Throughout the 2019 fall semester, I volunteered at the Open-Door Health Center in Mankato. This was accomplished through the honors program as a Service-Learning Project.

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The Open-Door Health Center is a pretty special place, being that it reaches out to ALL populations that are in need of medical, dental, or behavioral health care. They make these types of care affordable to everyone, no matter their age, income, race, disability, etc. 

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I spent much of my time at the ODHC volunteering with the nurses in the back, working on inputting Health Dynamics charts (basically all of the tests and information taken down when patients are seen for an in depth physical), but also spent time at the front desk helping to check patients in for their appointments.

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There were many people of different ethnicities that were seen at ODHC that I had the opportunity to interact with. For example, I was able to understand and communicate with some of the Spanish speaking patients and help them be checked in at the front desk.

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I feel as though these types of experiences helped me to meet levels 2-4 in 'knowledge and understanding.'  I met level 2 because Open Door Health Center (ODHC) helped me to learn a lot about mostly the Spanish culture (and a little bit about Somali culture as well). I was able to interact with the staff at ODHC and ask them questions about why many Spanish speaking families utilized their services and learned that many of them are low income and cannot afford other healthcare options. Also, after interacting with some of these Spanish speaking families during appointment check-ins, I learned that they were concerned about finances, and language translations, to make sure they were getting the best care possible.

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I met level 3 because as my time went on at ODHC, I was able to ask myself deeper questions, such as, “why are there more culturally diverse people here than in my hometown?” and “how do these Spanish speaking people get by day to day in an English language centered location like Mankato?” I began helping out more and more at the front desk interacting with these mostly Spanish speaking people and sought out to answer some of my questions: some of them are starting to speak broken English and are probably learning day to day. They probably came here for the great opportunities that lie in Mankato, MN.

 

I met level 4 when I started to ask myself even more complex questions, like, “I wonder how Spanish speaking people interact with others in the community that don’t speak English OR Spanish, much like some of the Somali families that came through ODHC.” This was a whole new perspective to me; I come from a predominately white, English speaking small town in MN and had never even thought about how people who do not speak any English are able to interact with others in their daily lives. This helped me to become less judgmental and more empathetic when I encountered these people at ODHC and helped them check in. I began to look forward to helping them, even though it was hard at times.

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As an aspiring physician, this experience helped me to better understand some of the issues related to equality and representation of other cultures in healthcare. I realized that many non-native English-speaking people are in constant fear that they are receiving sub-standard care due to their language barriers and not feeling well understood by their healthcare professionals, even when professional translators are present. This awareness is one that I can take with me into my future career to help make sure that my patients feel like they are well cared for, even if they don’t speak English, or have other cultural beliefs/norms that need to be respected.

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ODHC Paper