Heidi Kelly

For many people, a job is in one way or another, a way of expressing who they are as a person. Whether it be what they do, the people they work with, or how it helps them grow and change as a person. Take Heidi Kelly for example. A 43 year old woman who lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Heidi works at a medical facility called Clinica Medicos. Clinica Medicos describes themselves as "A medical clinic modeled after global mission hospitals.” Their goal is to solve the complex challenges of health care, especially for the Latino community of their city. By doing this, they have a kind, hard working, and understanding team, with one of the doctors being Ms. Kelly. Before we dive deeper into Kelly’s job specifically, we need to know the type of person she is. When asked how her childhood affected who she is as a person today, Heidi responded with, 

“Well, certainly it had a lot of effect watching my parents and you know, who they were and how they interacted with their community and the world around them. They like to do things kind of with their hands and to help people, so that, you know, helped teach me that that was important work.” Heidi explains that the community around her has had an impact on who she is. She also conveys this by saying, 

“My mom's dad was a doctor. Growing up it sort of fascinated me. I kind of toyed with going to premed and college, and then decided against it, partly because I wanted to travel and I wanted to see things and I just kind of was interested in stories and how people kind of interacted through history. So my undergraduate major ended up being history and Spanish, so very liberal arts focused. But kind of as I went through my travel and things like that, I saw some of those kinds of medical needs. My travels, and just different things along the way, led me to kind of want to go back to school, so later in life, I went back to school school. And I kind of stay in nursing.” Kelly was always fond of the idea of nursing and helping other people. 

The next question that Kelly was asked was how her job reflects who she is as a person. Jobs are in many ways similar to how someone is even outside of their work facility. They can tell us a lot about people. When asked, she responded with, “I think it reflects me being pretty interested in other people, getting to know people. Helping others was instilled in me and so that was important. I think my job allows me to empower people to live our lives, in general, and that's kind of what I want to do too.” It’s one thing to learn and understand about the job someone has, but it’s another to get to see how it affects their life and the person they are; and for Heidi, her job of helping other people is especially seen throughout her personality and who she is. 

After asking about how she relates to her job, Kelly was then asked about what type of connection she has with the people involved in her job. 

“Most of the time it’s brief. But small experiences can be really powerful, just looking somebody in the eye, taking time to listen to their story, things like that can have a big impact. Especially when you're working with people who aren't usually given that kind of time.” This very answer can really help convey just how sincere, understanding, and thoughtful nurse Kelly is. She loves helping people who not only are struggling with their health, but are struggling to be heard and understood; and by listening to them, they’re given a voice. She also stated later in the interview that “ They feel like they're being discriminated against or that people don't want them here. They feel that they're not valuable members of our community and that's really hard.” She continued to explain that when she sees clients facing these challenges, she does her best to make them feel safe and included.

Finally, Kelly was asked the question, “In a time where the Latino community is being heavily targeted, in a negative way, that is, are you scared for your clients or even your own job?” Kelly explained that yes, she does have fear for clients for different reasons. 

“Yes. I mean, certainly it's been tough lately. We've had lots of funding cuts. We've had less patients because people are scared. Mostly either scared to come out or they don't have the money.. And so certainly financially..” She continued to express concerns for the financial struggles that she’s seen her clients face but she also made a few remarks on the mental struggles too. “I mean, I have never treated so many people for depression and anxiety.” This indicates that because of outside factors such as discrimination or not having the right access to what they need, the Latino community is suffering not only financially, but also mentally.

Heidi is a hardworking woman who cares a lot about her community and has repeatedly helped many patients struggling- no matter what way.