Providing the highest level of care requires a deep understanding of patients’ communities. Where do they buy groceries? What feasible modes of transportation are available? What brings the community together? The answers to these questions should inform a physician’s approach, especially in caring for those who are the most deeply affected by social determinants of health.
“A lot of [medical students] push [community work] off and say, I need to focus on my training to become a doctor, and down the road, I'll be able to help people in these specific ways,” said Wingel Xue (HMS ’27). “It felt important to me to be able to do that kind of work from the get-go.”
The HMS Office for Community Centered Medical Education (OCCME) hosts an event every year during Intro to the Profession (ITP), a week-long course for HMS and HSDM first-year students. The OCCME event allows students to visit community-based organizations and community health centers around Boston. Through this opportunity, students are encouraged to approach medical training with a community mindset. During the 2023 ITP week, Xue visited Fresh Truck, a local organization with a mission to strengthen communities by getting fresh food to the households that need it most.
Since then, Xue has set aside time each week to volunteer with Fresh Truck. “Most people will go into medicine because of the fundamental desire to help others and they kind of put that on the back burner because medical school is really busy and everyone has so many time commitments,” Xue said. “It's something that you can do throughout your training.”
Rethinking grocery shopping
Fresh Truck offers a mobile market for communities who have limited access to fresh produce. It accepts SNAP benefits as payment and is recognized as a Healthy Incentive Program (HIP) vendor. HIP puts money back on participants’ EBT cards when they use SNAP to buy healthy, local fruits and vegetables from HIP farm vendors.
“A lot of people know in principle what kinds of food they should be eating and what kinds of foods are healthy or not healthy,” Xue explained. “Really, the problem is not a lack of desire to be healthy and a lack of desire to have these, fresh fruits and vegetables—it’s just a problem with access.”
As a volunteer, Xue helps customers bag their groceries. “It feels rewarding because you see the immediate impact that you have. I’m able to chat with the people in the communities and see them week after week, and know I had a tangible impact on someone else's day.” Xue looks forward to seeing the people who frequent Fresh Truck and hearing updates about their lives—everything from the happy moments to devastating losses. She finds that by immersing herself in community work, she can build longitudinal relationships outside the clinic.
Xue explained that she initially approached her volunteer work as an opportunity to help, but now realizes it is an opportunity to learn. “I could have a full schedule and a full life just going to class, being with my classmates, and shuttling in between, but the thing that's really important to me is to be able to go out and see how people live on a day-to-day basis and to keep that grounded perspective,” Xue said. “My experience of how I live my day-to-day life is so different from the vast majority of how other people live their lives and so having the opportunity to go out every week into a community and form connections with people who are the kinds of people that I know I'll be taking care of in the future and to be able to really speak with them just as human beings and to be able to form that kind of friendship over time is something that's really important to me.”
You can get involved
If you are an HMS or HSDM student who would like to volunteer with Fresh Truck, email us at OCCME@hms.harvard.edu. If you are a community member who would like to volunteer with Fresh Truck, visit the Fresh Truck website to learn more.
Fresh Truck relies on philanthropic support to cover operations and staffing allowing them to keep prices low and quality high. To support, visit Freshtruck.org/donate or contact Annie@freshtruck.org.