I first saw medicine’s limits at seventeen, volunteering alongside local EMTs during the Afghan refugee crisis in August of 2021. One night, we were dispatched to the Dulles Expo Center–where families were being housed–when a man who had just received the COVID-19 vaccine experienced painful side effects. He only spoke Pashto yet was trying to communicate with us, and even though we were medically trained, we were not able to offer emotional support in his language….

My name is Joshua Barnes. I am an advanced practice nurse and an educator. My days unfold in patient rooms, across academic spaces, within lecture halls, and in the deliberate work of writing that fills the margins of scholarly journals, advancing practice and advocating for those I care most about: my students, the populations we serve, and our shared humanity….

In this blog post, Karina Ascunce González and Avik Chatterjee highlight the importance of community-based education and research. Karina, a Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience at Yale University, shares how conducting qualitative research with Latine populations in Boston shaped her understanding of community health and how to best serve communities….