Day 1

I woke up this morning very apprehensive about my first day at the Sood Samaritan. I had no idea what to expect, it was going into a new experience completely alone. As I drove down Northside the sensory around me started to change. It went from very urban and new to broken down and old buildings. Once I got to the Good Sam I waited for about 15 minutes and then met the woman I would be interning with for the next couple of days, Latrice Dubley. We went to her office where I got a debriefing and had a little interview with her. Here she gave me a little bit of background knowledge on what the Good Sam does and who they have working for them. The Good Sam was started by Mr. Bill Warren, a pediatric Doctor who worked at Scottish Right until he started the Good Samaritan (I get to shadow him on Wednesday morning). He decided to quit his job and start this organization because he felt that he had a calling from God. I then learned that they have 56 volunteer doctors with over 20 different specialties most of them coming from Emory or Northside. We also talked a little bit about the area of town the Good Sam is located in, commonly known as Bankhead. Mrs. Dubley says that she is never really scared because "the community realizes that they are getting Buckhead level care in Bankhead." She also pointed out "if we thought about the what could wrong at any moment we would never leave the house." 

After this debriefing and interview she put me to work. I began creating folders for the prenatal clinics that they are hosting. This is a clinic that allows 32 moms to receive prenatal care for their babies at no cost. These mothers otherwise would not be able to afford this care. I also assembled test kit bags (I'm not sure what those were for). After that we went on a field trip and ran some errands. We needed to pick up supplies for the lunch that they are hosting tomorrow. This is a lunch with Dr. Wellman a sleep specialist. During those errands Mrs. Dubley began talking to me about what she wants me to take away from this entire experience. She told me to "eat the fish and spit out the bones." Meaning take the knowledge away from this experience that I find valuable and will help me grow as a student then discarded all the rest.

On the way back to the facility I asked Mrs. Dubley if she had seen the documentary Snow on the Bluff. This is a Netflix documentary about the gang and drug violence that happens only feet away from the Good Samaritan facility. As I was asking her we passed a major street in the film she immediately turned and took me into the bluff to give me a little bit of a tour of the "worst" neighborhood in Atlanta. As we were driving through people loitered on the streets around us just standing there staring at us. I asked her if she thought this was the worst area in Atlanta, what she said I never would have thought about. Mrs. Dubley said yes in metro Atlanta but she also pointed out that there is no grocery store. Food is one of the basic human needs and the people here don't even have access to a grocery store. After that we return to the Good Sam and set up the room for the lunch tomorrow. That took much longer than expected but ended up looking really good. I left shortly after we finished setting up the room.