Yolanda Villalvazo
She’s using her own experiences to help women, migrants
Yolanda Villalvazo’s background and her Hispanic descent drew her attention toward migrant communities.
“I was brought up in a home where health care was really lacking. I know how hard it is to show up in a clinic and to not get services,” the University of Iowa medical student said. “Now that I can interpret, I can use some of the things I am taught in school.”
Villalvazo, 31, volunteers for a variety of health care related community organizations while she attends school. Those include Proteus, a nonprofit that assists migrant and seasonal farm workers; Carver College of Medicine Mobile Clinic, a student-run, moving health care treatment and education project; the Crisis Center; and leader of the Community Health Outreach course.
“One of the things that really draws me to volunteering is because they work with underserved people here in the community,” Villalvazo said.
She uses her bilingual capabilities to reach, through these organizations, some of the people who need help the most.
“We go from campsite to campsite around Iowa and do clinics after work hours,” Villalvazo said of traveling to serve migrant communities through Proteus. “We do basic physical exams for the workers.”
“I liked it so much I decide to do it again.”
Villalvazo also focuses her efforts toward helping women.
Last summer, she got a stipend for necessary equipment and material to teach women about breast and cervical cancer through Proteus and the Mobile Clinic.
As a medical student scheduled to graduate in 2009, she still is deciding whether she wants a career in pediatrics, internal medicine or family medicine.
Villalvazo does know that whatever she does, she wants to continue to apply it to the real world.
“(Volunteering) is one of the things that actually keeps me focused with respect to my career goals,” she said. “It’s what keeps me grounded. Because any time I go out, it gives me a sense of this is why I go to school.
“One day I can go out and serve this community.”
— Brian Morelli
