Jeannette Guarner, MD, grew up in Mexico, and is a Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Emory University. Here, she shares her thoughts on being part of the LatinX healthcare community, and how the community can increase understanding of LatinX patients.
My family are recent immigrants to Mexico: My mother was born in Mexico, but her parents were from Germany, Switzerland and the U.S. My father was born in Spain, but his family left due to the Spanish Civil war and Mexico gave them refuge. In other words, he is a refugee of the Spanish Civil War. So, in my family, as I was growing up, we blended traditions from Mexico, Germany and Spain. Then, I married a Mexican and he brought more Mexican traditions into the mix. Since my father’s family were refugees, they came with very little to Mexico. Succeeding in Mexico was a great accomplishment. Both my uncle and father became prominent physicians in Mexico, a surgeon and a psychiatrist, respectively.
I was the first in my family to come to the U.S. My husband and I came together to do our residency training at Emory and we made lots of good friends. Then, we returned to Mexico and worked there for seven years. I was in the National Cancer Institute and my husband in the National Council on AIDS. After one year in Mexico, I became the Director of the Laboratory in the Institute. Then, we decided to come back to the U.S. My husband started working at Emory and I at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So, we came back to Atlanta where we had many friends.
As practicing Latinx pathologists and laboratory professionals, there are many avenues we can take to widen the understanding of LatinX communities. We all speak Spanish, but our accents are quite different by country and in each region of each country, too—similar to what happens in the U.S. with different accents in the north and south. We have different traditions and foods in the different countries. Healthcare professionals should learn about each of the countries. Obviously, travelling to the different places is best but nowadays there are many ways of learning about the different countries as even you can taste the food of the different countries in the U.S. Then, when you are seeing patients or talking to LatinXers, learn where we are from.
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