I just wanted to tell you a little bit more about myself so you have an idea of who you're voting for if you do decide to vote for me. I'm from Lafayette, LA and went to Loyola University New Orleans for my undergraduate degree. At Loyola, in addition to other extracurriculars, I served as the President of the College of Business for the SGA and director of student programs that came out of the Jesuit center, our spirituality center on campus. After getting accepted to medical school in the Spring of 2009, I requested a deferment year to work at a homeless clinic in Boise, ID where I worked on our Healthcare for the Homeless grant, a grant that provided healthcare to the homeless population in southwest Idaho. To be more specific, I updated the protocols, managed the forms and paperwork, and screened/aided individuals to get signed up for the program. I also helped patients through the entire social security application process - from the initial stage all the way up to setting them up with lawyers in the appeal process.
Although I had been to Belize and Jamaica on service programs in college, it was that year in Boise that really touched me and motivated me to get more involved with the homeless population on a medical basis. That year was a very powerful year for me, and it really changed my life. The reason I'm running for clinic director is that I want to facilitate the involvement of medical students in the lives and healthcare of the homeless population in New Orleans. I see this very unique demographic of persons in our society as some of the most vulnerable, who may have been ostracized from their families, might be suffering from any number of mental illnesses, and who are simply looking for respect and dignity.
I am very excited about the direction that our clinics are headed, and I am looking forward to improving on some of the issues that our clinics faced last year.
For example, I really want to maintain and better integrate the coordination between other healthcare social service agencies and our clinics. With the establishment of Healthcare for the Homeless as a referral source, the wait times for a new patient appointment for anyone who gets referred has been dramatically decreased. I think that by working with other social services pertaining to health, we can improve our patient outcomes.
More importantly, I want to refocus our volunteers on two of the points on our mission statement: that is, to serve and to learn. I truly believe that this is the real value of the work we are doing here. I hope that every volunteer learns more about him or her self through encountering an individual who did not have the same breaks in life. To accomplish this goal, I hope to bring in speakers once or twice a semester who can teach us all more about the unique struggles and challenges a person in a homeless situation faces--socially, economically, personally--and how that might apply to a medical/clinical setting.
In this manner, I am hoping that people can have a more thoughtful and transformative experience while working with our clinics. I have spoken with Laura and members of our student government association to prepare me for this position, and I'm ready to work with our amazing new staff to continue to improve our clinics. I am open to new ideas, new faces, and new challenges, and I look forward to serving all of you as the Ozanam Inn homeless director.
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