What made you interested in joining the National Health Corps?
The experience that most influenced my decision to join the National Health Corps was an international service-learning trip I embarked on following my second year at Allegheny College. After taking a course on Social Issues in Nicaragua, a group of classmates and I spent two weeks constructing a bathroom with flushing toilets in a rural community just outside the Nicaraguan capital of Managua. The community was founded as part of Project Chacocente, a nonprofit that relocated ten families previously living and working in the city garbage dump to the countryside and gave them their own plot of land to farm on. Forming deep relationships within this village throughout my time sparked a passion to battle injustices and to continue service. I was also confronted with public health issues ranging from a lack of health education to an unsanitary living environment while abroad. I was sure that many of these issues that I identified while abroad were prevalent within my own community at home, and the National Health Corps provides me an opportunity to combat health disparities while serving the most vulnerable populations in Pittsburgh.
Bobby (left) in Nicaragua during Project Chacocente
In addition to increasing access to health care for my clients, I am also looking forward to developing both professional and clinical skills during my time with AmeriCorps. These skills, along with a better perspective of the health challenges faced by disadvantaged populations, will assist me greatly in my anticipated future career as a physician. I am serving with Primary Care Health Services at a federally-qualified health center in the underserved neighborhood of Pittsburgh called Homewood. Instead of simply providing diabetic retinal screenings and follow-up letters reminding patients that is time for a mammogram, I hope to join them in improving the local Homewood community as a whole. Engaging with the community both in and out of the clinic to increase social capital is what I am most looking forward to during my year of service.
