Hello Everyone! My name is Sree Saripalli

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Ever since I could remember, the third Saturday of the month was reserved for volunteering at a homeless shelter and soup kitchen in downtown Detroit. Over the years I had established a routine of cutting vegetables, making garlic bread, wiping down tables, and ladling soup to give to the residents. However, it wasn’t until flu season rolled around that I realized the residents not only needed food, but also access to quality healthcare. One day, a fellow volunteer who was a pharmacist was setting up a table to give out free flu shots to residents of the homeless shelter. As I helped her call the residents up to the table to get their shots, I noticed two things: the people who received flu shots were mostly African American, and they were of low socioeconomic status.

Screen Shot 2021-03-29 at 7.35.44 PM.png — This was my first encounter with healthcare disparities, both racial and socioeconomic, and it made me question why these disparities occur. A few years later, I received the opportunity to learn about cultural diversities and disparities through my school’s Health Occupations Students of America chapter. After reading the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman as part of the curriculum, I realized how much of an impact cultural and racial background can affect the way one perceives and receives healthcare. Through HOSA I was able to answer my question: why do healthcare disparities occur? But, I didn’t know what I could do to help resolve them. As I asked my peers about this, I quickly realized that not many of my classmates knew about cultural diversities and disparities in healthcare. And honestly? I totally get why.

When most students think of the medical field, subjects such as biology, chemistry, and human anatomy are the first to come to mind. However, equally important topics such as patient background and disparities in healthcare are not even on many students’ radars.

But I soon realized that in a country that is home to so many people of different backgrounds, it is vital that future healthcare professionals cultivate a mindset of openness and acceptance as soon as possible.

Since then, I became committed to educating future healthcare professionals about the importance of learning about patient diversity and disparities in the hopes that this knowledge could be used to overcome systematic racism and disparities in the healthcare field while raising awareness of different forms of healthcare practiced throughout the world.

I decided to start Humanity In Health to help future healthcare professionals gain knowledge of different medical practices among various culture and become more aware of the countless disparities that currently plague the healthcare industry.

Our team will be publishing a blogpost about the various views of health and illness and highlighting a specific disparity that is prevalent among a certain racial or ethnic group. In addition, we will invite a healthcare professional to describe any profound experiences they had pertaining to culture in the healthcare industry in a podcast.

“The good physician treats the disease. The great physician treats the patient who has the disease”
-Sir William Osler

I hope all of you aspire to become great physicians and will be inclined to join me on this journey towards cultural competency!

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