While Cambridge Health Alliance is known for providing healthcare to the underserved, one physician and HMS professor at CHA has distinguished herself for her extraordinary efforts to reach out to the Haitian and other underserved communities in Cambridge and Somerville. Marie-Louise Jean-Baptiste, HMS assistant professor of medicine, received the 2009 Dean’s Community Service Award from the HMS Office for Diversity and Community Partnership in recognition of the many successful programs she has launched to benefit CHA’s minority and underserved neighbors. Jean-Baptiste was also recognized for her commitment to increasing diversity among the HMS faculty ranks and to creating an atmosphere of cultural acceptance among internal medicine residents at CHA.
As a primary-care provider at several community health centers in the Cambridge area, Jean-Baptiste has launched several initiatives specifically targeted at typically underserved communities, such as using the local Haitian television and radio stations to provide health education and offering AIDS care for minority patients. But two programs in particular stand out for her, she said.
The first is a diabetes education group she runs that teaches Haitian diabetes patients how to manage the disease while still keeping in touch with their heritage. As a Haitian immigrant herself, Jean-Baptiste is able to offer suggestions on healthier methods of preparing traditional Haitian foods, for example. The group has become so popular since Jean-Baptiste started it five years ago that she has increased the meetings from once to twice a month, and she has enlisted the help of group members to serve as codirectors. Social workers, nutritionists, interpreters and sometimes even students round out the care team. Patient satisfaction among the group members is high.
“Even though patients leave the group, they still have an understanding of what is important,” Jean-Baptiste said. “Some of them have lost weight, and they feel the group is very important.”
Recently, she was named the new medical director of a program at Cambridge Health Alliance called HealthCare for the Homeless. As medical director, Jean-Baptiste will work to extend access to care for the area’s homeless men, women and children by deploying teams of healthcare providers to soup kitchens, homeless shelters and other services used by homeless people.
“It’s very exciting, but I’m still getting my feet wet,” she said.
Jean-Baptiste’s other passion is the recruitment and development of minority residents and faculty members. Diversity among the medical staff is especially important at a place like CHA, where the patients hail from a variety of counties, speak many different languages and may have cultural-specific approaches to their own healthcare. But underrepresented minority residents, said Jean-Baptiste, may experience a sense of isolation or other difficulties that prevent them from succeeding. As director of minority affairs for CHA’s residency program, she ensures that these residents have a support system and mentorship and that CHA hospitals are a welcoming place for physicians from diverse backgrounds.
Due in part to Jean-Baptiste’s leadership, the residency program has successfully recruited a pool of talented minority residents, including internationally, many of whom are interested in advocacy and outreach work. As a result, CHA’s internal medicine residency program is made up of 30 percent underrepresented minorities, a third of whom stay on as faculty members.
