Medical students reflect on NeighborhoodHELP in essay contest

A seldom used verb from a dead language, is now bringing to life the experiences of students at FIU’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine.

ELOQUOR, a Latin word meaning to express oneself or to speak out, is the title of the school’s journal of medical student literature and art. To mark its inaugural edition, the journal sent out a call for entries for an essay contest, “Sharing our Voices: Narratives from the Green Family Foundation NeighborhoodHELP program.”

Medical students involved in the program were asked to write, share and preserve their reflection, insights and stories about the program.

When you read the entries, it is clear who the winners are: each and every one of the students who have learned important life lessons from the families they were assigned to help.

Kaiming Wu

In fact, the first place entry is titled, “Learning from Patients.” Medical student Kaiming Wu writes about a 30-something man with severe Type II diabetes which had already cost him both legs. This man not only “believed that he didn’t need to test his blood glucose levels because he could very accurately feel when they were high or low,” he also failed to understand his diabetes was to blame for the amputations, and erroneously believed that his problem went away when his legs were taken away. Obviously, here was someone the Neighborhood HELP team could and did educate about the seriousness of his condition, but the team got its own education.

In his essay Wu admits, “I missed the very simple fact that this man had overcome countless obstacles on faith alone and that, most importantly, he was happy.”

Alexander Volsky

Likewise, in his second place entry, “Illuminating Life,” medical student Alexander Volsky concludes that the Neighborhood HELP program “has been the collection of unique, individual experiences that have opened my eyes.” For starters, Volsky, a native Miamian, confesses: “It is embarrassing to admit this, but before beginning to work with the Green Family Foundation NeighborhoodHELP program I had never been to Miami Gardens, Opa-Locka, or the Unincorporated Northeast and Northwest Miami-Dade neighborhoods.” Those were parts of the city he “only knew through the news, and usually news emerging from the area was not positive—violence, crime and tragedy.”

Volsky’s assigned household member is no stranger to tragedy. She is a woman who witnessed the murder of her husband in her native Caribbean country, went on to raise her three children alone, moved her family to the United States, and still managed to obtain a college education. A woman so busy providing for her children, and simply surviving, that she never had to time to properly grieve for the man she loved. “In the wake of great tragedy,” Volsky writes, “my household member managed to craft a life of possibility for her family and herself.”

Christine Matthews

Third prize winner, Christine Matthews, recalls meeting another diabetic; a woman who wasn’t exactly following suggestions to exercise, maintain a proper diet, and take her medication. The NeighborhoodHELP team would soon find out that the woman’s mother had been diagnosed with cancer, and she had just returned from the funeral of her brother-in-law who was killed in an accidental shooting. It was clear, the poor woman had her plate full just keeping her sanity.

“If this was not first addressed,” Matthews writes, “anything else that we brought about would be a waste of time. So we set aside our agenda and started to listen.”

The three top entries, chosen by a panel that included Dean John Rock , Dr. Cheryl Holder, and English Professor Michael Gillespie will share cash prizes of $500, $250, and $100. Winners will also receive a plaque at the Annual Asclepius Awards. In case you didn’t pay attention during your high school Mythology class, Asclepius is the ancient Greek god of medicine and healing. The rod of Asclepius, a snake-entwined staff, remains a symbol of medicine today.

— By Ileana Varela