USVI Part 2: Reflection
Emily Dejka, Epidemiology Student
April 21, 2020, Community Partnership, Practice
Note: There was a temporary pause in the publishing of our blog posts as our team returned in early March to the rapidly changing nature of the Coronavirus in Michigan. We now wish to share the thoughts of students on their experiences just before the COVID-19 outbreak.
We were giddy walking up to the door. It was only 5 PM and we were about to start our eighth interview of the day. The possibility of ending early on the next day, Thursday, was starting to look more and more like a reality. This would mean we would get a whole day to enjoy our beautiful environment, far from the Michigan snow we had left. This, coupled with the fact that we had spent the last four hours running around in the heat on a perpetual 45 degree angle, meant we had to quit laughing when our next participant opened the her gate. Before she let us in, we had called to her through her window about what we were doing. The three of us were from the department of health, assessing the recovery of USVI residents in the two years since Hurricanes Maria and Irma. Graciously, she led us into her backyard and I immediately noticed her outfit, mostly because it was something I could see myself wearing. Her shoes were black booties with a ribbon accent, black skinny jeans, and a black t-shirt with a silver star pattern. She had on a nude lipstick, and her black/grey hair was parted down the middle. She had also started to cry.
Two days earlier a group of us sat in a makeshift department of health going through the training required to complete the CASPER. At one point, our CDC lead said that we shouldn’t be alarmed if participants had an emotional response to the survey. I didn’t think anything of it, until that moment. This quickly zapped any humor we had felt in the moments prior. I won’t repeat what she shared with us, but even with her initial reaction, she still agreed to complete the survey. This was different from the other seven surveys we had done that day. There was no urgency or desire to get in and out. Instead, it was a conversation. We spent the next hour chatting, until the sun had nearly set and it was time to head back.
For me, this was the most salient part of the trip. If you read my reflection from the October USVI trip, “Not Just a Data Point”, you will know that I spoke on and on about the importance of treating these surveys as a person’s story, and not focusing on the quantitative aspect of them. Going into my second USVI trip I was confident that I would be able to approach the work with an intentional and humble mindset. However, there I was, day three and caught up in the number of interviews I had completed. It was wildly disappointing to know that I had to rely on this woman’s reaction to snap me back to reality.
However, looking back on that moment and writing about it now, I also see that it was an important lesson to have - knowing something and doing something are wildly different concepts. I hope to work side-by-side with the community throughout my career and this shows that whether it’s the first time of the 1,000th time I do something, I need to set my intentions appropriately. With a little under two months to graduation, I’m grateful for the opportunity to have this period of reflection and growth.
Though this trip revealed aspects of myself as a public health practitioner that I need to improve on, it also highlighted strengths that I have. Typically I find public speaking or talking to strangers terrifying. So much so that in fifth grade I did a whole speech on the Iroquois tribe on one foot without noticing. I didn’t feel that here. I was confident walking up to people’s doors and I felt capable going through the survey with them, even the questions that were trickier to understand. For me, this reiterated that public health is the right choice for me and how committed I am to it. There are few things in this life that I am willing to risk looking like a flamingo for and this is one of them.
The last day of the trip I had conversations centered around two main questions: how was this time different from the October trip and did I regret coming back? The answer to the latter is much simpler, no. The decision to go back was ridiculously easy and not doing so would have made that October trip feel unfinished. Having the chance to see many of our community partners again and help the DOH finish out their last follow-up CASPER is something I’ll always cherish. In comparison, trying to pinpoint what made this trip different from October is much harder. What I will say is that the participants were not different at all. While we were in different clusters and talking to different people, their graciousness and willingness to share their story with a bunch of people in matching polos who turned up in their yard was the same and something that I will always remember.
