Raquel Garcia, MS2 Duke University School of Medicine
I remember the days I used to stay at my Abuela’s house,
too sick to go to school.
Hearing the pitter patter of the rain outside the window,
I lay wrapped in a tiger cobija, watching cartoons en la tele.
Most of the time, she would make me Abuelita hot chocolate,
adding extra cinnamon because she knew how much I loved it.
On the days I had mocos, out came the vivaporu,
rubbed in a thick layer above my lip, across my back and chest.
I still remember it as the cure for all ails.
Well that, and my Abuela’s caldo, of course.
Even now, nothing makes me feel better than her caldo, with arroz, verduras, y limón.
The limón was the best part, and my Abuela knew that.
The days I stayed home with a fever,
I spent the day sleeping with a wet towel over my forehead,
waking up periodically to my Abuela pressing her lips on my cheek to check my temperature-
I learned that from her.
I always called her Tita,
because I could never pronounce abuelita as a small child.
Her name is Angeles though, and it’s so fitting.
I know that when people say angels live among us,
they’re referring to my Tita.
But for an angel, she sure knows how to serve some attitude-
everyone says I get that from her.
That’s my goal anyway-
to learn to live like her- living like an angel on earth.
The beauty is that she doesn’t even have to think about it.
Simplemente nació de los ángeles.
About the Author: Raquel Garcia is a Mexican-American woman from Southern California. She is a second year medical student at Duke University School of Medicine. Raquel earned her B.S. in Public Health with a Chemistry minor from San Jose State University, with a focus on community health education & health disparities. During her gap years, she worked as a social science researcher at Stanford University School of Medicine, studying physician-patient communication, racial health disparities, medical education, and serious illness care. Currently, her research focuses on the impact of physician communication on prognostic understanding, gender & racial representation in medicine, community health education, and community-based health interventions. Raquel’s future specialty is undecided; however, her current interests include emergency medicine, orthopedic surgery, family medicine, radiology, and surgical oncology. Regardless of specialty, Raquel aims to offer future patients a face, language, and values that are familiar to them, as a member of a dedicated generation of physician leaders to provide compassionate, culturally-appropriate care to improve the health of our diverse communities.
About the Work: As medical students entering the healthcare field, we can grow accustomed to looking down upon traditional healing practices, especially if those interfere with the evidence-based treatments we are taught in our training. "Abuela's Healing" is a reflection on the healing practices many of us have grown up with in Latine households. It aims to highlight the beauty of these practices and the importance of understanding and celebrating cultural healing practices as future healthcare professionals.
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