“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

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Southwest Detroit is currently battling some of the worst air pollution in the country. In this area, where senior centers and elementary schools sit on the borders of oil refineries, residents suffer from high rates of asthma, cancer, and respiratory illness. Asthma hospitalization rates are

As Arab American women studying public health at National Arab American Medical Association Next Generation (NAAMA NextGen), we’re passionate about the sexual health of our fellow Arab American women. Though the Arab region extends throughout a vast geographic area in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), resulting in diverse societal norms and cultural values,

A Black trans dad, Kayden Coleman shares his clinical experience during his two pregnancies. He recounts horrible encounters with gestational care providers, such as being offered an abortion a “ridiculous” number of times, misgendered by physicians, virtually forgotten during his postpartum period, and even turned away from care.

Few human experiences match the intensity of stress, pain, exertion, and emotional turmoil as labor. The mortality risk in pregnancy is present for all, though Black women in the United States are

Refugee, asylum-seeking, and migrant women often experience adverse reproductive health outcomes, and