Making the Rounds

October 15, 2019 | Issue 216

Colleagues,

Gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, age, culture, socioeconomic background -- diversity comes in many forms. The UNLV School of Medicine understands that bringing people of various backgrounds and experiences together can generate perspectives and ideas that others may not have ever considered or been aware of -- ideas that can help lead to better healthcare in the 21st century. In today’s feature on first year student Sami Mesgun, whose parents came to the U.S. from Africa after their lives were upended when the Eritrean war of independence intensified, we get a better sense of why this Las Vegas native wants to ensure that underserved immigrant and minority communities have equitable access to healthcare.

MEDICINE BY THE NUMBERS

Americans spent more than $16.5 billion on cosmetic plastic surgery in 2018, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

Source:

https://www.plasticsurgery.org/news/press-releases/americans-spent-more-than-16-billion-on-cosmetic-plastic-surgery-in-2018

Medical Student Committed to Helping the Underserved

First year medical student Sami Mesgun (second from right) celebrates with his parents and brother and sister following the UNLV School of Medicine White Coat Ceremony August 23rd, 2019.

Every time Sami Mesgun, a first year UNLV School of Medicine student, thinks about the experience of his family, it seems more like a miracle.

When you hear his story, you can’t help but remember the inscription on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

It is an American Dream story, where hard work pays off, where the child of poor immigrants pledges to give better healthcare back to the country that kept hope alive for his family, where dreams of leaving grinding poverty behind still can come true.

Mesgun’s parents grew up in Eritrea, which won a 30 year war of independence from Ethiopia in 1991. They didn’t escape the warfare together, first meeting in the nearby country of Sudan, where they eventually -- after overcoming some harrowing hostility toward refugees -- received the physical and legal protections that allowed them to come to the United States.

“Out of fear for their lives, they fled, hiding during the day and trekking at night, entrusting strangers with their lives, and living with the uncertainty of another tomorrow,” Mesgun wrote in a piece for his alma mater, Cornell University. “My dad, in his twenties, abandoned his livelihood of selling chickens...my mom was only a teenager…her schooling was interrupted and her dream of one day becoming a healthcare provider was permanently put on hold.”

Mesgun’s father first came to the U.S. and then Las Vegas in 1982 with the help of the Catholic Charities’ Refugee Resettlement Program. More than a decade later his parents would marry, his mother joining her husband in the U.S. in 1994.

Not long afterward, the couple started a family. Mesgun, who graduated near the top of his class at Durango High School, is the oldest at 24. He received a merit scholarship to the Ivy League’s Cornell University, graduating with a degree in human development. His younger brother is nearing graduation from UNLV, where he’ll get a degree in finance. His younger sister is in high school at Durango.

“I still find it miraculous that my dad was able to be the family’s sole provider as a taxi driver,” says Mesgun, who notes that after his father drove a taxi 12 hours a day for 10 years, the family was able to move from a two bedroom apartment, his dad purchasing a three bedroom house.

Not surprisingly, Mesgun is especially grateful to the U.S. for giving his parents a chance at a new life and for educational programs aimed at helping low income disadvantaged youth, including the Upward Bound program held through UNLV. He’s also thankful his parents -- his dad finished the third grade, his mother the ninth -- stressed education as a way to a better life.

“When I was younger, my mother bought me English workbooks to work on grammar on the weekends even though she had difficulty with the language. She made me give the workbooks to the teacher on Monday to make sure I did them right.”

If Mesgun wasn’t studying, he was running track and cross country for Durango High School, becoming captain of the cross country team his senior year. “I still run a couple miles every day. I love the feeling it gives me.”

According to the essay Mesgun wrote to help him get into medical school, it was while he was in middle and high school that he started thinking about becoming a physician. That was the same time he was accompanying his dad to medical appointments.

My role was not only part interpreter but also part comforter. Language and cultural barriers all too often got in the way of my father experiencing the best care and highest quality outcomes, even with me by his side to clarify things and reassure him. Though his physicians were well-trained and caring, he never truly felt comfortable during his visits.That changed once my father began seeing a physician who took the time to understand his cultural beliefs regarding health (God’s Will) and lay out his presentation of health problems in a way that made more sense for him. Almost immediately, visits took on a different meaning, and the barriers of discomfort and lack of trust peeled away. His need for me to serve as intermediary faded and eventually disappeared and amazingly, for the first time, I witnessed my father shape the kind of autonomy he wanted with his physician. He felt connected not only to his physician but now to the clinic itself and other care providers. This experience with my father was an early spark in my desire to attend medical school and become a physician who could communicate across cultural gaps and empower patients to take charge of their own health.

"People are born into more difficult circumstances than others and I believe society has a responsibility to help those people as well, particularly in healthcare." --Sami Mesgun

Mesgun said he hopes to be much like the physician that his father appreciated. One who takes the time, for example, to find out that in his patient’s culture, God, not a medical practitioner, had the most to do with health outcomes.

“My father was raised that way -- he wasn’t science focused,” Mesgun says. “He was spirituality focused.”

Once a physician has a sense of his patient’s understanding of modern medicine, he/she can tailor explanations accordingly, Mesgun says. When physicians took the time to patiently explain to his father how exercise and diet can help cardiovascular health, how an enlarged prostate can affect well-being, Mesgun says his father came to realize that spirituality isn’t the only important element in healthcare. “They were concepts new to my father.”

During his undergraduate work at Cornell, Mesgun had the opportunity to study abroad in Jordan. It was an experience that helped cement his decision to become a physician. There, he came in contact with Palestinian and Syrian refugees, who reminded him of what he says his parents told him they went through after leaving Eritrea for Sudan. He says the people both in Jordan and Sudan believed their governments were pouring resources into helping the refugees that should have gone to them.

Like most Eritreans who were embarking for the U.S., Sudan was my parents’ first major stop. They lived in poverty and fear as they watched police raid homes and churches to sweep undocumented Eritreans from the streets and deport them back to Eritrea. My parents also recall being driven away by physicians due to refugee status, leaving them and many sick Eritreans without care. From the stories my parents shared of struggling to survive as refugees, I have cultivated a deep sense of empathy for underserved communities. Moreover, growing up in a refugee family, I understand what it is like to be driven to the margins of healthcare access and quality because of language and cultural barriers. As an aspiring physician, I hope to forge a medical career that works through the challenges faced by underserved communities and improve the way health is understood and managed in them.

While Mesgun sees the U.S. as a wonderful land of opportunity, he also has found that it has barriers.

People are born into more difficult circumstances than others and I believe society has a responsibility to help those people as well, particularly in healthcare...people can be enterprising and remarkably resilient in the face of extreme adversity. The human cost remains tremendous, however, and cannot be alleviated without equitable access to healthcare and other services. Progress depends on us caring to make a difference.

Mesgun says the importance of helping others cannot be stressed enough. “I wouldn’t be here today without mentors and teachers who care about me. That’s something I’d like to return.”

Thankful for how Catholic Charities helped his parents, he is volunteering there this semester. Still, he knows he can’t let up on his studies if he wants to make his dream of becoming a physician a reality. “I study like I have a big test every week.”

Working with the medically underserved, and making a contribution to healthcare policy, is what he sees in his future.

“Medicine can become confusing,” he says.” I want to be able to have conversations with patients that matter to them, where they fully disclose what’s going on with their health. I want to help them manage their own health. I want to be about social justice and good medicine.”

In the News (click on photo to see story)

" Nevada Sent 170 Children in Juvenile Justice, Child Welfare system, Out of State for Treatment"

Interview with: Dr. Lisa Durette

The Nevada Independent

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