Archive
Perspectives in Primary Care features writing from practitioners, activists, and community members representing organizations, practices, and institutions across the United States and around the world.
Primary Care
Health Equity
Health Policy
Social Determinants of Health
COVID-19
Activism
Burnout / Resiliency / Moral Injury
LGBTQIA+
Advocacy
No Borders for Those Who Fight
"Não há fronteiras para os que exploram… não deve haver para os que lutam”—there are no borders for those who explore… there should not be for those who fight. This powerful statement was the rallying cry of representatives from dozens of waste picker organizations to the 2nd Latin American Congress. The gathering, held in 2005 in São Leopoldo, Brazil, unified a collection of marginalized peoples into a single voice calling for an end to ...
Advocacy
A Teaching Hospital Partnership with the Rosebud Sioux Tribe
Beautiful Rosebud, South Dakota, is the home of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, or the Sicangu Oyate. In 2012, the Sicangu Oyate was one of the first communities to ask teaching hospitals to send physicians to work in the local Indian Health Service (IHS) facility, nearly 70 years after physicians from teaching hospitals started working with the Veterans Health Administration. The
Primary Care
Community Health
COVID-19
Public Health
Activism
Burnout / Resiliency / Moral Injury
Sexual and Reproductive Health
Behavioral Health / Mental Health
Stories
The Various Faces of Trauma
Trigger warning: Parts of this piece may be triggering. Please take the time and space to look after yourself and seek help. A few years ago, while I was packing for an upcoming move, I came across my old Pakistani passport. As I opened it, my 16-year-old self looked back at me, with the words “married” and “housewife.” I was a child bride. I am now in my 30s. I broke free from that child marriage a decade ago and built a wonderful new life of freedom for myself and my daughters. ...
Stories
A Poem: No Name
I called a third time. her voice sounds like a whisper hanging from a wire or a storyline lost in space. Worry not of death itself but her fragile husband and three kids Despite everything she is eager to talk and between the cough and fatigue Shared details, dates, places she speaks about her experience at the hospital and is ...
Primary Care
Health Equity
Health Policy
Social Determinants of Health
COVID-19
Public Health
Activism
Advocacy
Beating Hunger: Addressing Food Insecurity During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Closed. Out of Business. We are temporarily closed due to COVID. These signs have become a common sight in the windows of grocery stores scattered throughout the United States. Throughout the pandemic, the number of communities that have become food deserts, as well as the number of households that have become food insecure, has increased substantially. While volunteering at a local food pantry during the pandemic, I talked to a regular named Carmen, and she described her ...
Primary Care
Community Health
Health Equity
Health Policy
Public Health
Activism
Environment / Climate
BIPOC
Advocacy
Inspire: Helping Families with Asthma Catch Their Breath
“I did whatever I needed to for my child to get the proper services… you are the professionals, but I’m the mom.” She’s the mom. It’s these humbling moments that Mary, a panelist at the
Primary Care
Health Equity
COVID-19
Trauma
Global Health
Behavioral Health / Mental Health
Narrative Medicine / Storytelling
Stories
The Salutary Impact of Listening to the Trauma Story
I entered the Brighton Marine Public Health Center in Massachusetts in December 1981, where hundreds of Indochinese refugees were being medically screened after the fall of Saigon. I’ll never forget my first patient—a middle-aged Cambodian woman with major hearing loss. During the exam, she told me that her hearing loss began after being beaten unconscious by the Khmer Rouge soldiers and left for dead on a pile of the bodies of her relatives. At the time, I knew nothing about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. I had no training on the impact of extreme violence on ...
Advocacy
Language Barriers to Optimal Health Care: Caring for Migrant Workers in the Middle East
What good is art when the viewer is blind to the colors you draw in? Communication is an art that health care professionals are taught early in their medical education. We’re not only taught what to ask, but how to ask it. Beyond avoiding errors and misunderstandings, good communication builds the trusting relationships that are at the core of health care. It can be said that while medical knowledge constitutes the “health” aspect, it is communication that contributes to the ...
Advocacy
Wi! Si! Yes! We Can Provide More Equitable Care When Interpretation is Required
Imagine you’re a primary care provider at our clinic in Malden, Massachusetts. A patient quickly rattles off a list of concerns during your latest telehealth visit with her. Before you can ask any clarifying questions, you wait for the Brazilian Portuguese medical interpreter to interpret her concerns into English. You ask some questions, then wait again for the ...