One morning, as Dulce’s mother, Monica, watched her daughter wake up, she noticed something alarming—Dulce’s eyes were unexpectedly crossed, and she was complaining of double vision and a painful sensitivity to light.
“This was concerning for us,” said Monica, her voice tinged with worry. “We recalled that about two weeks ago, she experienced vomiting every morning for a week. We rushed her to the hospital, praying they could help.”
Lorenza Rodriguez had suffered with trigeminal neuralgia for over 20 years. Trigeminal Neuralgia is a severely painful condition of the facial nerve which spreads across the cheeks, jaw, lips, and nose. It causes electrical shock type of pain with talking, eating, or brushing your teeth; even the wind or AC blowing on your face is painful. It can be so bad that there are reported suicides due to this excruciatingly painful condition.
Inside the walls of Grace Medical Home, it’s a given that you will always get top-notch medical care by some of the best providers in the area. This means they will address all your health needs thoroughly—from reviewing your medical history, explaining lab results in depth, setting up specialist appointments, and even scheduling in-house mental health counseling. But that’s only ONE kind of care you’ll find at Grace.
Restoring our patients’ health and hope is a daunting task. One that we don’t take lightly and one that we can’t undertake by ourselves. We couldn’t do what we do without our valued volunteers and community partners. We recently honored these special friends at an Open House that also hosted two milestone ribbon cuttings for Grace Wellness Home and our Mobile Medical Unit.
Carlene first came to Grace Medical Home in 2011 for regular checkups due to severe bronchitis triggered by allergies and lower back pain. During a routine checkup, her primary care provider, Michelle Cornell, APRN, discussed Carlene’s elevated blood sugar, A1c and weight gain. Her elevated A1c and weight gain placed her in the prediabetic stage. Michelle provided a list of resources to help reduce Carlene’s diabetic risk.
My name is Joselyn and I am a Medical Assistant here at Grace Medical Home.
I first became part of the Grace family as a pediatric patient. At the age of 16, I was admitted to the hospital and required an immediate blood transfusion. After being hospitalized for two weeks, they finally sent me home, but I had to follow up with a physician. At the time, I did not qualify for any insurance.
Pictured left to right: Rachel scribing for Michelle Cornell, APRN.
When Rachel Horvat, a Lake Highland Preparatory School graduate, was searching for a meaningful medical internship following her graduation from the University of Florida with a BS in Biology, she didn’t have to look far. She turned to Grace Medical Home’s Gap Year Internship program.
Gap Year Interns are exposed to all aspects of patient care and given hands-on learning opportunities alongside our staff, volunteers, and other health professionals in a unique, supportive, and caring environment. Gap Year Interns have meaningful patient interactions while practicing essential skills and gaining experiences to equip them for their future healthcare careers. Our primary goal for the internship is to increase exposure to medicine, to learn medical terminology, and to ignite their calling and launch their vision for their medical future.
Rachel began serving as a Gap Year Intern at Grace Medical Home in May 2022. Since then, she has served over 1,100 volunteer hours as a Care Manager/Scribe. Scribes work dynamically with our staff and volunteer providers by updating patient charts in our electronic health record. Her service and leadership proved so valuable, that she was appointed a Gap Year Intern Lead overseeing this year’s Scribes.
Rachel recently shared how her Gap Year Intern experience has equipped her for her future as a physician. Her heartfelt comments embody what we aspire for the program to mean to all of our Gap Year Interns.
What experience(s) at Grace equipped you for your future profession?
It is difficult to pick just one experience that has equipped me for my future profession because I believe the culmination of my time at Grace has not only altered the lens in which I view medicine but has also shaped me into the person I am today.
Since joining the Grace family, I have been constantly surrounded by people who demonstrate the values that Grace upholds on a daily basis, including but not limited to extending grace, hope, compassion, love, and commitment to excellent care to those who need it most. Grace’s mission and the people have pushed me to become the best person I can possibly be as I aspire to be more like Christ.
I believe the overall influence Grace has had on my life has equipped me to stay strong in my faith, values, and morals throughout difficult and trying times that are ahead of me in my future career. I remember Dr. Hardy was stressing to the gap year interns the importance of knowing your why. He proposed a rhetorical question one time during lunch asking, “What is it that will get you through hard days in medical school? Why are you waking up early for rounds? Why are you spending long hours studying? Why do you continue on this path when sometimes it may feel overwhelming, stressful, and difficult?”
I think about this frequently whenever I have doubts or uncertainty about my career choice in medicine. Thinking about this moment grounds me and reminds me why I am pursuing medicine. I used to think that being a doctor was my purpose in life, but this often left me scared and hesitant.
It wasn’t until Amanda (Alvarado, former Gap Year Intern) explained to me the difference between purpose and calling that I finally understood my true purpose. She said that as Christians our purpose in life is to serve God and to love others, while our calling is how we execute our purpose. Our calling is how we serve God and our fellow friends, family and neighbors, which continues to give me peace and confidence in my purpose and my career choice.
My daily experience at Grace surrounded by dedicated Christians, during devotions, or praying for patients, or Bible studies has helped not only lead me back to God but has nurtured my growing relationship with the Lord. Grace has taught me an incredible amount about medicine, the body, diseases, the healthcare system, and how to treat patients. But it is my newfound recommitment to Christianity and Jesus Christ that I believe has equipped me the most for my future profession and life. And for that, I am forever grateful to Grace.
Pictured left to right: Liam Pirie, Dental Center Intern and President of UCF’s Pre-Dental Student Association, and Volunteer provider, Dr. James Logsdon of Oviedo Endodontics, use the new endodontic equipment to treat a patient.
For more than three decades, the Central Florida Women’s League has awarded grants to community nonprofits and scholarships to outstanding young women. Through the generosity of their volunteer members and other community partners, they have raised and contributed over $3 million to students and local charities. Grace Medical Home can now be added to the list of organizations that have benefitted from their immense generosity.
Central Florida Women’s League recently funded the purchase of a 6-Step AXIS Microscope and endodontic equipment (pictured above) for the Dental Center at Grace. “We were so Impressed with your facility and how you offer the highest level of care to those who need it the most,” said Nancy Asche, Chairperson for the Charitable Granting Committee of the Central Florida Women’s League. “The grant we gave you to purchase this dental equipment to help with the most basic need of eating is so deserving to continue offering care.”
The endoscope is the standard of care for root canal therapy. Prior to having a scope of our own, the volunteer specialist would pack his own equipment and bring it to the Dental Center to perform root canals for our patients. As you can imagine, transporting the expensive equipment increased the risk of damage to it. It also meant that the specialist would not have the equipment to use in their practice for their own patients when it was at Grace. Furthermore, only one volunteer specialist could use their own scope. Now, multiple specialists can use Grace’s new equipment, expanding our dental service options for patients requiring root canals.
Construction is underway for Grace Wellness Home to expand mental health and wellness initiatives for the uninsured. In addition to addressing patients’ physical, emotional, social and spiritual health, Grace will focus on individualized plans to improve wellness. Educating and equipping patients with additional wellness tools and developing new skills will further reduce stress, improve health outcomes and strengthen patients’ resilience.
Grace Medical Home celebrated a significant step in expanding whole-person care initiatives for the uninsured by kicking-off construction on Grace Wellness Home. Community partners, dedicated board, staff and volunteers to joined us to recognize and thank our community partners who invested a collective $1,126,500 to purchase, renovate, staff and furnish Grace Wellness Home.
“They helped me so much when I needed it most.” Georgette Pinango held back tears when explaining how ill she was when she first became a Grace Medical Home patient several years ago. “I was really ill. I needed a lot of imaging, sonograms, my kidneys were failing. And I did not have insurance. Just one of the tests was a couple thousand dollars. I don’t know what I would have done without Grace,” she said.
