It was a fun filled Friday night in the HSC Galleria on March 6, 2009 with great food and exciting acts to watch. The event was a charity cultural show to raise money to support the Joslin Asian American Diabetes Initiative. Each year APAMSA chooses a medical problem or organization to focus on. Support of their cause this year was to bring attention to the growing epidemic of Type 2 Diabetes in the Asian American population.

The people in charge were APAMSA, the Asian Pacific American Medical Students Association at Stony Brook's School of Medicine (SOM). It consists of Asian and Asian American graduate students pursuing a career in medicine. The food that was served to everyone was already paid for through donations and included a wide variety of sushi, Indian and Chinese entrees - all of which was very delicious.

The extensive show put together by APAMSA was a success and everyone enjoyed it. It consisted of a vast array of acrobatics, belly-dancing, musical acts, lion dancing and an awesome fashion show showing off many traditional Indian and Chinese styles of clothing. These were all framed within a takeoff on Slumdog Millionaire with a med school twist. An Indian student was being tortured by being beaten and electrocuted because he got an excellent grade in biochemistry class. Near the end you find out it was his professor (played by a real SOM professor!) who was the mastermind behind the tortures to figure out whether he cheated or to find out how he did so well on the exam without knowing much of the material.

Overall it was a great event with great food and I give it two thumbs up!

There are hundreds of photos in two albums at
http://aasquared.org/gallery/APAMSA2009
and
http://aasquared.org/gallery/APAMSA09