The US urgently needs more bilingual healthcare workers. This clinic might have the solution
Özet haber: In New Mexico, where a shortage is acute, Casa de Salud trains college and high-school health apprentices who understand the communities they serve
In New Mexico, where a shortage is acute, Casa de Salud trains college and high-school health apprentices who understand the communities they serve
“I’ll be getting a little bit closer to you to put the cuff on,” Gisselle Martinez said, demonstrating how to take a manual blood pressure in a trauma-informed manner. “It might be a little tight. Let me know if you feel any discomfort and I can take it off.”
She’s not a doctor or a nurse – at least, not yet – but a 21-year-old college student. Between classes, Martinez works as a bilingual health apprentice at Casa de Salud, a primary care clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico. On top of taking vitals, Martinez is certified in harm reduction – she can run a needle exchange and give out fentanyl test strips. And she understands how a patient’s trauma and past neglect can show up in an exam room.
“My entire life I had to pretty much translate for my parents whenever they would go to the doctor,” said Martinez, whose parents speak Spanish. That responsibility sometimes felt overwhelming, like when she didn’t know how to translate certain medical terms, or when she herself had to go under anesthesia and explain the risks to her parents.
Now through Casa’s de Salud’s apprentice program, she is working toward becoming the certified nurse anesthetist she wishes she and her parents had access to.
“As a bilingual first-generation student, I aspire to help my community,” she said.
While states across the country face a healthcare workforce shortage, the need is particularly high in rural areas and within Spanish-speaking communities; in New Mexico, 32 of its 33 counties face a shortage. Although they make up 20% of the population, Latinos account for only about 6% of the US physician workforce.
To provide that care, not just for the community, but from the community, Casa de Salud’s year-long apprentice program has trained more than 300 bilingual high school and college students since its founding in 2005. The aim is not only to help students from marginalized backgrounds get into medical programs, but to keep them in the community. At least a third of the students Casa de Salud has tracked have gone into the healthcare field, with more than half of those attending medical school.
“You’re more likely to work in a community if you grew up in the community,” said health apprentice program developer Colette Village Center, who is from the Standing Rock Sioux Nation. “We want to see more representation of lower-wealth individuals, under-represented individuals in healthcare, because that saves lives.”
Casa de Salud opened in 2004 when a local physician approached a group of promotoras – trusted liaisons between the community and healthcare workers – in Albuquerque’s predominantly Hispanic and Latino South Valley neighborhood.
“There were a few of us women who called themselves the promotoras tradicionales, who would do limpias,” said Lorraine Cordova, one of Casa de Salud’s founders, describing a spiritual cleansing common in the Mexican folk healing tradition of curanderismo that often uses herbs, prayer and intention-setting to process emotional stressors.
