JOHNSON CITY (February 13, 2013) – Students at East Tennessee State University’s Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy will begin offering free monthly diabetes education classes for the general public in February.

Members of the ETSU chapter of the American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP) are organizing the classes, which begin Tuesday, Feb. 19 at the college. People who have diabetes or have family members with diabetes or those who merely want to learn more about the disease are invited to attend. The class meets from 6-7 p.m.

Dr. Rick Hess, an assistant professor with the ETSU Department of Pharmacy Practice, is the faculty advisor for this project. As a Certified Diabetes Educator, Hess has a particular expertise in the subject, but he said the classes are student-driven. The project is an outgrowth of a national APhA-ASP initiative, Operation Diabetes, created to increase public awareness of the disease.

Monthly topics will focus on how best to manage diabetes through proper nutrition and blood glucose monitoring; signs, symptoms and risk factors; possible complications; and myths related to diabetes.

“The students have put a lot of work into what’s a valuable public outreach project, and it’s coming to fruition,” Hess said. “I’ll be supervising them, but they’re doing the teaching.”

For more information, send an e-mail to OperationDiabetesETSU@gmail.com.