Being from Detroit, I have witnessed the good and the bad of the city. Fortunately, growing up I lived in a two parent household, both had jobs that came with benefits. I cannot say that about a huge amount of my friends. Anywho it was during 2006 summer that everything seemed to be spiraling. It seems like as the temperature rise in the city, so does the violence. Because of this reason my parents sent me and my twin sister to a summer camp. This summer camp gave us an opportunity to get away and actually spend time outside camping. When we returned it seem like all hell had broken lose. Mind you guys, I have lived in the same house on the same block since 2001, so the news we found about was shocking. We got back and caught up with our friends, and we found out there had been a shooting on our block. There was 3 men, 2 women, and 3 kids involved. When I was heard this I was horrific as I mentioned I’ve been living there for 5 years, but there has never been a situation like that that happened around my area.

Despite my family not being affected by this incident, I came to realize how awful the Detroit health system is. One of the victim shot was my neighbor’s 14 year old brother. They told us how it took the ambulance 20+ just to get to the scene when the hospital is literally 10 minutes away. I also heard how the hospital was extremely packed, understaffed, and short on resources. The doctors and nurses that were there were either unbothered, unprofessional, or frustrated. After learning of this, as I got older my attention started to shift on the issues within urban hospital, and fortunately my auntie decided to transfer from hospital in the suburban area to a hospital in Detroit.

I would always pick on brain on the system is set up and what are the issues she noticed. Without breaking any laws specifically HIPPA, she literally told me all the tea. She explained to me how the hospital would turn away extremely wounded patients because they did not have insurance, and the hospital claimed to not have funding to cover the treatments. I also learned how they had 3-4 patients in a room that’s only equip to occupy 1-2 patients. With the over stacking came the shortage of supplies and staff. After hearing this information, I started viewing hospitals as the jail hospitals that you see in the movies where the doctors just slap a bandaid and send you back out.

This little obsession was 13 years ago, but it was the whole reason why I wanted to go into the medical field. I originally wanted to become a doctor because I wanted to make a change, I naively thought they had all the power. However, as I started to volunteer at McLaren during my sophomore year of college I realized they honestly was not concerned with the patient well-being outside of the visit. When it came to an insurance issue or housing issue they always pointed them to someone else who eventually would point them to another person. So I drop the idea of becoming a doctor and decide to pursue a career in Healthcare Management. A healthcare manager is in charge of ensuring a healthcare facility is running as it should in terms of budget, the goals of the facility’s practitioners and the needs of the community. A person in charge of healthcare management oversees the day-to-day operations of the facility. This position would fit me so well because I want see and input so many changes when it comes to protocols of hospitals. I want to fix the issues that I have seen and heard about in the past. My goal is to get my masters and work in a disadvantage community that probably has a hospital or clinic that has the problems I described earlier.