Written by Jett Choquette, UVMLCOM Class of 2023
I moved to Connecticut for my clinical years of training (years three and four of medical school), as a member of the LCOM Connecticut campus 2023 class cohort. I became connected with Elvis Novas, a leader of the Dominican Community Center (DCC) in Danbury, CT. The DCC is a non-profit that seeks to empower the Dominican community and other Hispanic/Latinx/Latino communities in the Danbury, CT area. Working together over the past two years, the DCC and I built a partnership between the Latinx community and the Global Health Program. As part of this partnership, we designed projects to promote health literacy.
I was grateful for the kind welcome and dedication of the DCC members as our partnership blossomed. Earlier this spring, a new third-year medical student took over my role as the Community Liaison from the Global Health Program to the DCC, as my graduation was looming. The DCC is currently planning a summer youth leadership academy that will include a health literacy component.
Despite the unexpected twist the COVID pandemic caused in my global health journey, I ultimately found my medical school global health home in Danbury, CT working with the DCC. The opportunity to collaborate with an important population within the community where I was training as a medical student resonated with me as especially important. I was glad that the Global Health Program was prioritizing local global health efforts.
The importance of empowering Latinx people within the Danbury, CT healthcare system became increasingly evident as I've spent more time in the clinic and hospital. Nuvance serves many Spanish and Brazil-Portuguese speaking patients. Danbury has a diverse medical community with many doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals who are native Spanish or Portuguese speakers – yet the challenges of communication across cultures and languages remains for many healthcare professionals (including myself) where Spanish and/or Portuguese are second languages. The challenge of using phone interpreters can delay care. It can cause confusion. Partnering with the local community, such as the DCC, gives the Global Health Program an opportunity to address the challenge of providing healthcare locally to people from all around the world.
Partnerships like the DCC-Global Health Program allow our local health system to better learn from and involve local communities in health care improvement. It allows us to open a channel of communication where the exchange of ideas can flow both ways and the end goal of improving health for all becomes a mission that both the health system and the community own. I've been honored to take part in the development of the DCC-Global Health Program partnership. And while I'm no longer the medical student on the ground helping the DCC, I remain connected to the DCC community. I can't wait to see how our Danbury community continues to grow and evolve in the future.
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