Inside the Clinic: Humans Are Amazing Edition

Dearest Communuity,

I hope this finds you all fine and dandy!

So, yesterday I was editing a document in Power Point, and looking for a “check” mark in the “Symbols” drop-down box, when I had another “Wow, aren’t humans amazing?!” moment.

I scrolled and scrolled through hundreds of symbols, most of which are used in the myriad of languages we amazing humans speak.  I spent some time on Google Translate looking at how our tagline - Care for All! - would be written in Amharic, Arabic, Mandarin, Lao, Hindi, Armenian...you should check it out. Absolutely amazing really. So today, I take my hat off to those of you who not only can communicate in multiple languages, but in multiple written forms too!

Of course, we at Culmore Clinic are all about understanding that people communicate in different languages; and from our very founding we have wanted our struggling patients to be able to tell us about their health and understand our providers, counselors, nurses, enrollment, and admin staff through our fantastic interpretation services. This is why we get feedback from patients like this:

"I have been a patient at Culmore Clinic for two years, and for me, being a beneficiary of the Clinic has been gratifying. I have been able to have my routine medical check-ups. Besides, when I had kidney stones, I was oriented and referred to a specialist early and timely. I have felt the accompaniment and patient-monitoring by Culmore Clinic. Fortunately, thanks to the medical controls, my health is stable. As a single mother of two children, I feel that the support I receive to control my health, the kindness of the Clinic workers, the accessible location, and communication, have been a great help and blessing, so that my life is better as I can continue working to provide for my loved ones."

"I use the Culmore Clinic services very often for my medical check-ups, and thanks to them, I have been able to get many medical exams such as mammograms, pap smears, X Rays, blood tests in addition to others. I currently work, but my salary is not enough to cover medical expenses. For this reason, the clinic has been a great support since I do not have the financial resources to pay for insurance or a private doctor, and they have given me their hand. I'm very grateful."

Thank you to Maria Paula Bautista Acelas for interviewing these patients and translating their stories. Maria is one of our Young Professional Committee (YPC) members who is, with her colleagues Jasmine Williams and Blein Yohannes, doing some research for Culmore Clinic which I will report back on in late spring. I should also let you know that the YPC held its first Young Professionals webinar last night and our very own volunteer, Uloma Nwaulo was interviewed. If you missed the event, we recorded it and you can watch it here.

What other news? Well, I am happy to let you know that our dear host, First Christian Church has approved a second day of onsite operations which will begin mid-April. I can’t tell you how good it feels to have operations back onsite again!

Also, we continue to work with Neighborhood Health and our patients to find suitable times for them to get their COVID vaccine. So far, 17 patients have been full vaccinated and 44 have been partially vaccinated. I just heard the vaccination clinic schedules are full to the brim, so our team is working around the clock to snatch up any openings for patients. Go Team!

Onward and upward!

Anne-Lise