford Medicine’s medical informatics directors, brought together the concepts of usability, technology, and medicine at the monthly UC Davis Health Informatics Seminar. His goal: make Epic, one of the leading electronic medical record (EMR) system providers, usable for Stanford’s numerous clinics and hospitals.

Why is usability in medical records important?

I'm very happy with a personal goal I set out for myself this year: to lose weight, despite the crushing workload of med school!

Although I definitely don't have, like, big muscles, I've noticed I fit comfortably in medium-sized shirts. My clothes have gotten considerably baggier. I'm also surprised I've been able to commit at least 30 minutes of exercise each day. Before 2009, I wouldn't have lifted a weight to save my life.

My body fat has been decreasing, too. I've been using different methods of estimating the body fat with different formulas, so my chart below (the screenshot of My Personal Diet on my phone) zig-zags quite a bit. But I definitely feel thinner: my clothes have gotten baggier and my belts are all too long. read more→

Over New Year's, I decided to challenge myself: lose as much body fat as I can and build up muscle.

This idea started years ago when I realized I must be one of the few boyfriends who couldn't carry his girlfriend. The idea came to fruition when three things happened over the winter break: read more→

I've been playing games a little bit more lately, not just because they're fun, but because I suck at it. I should've realized this a long time ago when my own sister beat me at Bomberman, but it hasn't quite sunken in until I saw my co-worker cleanly slice through Geometry Wars, a space arcade game, on the new Xbox 360 at work.

Oh, and half a year ago, my sweetie thrashed me soundly on Puzzle Fighter.

Maybe I'm missing something. Is it because everyone else has better visual reaction times? I don't drive a car, so maybe that's part of the problem. Driving a car is essentially a game in itself, except, if you mess up, you lose your life. Literally. read more→

The book Never Eat Alone suggested going to conferences to meet people: folks who share similar interests and passions, folks who can quickly become your peers, friends, and mentors. I found this to be very true at the APAMSA Western Regional Conference in UC San Francisco last weekend (Steve's very first conference! He's growing up!).

I met new people from different walks of life, including a physician and director of SF General Hospital's clinic. I even met some of my former students from way back when I taught organic chemistry at the SLC (Student Learning Center at Berkeley). I also breathed in knowledge from other folks, folks I haven't gotten a chance to meet, folks who are really at the forefront of Asian-Pacific Islander health issues, folks who run whole hospitals, clinics, and medical institutions. read more→