28 I Refugee Series/LIVE from North American Refugee Healthcare Conference—The Power of Stories, Community Voice, and Mutual Support

• Timespan: 40 minutes & 54seconds
• Transcription Type: Cleaned Verbatim
• Speakers: ( Duncan Reid, Edna Ramirez Cerino, Rachel Talavikar, Minella Antonio and Raj Sundar)

00:00

Raj Sundar:  Hi, I'm Dr. Raj Sundar, a family physician and a community organizer. You're listening to healthcare for humans, the show dedicated to educating you on how to care for culturally diverse communities, so you can be a better healer. This is about everything that you wish you knew, to really care for the person in front of you, not just a body system. Let's learn together. Welcome back to another episode of healthcare for humans. This episode marks the finale of our North American refugee conference series, a collaboration with a society of refugee health care providers. We've dropped three conference keynotes now, and today, we're summing it all up with a recap episode to highlight some of the key messages and takeaways from the conference. We got a few different people joining us today, as this episode was recorded live at the conference in Calgary, Canada. Which I have to say was so much fun. From the clinical front, we've got Duncan Reid, the director of ethno Med, and part of the International Medicine Clinic in Washington State. We also have Rachel Talavilar, a primary care clinician at the Mosaic Refugee Health Clinic. From the community perspective, we've got some inspiring folks from the Community Scholars Program. So this is a program in Calgary where community members were trained, and equipped to conduct research for their own community. What an incredible program. From that program. We have Edna Ramirez Cerino, working with the Spanish community. Minella Antonio dedicated to the Filipino community and Mussie Yemane, who's actively engaged with the Ethiopian and Eritrean community. Now, as I said, a lot of voices. But I found that the diversity of those voices truly helped capture the essence of this conference in ways I didn't know was possible. Honestly, I want something like this for every conference I go to. You may want to just listen to this episode twice to hear all their wisdom. We've structured today's conversation around key themes, which we'll hear during the opening of the conversation. And if you missed some of our previous episode, that captured some of the keynotes at the conference, will mention names like James Berra cat and Borbon. You can listen to these episodes afterwards if you choose. And finally, you can find all the resources and links in our podcast episode show notes. As always, thanks for tuning in and being part of our podcast community. All right, let's dive in into the final episode of our North American refugee conference collaboration. Welcome, everybody. I have the stellar excellent crew of friends here helping me recap, the narc Conference, which is the North American refugee conference and are in Calgary right now. It's hosted by the Society of refugee health care providers. And we know how hard it is to go to conferences sometimes, because there's so many events you want to attend to, but you can't attend to all of them. So our goal today is to summarize, recap some of the sessions and talk about the main themes of this conference. So if you couldn't make it this year, you have to come next year, which will be in Minneapolis. And this year, if you attended numerous some key workshops that you really wanted to go to. We'll talk about a little bit today. And you'll see in the shownotes links to the slides and everything that the society will send after the event. But to get started, we're going to talk about five themes today of what resonated with all of us at the conference. And the themes are one, respecting this land and indigenous voices . Two healing through art and the power of stories. Three centering community voice and restructuring power and authority.  And four building community with each other. Okay, let's start off with talking about respecting this land and indigenous voices.

03:55

Dunkan Reid: Okay, thanks. My name is Duncan Reid. I'm international medicine clinic doctor and at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, and I'm also the director of ethno med@atheroma.org. So the thing that struck me cuz I'm coming from the United States coming to this conference in Calgary was really the respect for the land and indigenous voices. The fact that it was bookmarked by Wendy Walker, and Indigenous artists who was singing both at the opening and closing, in addition to mentions of truth and reconciliation, and acknowledging indigenous voices, I think was something that was quite unique and unexpected for me, coming from the United States.

04:36

Edna Ramirez Cerino Hi, my name is at nine. I am a community scholar with refugee health YYC together here with me is Musi who you will hear later. But thank you, Duncan for recognizing that I do believe there is an importance in including indigenous communities into these types of conferences and not only them but Also all visible minorities and other ethno cultural communities as well.

05:07

Rachel Talavikar: I'm Rachel travecar. I'm a family physician at the Mosaic Refugee Health Clinic here in Calgary and had the honor to be on the planning committee for the conference. And it really fills me with joy to hear Edna share that because this is where I'm from. I was born in Calgary, so that's treaty seven lands and the Blackfoot Confederacy and the Matey three as well as Siksika people and within Canada, Calgary has quite a stereotype about who we are and what kind of people we are perhaps more cowboys or the Wild West. We were very intentional that we wanted to ensure the indigenous voices were well represented. And when we discovered Wendy, it took only five minutes of meeting her to know that she was the right person to bring that spirit here and to also acknowledge that the power and the influence that the indigenous communities can have for our newcomers as they settle on these lines and start to heal in their migration journey.

05:58

Minella Antonio: 0Hi My name is Manie Antonio, I work closely with the Filipino community here in Calgary. But I was also born and raised in Calgary. And for me, it was interesting to hear the American perspective on our progress in Truth and Reconciliation here in Canada. Because as much as we'd like to say we are, we're moving forward, we've still got a long ways to go. I work with Alberta Health Services, and part of our onboarding process is to do a very long module on the history of indigenous peoples specifically, in the context of health care. It's very long history. It's very painful for a lot of people. And it's important for us to listen to what they have to say, and why it's so difficult for indigenous people to reach out and get health care, because of the history. But also what I hear in my office, specifically from immigrant communities is they don't see the importance of it. But I do see a shift change in the younger generations, understanding the importance of it. So we have to continue to educate ourselves and each other to keep moving forward.

07:08

Mussie Yemane: I'm Mussie Yemane, I'm a communist scholar, and I deal with most elegant communists in Calgary. Participating in this conference. What I saw, very amazing is the land acknowledgement for the Truth and Reconciliation. But one thing I would like to make is Canada is about 150 years old, it's been slow. Now started, we need to see action because talking about land acknowledgement, only prove anything. The practical thing to recognize and reconcile with indigenous has to continue.

07:46

Rachel Talavikar: Thanks, Mussie. And I think it was really powerful. There was a message of waking up to hear that genocide did happen on our lands. I can feel that the shift that's happened is that, yes, we acknowledge the land, but we also need to now start being accountable for what has happened, and recognizing structural violence in our healthcare systems.

08:04

Raj Sundar:  And I think Duncan, you talked about this, we talked about erasure a lot, and so much with indigenous communities is about erasure, and genocide. And since it's already happened, what's the next step? And what do we do now? And he said, Truth and Reconciliation came up and feel like in the United States. Were just in the early parts of that journey, we have so much to do for that. And then yesterday, I was talking to a person who talked about, hey, we need to do this for people who are historically enslaved in the US as well and understand their history and what they've been through for all newcomers, refugees, immigrants, because we're all in this together. And we don't want people's histories erased, because that informs so much of people's health, too, right?

08:44

Dunkan Reid: I think about the indigenous communities, about the refugee communities and even enslaved populations. I think even those communities recognize those commonalities. And I think there's a kinship that can be formed if there's an awareness. One of my colleagues is an immigrant from Afghanistan, and he went to a national park, outside of Seattle, and he was shocked to learn about then the indigenous peoples there. And that was the first time and learning more about it, he saw all the similarities of what his own people went through in Afghanistan. And he was shocked that was the first time after spending almost two years in the US.

9:19

Edna Ramirez Cerino: I think, one thing that I thought about throughout the whole conference, not only with indigenous communities, the word that kept coming to my mind was deconstruction. Deconstruction, like we do need to deconstruct ourselves in so many things that we have been taught in society. And we need to, as you say, start listening to those voices, but not only listening to them, but also letting them represent themselves. I couldn't accurately represent the voice of an indigenous person and because only that person can do it. I think it is essential what you have just mentioned.

09:58

Raj Sundar: Yeah, if we potentially build curriculums and acknowledgments like we do. I think there's real opportunity to build kinship and the sense of common humanity that sometimes is missing in this conversation. And it's a good segue to the next theme about healing. We've talked about trauma, a lot of intergenerational trauma. And then we heard a lot about healing, healing through art, and healing through stories too.

10:24

Mussie Yemane:  Again, this is mostly and I attend this conference. And mostly, I attended four or five, about healing. The one that stands out is about one refugee, his name is James. He got lucky, he got a scholarship, he came here. He's speaking on behalf of all refugees in the world. And one of the points that he made is, refugees have to have a seat in the decision making. But that's not enough. They should get the podium. Luckily, he got that. And he told us what was happening in his life since he was 10 years old. So to participate in conference like this, and understand and see firsthand, what if he just goes through.

11:10

Edna Ramirez Cerino: I think that even getting the podium is great. But I think we can even take it one step further. And not only that, but get a safe space where they can share their stories. A safe space where they feel valued, especially when they have gone through so much trauma and being treated in dehumanizing ways it is important that they will know that their stories and their perspectives will make a difference. And I just believe that when you go through that trauma are being treated in dehumanizing ways, you could almost get into this mindset that oh, what I have to say, is not important, or nothing will happen after this. But that's why I think spaces like these conferences are important because we have different healthcare providers that present in different countries and communities. And getting to share with each other and getting to collaborate and share the work we have done can advance the way we integrate them into these decision making tables.

12:18

Rachel Talavikar:  It's inspiring at now to hear you talk about how for the people who are willing to come and share so vulnerably the experiences of their lives to make a difference. And that really struck me hearing Dr. Suzanne Barakat share her story about the the journey of her family and the loss that they have faced as a direct result of hatred and racism. It was incredibly powerful the way that she was vulnerable to share with us that while it may have been challenging for us in the audience, to hear the trauma that she had experienced, it was even harder for her to share that with us. And she shared a quote with us that being vulnerable. The deeper that she shared her trauma came with a cost and yet also came with the benefit of the increasing the impact that her voice had, then that took her on a course to the highest levels of politics around the world. Globally, her voice was heard. But that came with a cost. It was a really important message for us to be reminded that can take a toll on people.

13:16

Raj Sundar: Yeah Bobon also talked about being an LGBTQ activist how not only did he lose some of his family, but lost all of his memories. He said how all of his photos were gone. He has no photos of his childhood. And linking it back to health, we tend to and healthcare still divorce all these bigger structural causes from what help is. And Dr. Burke had a talk how Islamophobia and how the discounting of her family's suffering internationally really affected her mental health, but also her family's well-being so directly. And that's what we need to be talking about, not just saying this. I know we talked about diabetes, high blood pressure, yes, all that's important. But this also needs to be part of the conversation. And this is the most important thing for them. And we need to be part of the movement and helping them address it. And as Bobon said, learning to say yes to what it is, and calling it out intentionally and every time.

14:11

Rachel Talavikar:  As you say that it makes me smile because one of the posters in the research area was called the best blood pressure pill is the reunification of family. And very often we try to treat healthcare challenges with medications, but there are many things that a prescription can't fix.

14:25

Dunkan Reid: One thing that I noticed too, is that when you compare Suzanne Bearcats talk with Nadia Murad. They're both deeply going into their own pain and their own suffering. And you can see them suffering on the stage. And it's really a call to action. And they explicitly stated that, whereas I would contrast that to even Borbon to the loupe, and even James at times, who would infuse humor or this kind of healing process, and at least in the case of Borbon, he was really writing this poetry for his own self healing, and then it turned out to be wondering connection to the audience. So it really served us two way conduit. And I think James Dewey did a very good job of that as well. He told some of the most graphic and painful history of his life. But then he made sure to counter it with light and very humanizing details about his struggles in the US. And I feel like for him, it might have been therapeutic, and then for the audience, and it really created a unique connection.

15:25

Edna Ramirez Cerino: As you say, when James was talking about his experience in South Sudan, and after he finished his tag, someone asked him, What did he do for his mental health. And he says, sharing my story can be healing. And it's part of what I do sharing it with others can be healing for me. And he even mentioned, I don't want to make people cry. But I also want you to know that this is a reality. This is something that is happening. And I thought that was so powerful.

15:56

Rachel Talavikar:  Ithink he was also ensuring that when we wake up as well to what's happening in his home country right now, again, the conversation came up about migration policies around the world, and where do those decisions get made? What power decides Canada's going to take this group of refugees versus that? And why is it that certain programs will are put together for different parts of the world? And so I thought that was really exciting to wake us up to that.

16:19

Mussie Yemane: I think listening to this four people, what I gather is, what's happening in Canada has kind of 100 in this refugee programs. For example, if you take Sudan, Sudan is in chaos now. Khartoum, people are dying, left and right. And the same token, Russia invaded Ukraine. Ukraine is at war too. But when this thing happened to Ukraine, the Canada government created a system to bring the Ukrainians to Canada. unlimited number of Ukrainians came to Canada. So when I talk to people in Sudan, that are refugees that I know, in Sudan, everybody's hiding. Well, a day is going to come one day gonna get killed. But the government officials are the services that have to face these kinds of question is and they should be able to answer it.

17:10

Raj Sundar: I think that's a good transition to our next topic, thinking about all the stories we heard and hearing their voices directly, of how do we center community voice and restructure the power and authority like James is quote about, give him the podium, not just a seat. And I think that was a big theme here and a concerted effort where everybody to figure out what that means, like authentically and not just performatively.

17:33

Edna Ramirez Cerino: Yes, one of the sessions that I did really enjoy is the one talking about the decolonization of health care, and how this is essential to better serve refugees and other immigrants. And from my personal perspective, I am an international medical graduate. And while I was in that room, I just couldn't help myself. But thinking about this idea, we're talking about decolonizing healthcare. We are forgetting to include those who come from those communities. In the case of international medical graduates, when you come to Canada, the first thing when you start to get your exams for getting your credentials recognized and proceeding to either apply for residency or try to re-enter like licensure in Canada. The very first thing that happens, I will call it this colonization. The very first thing is like you need to learn how the Canadian things are done. You need to learn how this is culturally appropriate. And what you bring to the table is not this is how to approach things. And it's not yet we have here from many communities, that healthcare providers need to learn about cultural competency, and how to treat patients when we live in a multicultural country. I just found it interesting how we colonized those who tried to enter the healthcare system, to then tell them that we need to decolonize to try to serve the communities that they represent. And I do acknowledge the fact that if we live in Canada, of course, we need to learn about the culture. Of course, we need to learn about that, but without diminishing the cultural background and competencies that come with you and your experience and expertise to treat these communities.

19:25

Rachel Talavikar:  It's it's really good as a Canadian born healthcare provider working in this field to hear you share that and I definitely heard lots of conversations where the value of our internationally trained physicians and nurses and healthcare colleagues was at the forefront and recognizing the value that you bring in particular, as internationally trained physicians. I think our system relies very heavily on you informally at the moment. There were a number of community programs that I learned about where you are the ones in the resettlement hotels helping to guide patients deliver medications now navigate. And I think it's, we have a real opportunity. And I think a lot of people's takeaway was around how do we do that, while giving value and acknowledgement to the skills and services that you bring about not taking advantage of that. And right doing it in a way that isn't predatory on the goodwill, because there is a hierarchy, right? Many of our internationally trained physician colleagues are really keen to get into the Canadian system, we want to help you do that. And you need reference letters and things like that. So that we know there's situations where people like yourself are being put into vulnerable situations where they're doing things, because they know that the physician that's asking them to do it is may write them a reference letter, and it was a couple of sessions I was in where people are trying to figure out how to navigate that system. And certainly within Canada, the IRCC session that was looking at some of the upcoming programs, they're actually looking to develop a pilot program with some of our Afghan trained physicians to help see if you know, there's a funding in terms of ways of navigating that and integrating community workers that have that health background, but doing it in a way that's beneficial for everybody.

20:58

Mussie Yemane: I think what I've heard is how do you collect qualitative data by interviewing newcomers or immigrants. So the main subject talk about is language barrier. So in order to tackle that, you have to hire ethno-cultural, or people with experience so that you can whatever you want to say to the newcomers or refugees. it's been advisable in order to do any research regarding newcomers or immigrants or refugees, you have to speak to them using their first language, and you have to hire a ethno-cultural or people from respective communities in order to perform it.

21:39

Minella Antonio: That reminds me of the first workshop that I joined, the restructuring power and authority between institutions and community to address health disparities. We were put into groups and we got scenarios made. And it was like a role playing scenario where one person talked as a community member, and one person spoke as an institution. But one of the key things that I remember from the group discussion was that they felt that once you hire someone from the community to work with you, sometimes the community feels like they're no longer part of the community, they're not part of the system, the message still doesn't come through. So it's really interesting. I never heard that before.

22:23

Rachel Talavikar:  So the society refugee health care providers has a committee, that's research evaluation and ethics committee. And so a grant was applied for by the committee pakora grant to develop a refugee review board that is made up of the most phenomenal individuals from across Canada and America. And that board hosted a workshop where they wanted to share how they're available for consultation for researchers. So they can approach the committee and say, Hey, I'm looking at doing a project. And this is what I'd like to do. And so they offered a practical workshop to say, Hey, don't do this and do this. And so they gave some pearls, like, for example, giving enough time in the process, reaching out and telling the board exactly what it is that they wanted insight on. And one of the biggest messages I heard was that you don't just do this, because you need to tick a box on your form that you talk to us, right? If all you want to be able to do is say that you talk to us, then don't come talk to us. But if you want valuable insights into how you plan and develop your research program, whether it be community, whether it be how to apply for funding, how to how to integrate how to collect data, we now have this incredible resource for the society. And for anybody who wants to do research with newcomer and vulnerable communities.

23:32

Dunkan Reid: I was really impressed at the number of different places are using this community mediator model. And it seems in my institution, they've had that for several decades. But it seems like it's caught on to a number of places. One of the talks, I went to introduce that that phrase, or that slogan, nothing about us without us. And I was so struck by that. I never heard of it. But I think it encapsulates very clearly what the message is from a lot of what we've been saying here. And it was from the South African disability movement. And but I think it's very pertinent here. And I think a lot of these groups gave a voice to these community mediators and allowed them to speak. And they're really cultural brokers that are acting not just in one direction, but in two directions. And involving them. Having a seat at the table for them, really gave a lot more richness to the understanding of the communities and the projects that were being done.

24:27

Edna Ramirez Cerino: And I think again, taking it one step further. One thing that just came to mind, is the project that we as Community Scholars have been involved in. We are representing six different ethno-cultural communities. But we were not only given the space to talk about it and to inform the research process and say exactly what you're saying, Rachel, don't do this approach me this way. This is not how I appreciate being approach. But later on they did train us we are now trained research chairs, and they did empower us to come up with our own research question and do our own research. And we are now the voice of those communities. And you have us as researchers doing this work for their communities and being that voice because who could better represent each community that a member of it.

25:21

Rachel Talavikar: In general, and there's been, I think watching that communities colored program develop, there was challenges to questions to power as to how you can't get someone on to ethics unless they have a university accreditation. And so then it was like, figure out how to give us accreditation then Right. And I think there was a lot of that we got to restructure power, because the way it has been traditionally is not how research needs to be done for the communities that we're serving.

25:43

Edna Ramirez Cerino: And for sure, that was advocacy needed for us to be able to access those training programs. Like I remember our principal investigators, were saying it took two years for them to be able to get us enrolled into the program, to get the funding. And to be like, Okay, you're approved, you can train these Community Scholars as researchers, for them to be able to conduct research themselves.

26:10

Dunkan Reid: Some of the talks, I recalled from the University of Minnesota, we're focused on the power of language. So the power of language not only to express your internal biases, but actually to shape your own thinking. I think this goes along with the colonization aspect that we're talking about, and how important these words are. I think in particular, just the newcomers, as a term that I was not familiar with, as an American, that I felt wasn't burdened by, by a lot of the biases, that refugee or immigrant, or these other terms have. I thought that was a good example of CO opting a name that seems fairly neutral or if not positive, and it just acknowledging the power of language to shape not only your own thinking but other people's thinking as well.

26:56

Raj Sundar: And I think what Edna shared about what is expertise, because when people think of experts, they think of PhD, MD mph, they're the ones who know how things work, let them decide what's next. And we discount lived experience people from the community who have a different kind of experience, expertise, and sometimes more important and more accurate kind of expertise for the work we're trying to do.

27:19

Minella Antonio: On that note of language at the keynote session that sort of started us off this morning, for the last day from doctors Everone Hesus, he's the director of migration for the who went through the different parts of the world and shared with us some of the different patterns that have happened. And it was quite striking as the power of that language in terms of who gets called a refugee who obtains that legal status, because essentially, these are words that are used to identify what people do and do not have access to and how there was one. I think the one slide had about six different examples of depending on your language, whatever word you had been given, determined whether or not you were able to access COVID vaccination, which ultimately is going to have a huge impact on your health. And that was quite striking to me.

28:02

Edna Ramirez Cerino:I was actually gonna mention something around COVID vaccination, because I also worked for the Alberta International Medical Graduates Association. And during COVID, we created a health and wellness team with all our international medical graduates representing 72 different languages. And we had a hotline for COVID for people to come and ask us questions about COVID, or the vaccine, and the amount of people in the amount of misinformation that was out there and people in those situations, as you say, like people without an immigrant status, who were feeling lost. They're like, What do I do? How do I get my vaccine? Am I gonna die? Do I have no right to do this? Just because I don't have an immigrant status. And many times we forget that we're working with people. We're working with a mom with a dad with someone with a life we are not working with numbers, or with an immigration status. We cannot treat people in that dehumanizing way. They are humans.

29:05

Rachel Talavikar: Yeah, one of the sessions I attended. That was Dr. TMac Crocky, from UCSF, and she is recognized a real need for developing pathways for inpatients who have perhaps refugee or undocumented. But she had a patient that was particularly complicated how they had come to be under her care. But she reflected on how had that person not been under her care, that was very unlikely that they would have been able to navigate the systems they needed to navigate. And so that workshop was people trying to problem solve, how can we develop toolkits or pathways or infrastructure so that every patient that internists encounter, should expect to be able to get the current care that they need and deserve not hinging on their status?

29:45

Raj Sundar: That's awesome. We learned about so many things, but we come to conferences for the people, for the community, because we've all done virtual conferences, and we know how they feel. It's really hard to sit through them and so much of this work feel like we need each other because of how hard it is how complex it is, and how difficult it is to sometimes get the resources you need to do the work when you know what to do. And sometimes we don't know what to do. And that's why we're building all these systems. But I do think that theme is one of the biggest themes of building community to sustain each other in this work.

30:19

Rachel Talavikar: As you say, back community that collaboration, those synergies when you meet somebody who does the same job as you in a different state or a different part of the country, that moment is incredibly restorative and really fills your soul that you can develop resilience. And as healthcare workers coming out of the pandemic, we are tired, we're depleted. And so this opportunity to connect with colleagues really gives you an opportunity to become a little bit buffered against that, right. It's a way of building your capacity to become resilient against the burnout against the vicarious trauma.

30:49

Mussie Yemane: I think having like confidence like this will build communities, groups, teams, you communicate with so many people, for example, today, I had lunch with Dr. Samuel from Germany, and under for subwindow. Who director. So you don't get the chance to speak with somebody like that. If you prepare a conference like this, you can talk to them, and you can learn a lot from them. One of the lessons that I learned from Dr. Samuel is Dr. Samuel was working with Angela Merkel for eight years. I asked him, How was he as a different he told me, they are all human beings. And and I understood today, we are all human beings. But who directed we'll see that was me talking to me, like his friend. Like, I was really amazed. I thought the higher ups are different creatures, but they are not.

31:40

Dunkan Reid: I think one thing that I felt, especially in Seattle is that I'm doing such niche work. I know only a handful of people that work with a refugee community, feeling isolated, and you come out here and you realize there's hundreds of people that do very similar work to what you do that can relate to you, and that you really can learn from so I feel like that was the most energizing thing for me, realizing that we feel very isolated at times. And not only that, but a lot of the projects that people are working on, there's a lot of opportunity for collaboration and synergy. A lot of people are working on the same tools in different places. So if we can connect some of our resources, He will make us feel more engaged even in between these conferences, but will also allow us to get a lot more things done in the field.

32:25

Rachel Talavikar: Yeah, I think we've got a running list of new and unique resources. I know people certainly my Canadian colleagues hadn't heard about Nomad before. So I've been sharing that one. There's also NRC rim that was presented this morning and my colleagues were blown away and a tools to see what's been developed. There was also the opportunity to to feed back to some of our government officials both on both sides of the border about what resources are needed. And it's interesting when you talk about that feeling isolated and going through an experience. One of the speakers that was our keynote on the very first morning, Nadia Murad, she's from the Yazidi community that we're a community that experienced genocide under ISIS. And that was a very intentional reason that we brought her to Calgary and that was to help providers who had cared for us at patients work through some of their trauma, there was over 20 people that came from London to hear her speak as well. We knew we wanted to share her message with a broader healthcare community of what she had experienced. And her messages around the importance of recognizing the impact of family separation has the importance of recognize that things are still happening there. But the work that providers do, it doesn't make a difference. And one of the other pieces is she spent a whole day with that community here in Calgary, this about 350 years that he resettled here, there was one when that group first arrived. And so to see how that community has come around, and they're able to go through healing also helps us to think that we've acknowledged the importance of her in their community.

33:47

Minella Antonio: For me, it was like a really validating experience, especially going to workshops, like the building capacity for refugee research partners, and expanding community capacity in the most diverse square mile in America. And I only took on this role as like a community navigator for the Filipino community when the pandemic came, and people needed help accessing resources. But ever since then, I really connected with my community scholar team here. And seeing all these workshops and abstracts of people working on the same thing as us where it was really validating. We're all coming to the same conclusions. Everyone has like similar needs, and everyone's working towards a similar goal. And even someone today approached me on our poster as I was tearing it down. the Our poster was about the newcomer's experience getting COVID-19 vaccine and COVID-19 Vaccine Information and how there was such a barrier for newcomers do to like language and stuff. But he came up to me and he's this is what I've been saying. And this is the first time I'm seeing it, like validated and he's like, it's nice to know. I'm not crazy. I'm hearing it back And I was like, that was really cool.

35:04

Rachel Talavikar:  I use similar words reflecting on what doctors everone spoke about this morning, because the a lot of the things that he expressed that are important are the things that we've been trying to research improve, right. There was a couple of sessions that were yesterday afternoon around colorectal screening, cancer screening, preventative screening. And we all see preventative screening is important because we're trained in a very western centric model of care. And we have the luxury of worrying about preventative screening, our patients arrive, and for them, that's not a luxury many of them have been able to afford. And so that can sometimes be a challenge as a provider, because you want to ensure there's adequate screening, but there's a hierarchy of needs when people arrive. And they have a lot of competing priorities. And so I saw a lot of work that had been presented on how to enhance and improve access, as well as understanding of the value of colorectal lung cancer and breast cancer screening. And to see that also echoed at the who was very validating.

35:54

Raj Sundar: Any other takeaways?

35:56

Dunkan Reid: I think it was a great opportunity just to talk to all of you, I think this was like a nice connection, particularly with the scholars from Calgary, hopefully, this will be some ongoing things, there's so much to learn from you, just in this podcast, listening to what you had to say and how articulate and how you've been thinking these things a long time. And it sounds like you've finally been heard. And that means a lot because you're someone of that community that we're talking about. So I appreciate.

36:20

Edna Ramirez Cerino:  It’s great for me to hear you say that because this is the type of space that I was talking about. This is the safe space where we can share our voices, and we can assure that we are being heard, and represented in community and healthcare.

36:35

Rachel Talavikar: It's also really important for me to have a space where I can listen and reflect. But conferences like this allow me to be an ally, and an ally with our indigenous people and ally with Ymg us and ally with my patients. And if I can be an ally with them to help boost however our systems are functioning or to break the ceilings and I can walk into the room and say forget your system. And this is how we're going to do this because these are the voices that need to be heard. So thank you for that.

37:01

Mussie Yemane:  I think what I would like to say to scholars out here is the thing about I said before the whenever you do to do a research for newcomers or refugees, you have to hire people from those ethno cultural groups. And it works. We proved it. Now we've proved it. It is we are the Community Scholars, Dr. Fabbro had a research project to talk to the people who are impacted by COVID in the meat processing plants. So they hired I think maybe the people working with them was mostly Caucasian. They went and tried to talk to the meat processing plants. Nobody wants to talk to them for three days. So they said they gave up the project is dead. That's it. We failed. So they approached us. They said we cant do this. Can you help us? So prior to that, I think, four months, five months ago, I was on the phone with him. I told him about what happened in Winnipeg. When I was in Winnipeg, I used to work with one professor at a research assistant. And he got a grant to figure out whether to make it retirement at 65 mandatory or not. But specifically for refugees that arrived Canada and that they are above 55. He has to be above his five they won't ask those people only if we make retirement mandatory or six five, would you accept it or not? In order to do that, what the professor did is he booked Delta Winnipeg hotel, one of the top hotels in Winnipeg 400 people, he ordered food, everything. Nobody showed up. He came to the museum, what did you do wrong? And I said, I think in order to do this, you have to hire people from each community. Because there is a thirst issue. In order to overcome that you have to have a you got Filipino Spanish to Sudan is whatever, you hire people from there, and then those people have to approach them. That way, your project will be successful. As I said, he was successful. He was completed on time. So he called me you told me this. Once I said, yeah, if you do that, you'll be successful. So they call five of us. We stayed there overnight. The next morning, we talked them, we interviewed 15 people in one day. And then the reason we do that is because of the trust these people they know us, even though they don't know as in person, they know that from their community. Because that trust issue is very important. And because of that, we complete the project, the paper is going to be published soon.

39:40

Rachel Talavikar:  And I think that question of trust came up a lot and around this theme to have chocolate communit community. There's a trust that's inherent in providers that do this work. And certainly everybody you meet in most of the workshops, almost everybody you talk to is someone that you can connect with, they get you right even before you start sharing.

39:47

Raj Sundar: There's also a question of how do you hold on to hope? That's a big question in this work and just life when things just seem so overwhelming. Everything from climate change to the refugee crisis, everything we hear about And part of it, I feel is just being connected to people that give you a sense of all. Hey, like, this is awesome, like what you all are doing, what you've achieved, and who you are as people. And those moments can help sustain us in some ways, too. So I'm grateful for you all. And thank you so much for doing this. Thanks again, everyone for joining me on another episode of healthcare for humans. If you liked this episode, as always, my ask to you is please share it with one other person, so they can also hear it. I'll see you next time.

40:34

Speaker 7: This podcast is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. Views and opinions expressed in this podcast do not represent any of the participants past, current or future employers unless explicitly expressed so. Always seek advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with regards to your own personal questions about what medical conditions you may be experiencing. This Healthcare for Humans project is based on Duwamish land that makes a regular commitment to Real Rental Duwamish.

The transcript ends here.