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About Me
Hi my name is Ashley and I am Biology major with minors in Spanish and Educational Studies. I find the intersectionality between education and healthcare interesting, especially in the context of direct clinical interaction and treating patients and providers as mutual understanding of one another rather than an unbalanced dynamic. I hope to become a physician assistant after graduation and what I learned during my undergraduate years and this invaluable experience over J-term that I wrote my capstone on as fundamental learning experiences to apply in my graduate studies and professional practice. Outside of school I love watching movies, reading, traveling and most importantly spending time with family and friends over good food!
Abstract
Growing as an Ecuadorian-American in NYC wishing to pursue medicine, I have always wanted to study the medicinal practices of my parents homeland. Over J-term I got the opportunity to do so under the Ministry of Public Health of Ecuador led by Dr.CarmenMero Gomez. Due to my limited time in Ecuador, the internship lasted for 5 days but provided a vast amount of first hand experience of community health interventions in rural Ecuador. Pajan is a small town in the Manabi province of Ecuador and according to the 2022 census it has a population of 7,686 making it classified as a self-contained community. Ecuador has a dual-system healthcare system with both public and private institutions including the Ministry of Public Health and the Ecuadorian Security Institute. The MSP, despite being the main public healthcare provider, its funding is limited and during my shadowing I observed this deficit of doctors and infrastructure. A majority of the population were insured by Seguro Social Campesino or “Peasant Social Security” designed for rural families. There were countless limitations such as long travel distance to clinics/hospitals and limited speciality care. With the support of: Dr. Mabel Cedeño, Dr. Samuel Gutierrez Gorozabel, Dr. Denys Rodriguez, Dr. Victor Quimis, Ober Menendez (Primary Health Care Technician), Miriam Choez (Primary Health Care Technician), Geoconda Murillo (Primary Health Care Technician Schools). We treated different populations: disabled patients, children and senior citizens, and hypertense individuals. I was taught clinical and interpersonal skills with patients learning how to measure blood pressure, how to converse with caretakers, and how to properly document patient visits.
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