Happy Friday to you! We made it through another nail-biter of a week in migrant health, and we’re grateful to roll into the weekend at long last. Here are five articles that MCN staff members shared this week that may have been smudged out beneath the election headlines. Marysel, Puerto Rico Program Manager, shared “Government Lawyer Says Puerto Rico's Hurricane Response... Read More
(Photo by Earl Dotter)Top four reasons why Latino patients are good candidates to go plant-basedIn 2012, Dr. Leon and Dr. Carral, who originally hail from Mexico, launched Vegetariano en 21 Días (at www.vegetarianoen21dias.org) in conjunction with Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, to provide free Spanish-language 21-day diet challenge along with online support like information on the... Read More
(Photo by CSM)[Editor’s Note: The fall issue of Streamline has reached mailboxes around the country! In this issue, we cover a medical-legal partnership in California that helps pregnant agricultural workers assess their options of medical leave to avoid pesticide exposure. We also learn about how clinicians are addressing their trauma and avoiding burnout by taking the “witnessing” approach when... Read More
(Photo by Earl Dotter)Habacuc Petion’s father was working the midnight shift sanitizing at a chicken processing plant when his hand caught on the conveyor belt. Petion’s father suffered a broken hand, and dislocated his shoulder. “If it wasn’t for the other workers who were present, it could have been worse,” Petion recalled. Petion, Executive Director of Rebirth, Inc., has dedicated his life’s... Read More
Amidst it all, we still have hope. This week, Deliana, MCN’s Director of International Projects and Emerging Issues, shared a timeless quote on hope from Vaclav Havel, the playwright and dissident who helped topple communism in then-Czechoslovakia to become that nation’s president. Here is just one part of it: “Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an... Read More
Deliana Garcia presenting to legislators from across the Americas on the importance of effective #TB care for migrants. Last week’s Union World Conference on Lung Health, held in The Hague, was particularly high energy and more closely watched than ever, as it picks up immediately where last month’s remarkable United Nations High Level Meeting on Tuberculosis dropped off. Migrant Clinicians... Read More
“For the past two years, we’ve heard from clinicians all over the country variations on this theme, which is ‘my patients are experiencing increasing levels of fear and stress; the families that I work with are feeling increasingly isolated, and confining themselves to their home and work; families are no longer feeling welcome in their communities,” said Jillian Hopewell, Migrant... Read More
We at Migrant Clinicians Network are horrified and saddened by the recent mass shooting in which 11 people were killed in Pittsburgh. Hate of the “other” has once again resulted in a devastating act of terror. As clinicians serving the poor and migrants, we are gravely concerned when the national discourse tolerates hatred toward another group of people. Racism and intolerance are the... Read More
It’s Lead Poisoning Prevention Week. Lead poisoning is the most common disease of toxic environmental origin among children in the United States today -- and the risk of lead exposure remains disproportionately high among children who are poor, African American, and/or Hispanic. Among those least studied are mobile Hispanic children, who have numerous additional social... Read More
Witnessing: How Clinicians Can Move From Traumatic Stress to Empowerment While Serving Their Immigrant Patients
(photo by Earl Dotter) When Kaethe Weingarten, PhD, first entered clinical practice as a psychologist and family therapist in 1970s Boston, she began to notice a common theme among her work with children: traumatized parents. At a local children’s hospital, parents were overwhelmed while observing their children undergo treatments and procedures. In a very different setting at a mental... Read More
