Yvette Walker
With KVCR News, I'm Yvette Walker. This is IE Latino Voices, where we invite representatives from Latino-led and Latino-serving organizations to share their stories and their impact in our region. Joining me today is Dr. Javier Sanchez, Family Medicine Doctor at Kaiser Permanente. Thank you so much for being with us here today, Dr. Sanchez.
Dr. Javiar Sanchez
Thank you so much for the invite. I really appreciate it.
Yvette Walker
From your perspective as a family medicine doctor, what chronic medical conditions do you see most often among patients in the Inland Empire, particularly around the Latino population?
Dr. Javiar Sanchez
Well, our Latino population keeps growing here in the Inland Empire. As of 2005, we now have close to 2.4 million. Unfortunately, we still see the same kind of chronic medical conditions that we see every place else. So, we see the diabetes, we see the hypertension, the heart disease, we see certain cancers, especially colon cancer. We're seeing a lot of that.
Yvette Walker
Why are these conditions showing up so frequently in our community?
Dr. Javiar Sanchez
It's probably a combination of a number of things. We do know that when our first immigrants come to this country, they tend to be pretty healthy for the most part, because they're doing a lot of walking, they're doing a lot of cooking of their own. When they start to get to be the second, third generation, then they start to pick up bad habits, they start eating fast foods, they start eating more processed foods, they stop walking, and then, especially in the Inland Empire, we're seeing sort of the social determinants of health, not being able to have access to care, to good foods, not being able to really interact with a lot of our family. That really impacts them negatively.
Yvette Walker
You mentioned being culturally sensitive when caring for patients. How does this make a difference in how patients manage chronic diseases?
Dr. Javiar Sanchez
Well, I think there's been a lot of research in the last 40 years about how important it is to be culturally and linguistic competent when we provide care, so people do much better when they talk to somebody who looks like them, who talks like them. They're able to develop trust, and they're able to follow through on making sure all the preventive care, or even the medications that they need are being followed, so that is very, very important. I'm fortunate that I work in an integrated system at Kaiser Permanente, in which we develop a culturally competent sort of curriculum that started with a language concordance program, so we identified that our patients who did not speak English, who were limited in the English speaking skills, were not getting the kind of care that they needed. So we went ahead and identified 26 different languages that our patients spoke, and making sure that they had a physician or another medical worker who spoke their language when they came in to be able to make them feel comfortable, making sure that all of their questions were being answered. So that has really helped us tremendously.
Yvette Walker
What are some common misconceptions you hear from patients that you wish more people understood?
Dr. Javiar Sanchez
That if I don't feel bad, if I don't have an illness, I don't have to see anybody, that's probably the biggest one. The second one, a lot of the misconceptions that people develop, one of the most fascinating things, especially with the Latino community, during COVID, one of the problems was that they were getting a lot of misinformation about the infections and getting the vaccines. They were talking to their family members and their country, in Mexico and South America and Central America, and they were providing them sort of their remedies that they were doing over there, and so they were getting that information coming in to see us, and then they would say, "No, no, that's not what my comadre told me, that's not what my compadre told me." So we really needed to make sure we understood where they were getting the information, and then be able to advocate for them in the proper way.
Yvette Walker
Certainly. What are some steps people can take to protect their health or better manage a chronic condition, even if they feel fine right now?
Dr. Javiar Sanchez
Well, the best thing is to do prevention, so I tell all of my diabetic patients, when they come in, the thing that's going to make the biggest difference for you is diet, diet, diet, diet, diet, diet, diet, exercise, and then medication. So those are the things that we can do. Getting their colon cancer screenings, their pap smear, their breast cancer screenings, making sure that they're getting their numbers checked, so always know what your hemoglobin A1c is, what your blood pressure is, what your cholesterol levels are, what your weight is. If you do that, you're going to keep yourself nice and healthy.
Yvette Walker
Thank you so much, Dr. Sanchez.
Dr. Javiar Sanchez
Well, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. Really love talking to you, and look forward to seeing all those patients in my clinic at any time.
Yvette Walker
Dr. Javier Sanchez is a family medicine doctor at Kaiser Permanente. Join us again next week for IE Latino Voices. You can find this story and others on our website at kvcr.org/IELatinoVoices. IE Latino Voices is produced by KVCR Public Media and is funded by generous support from the CIELO Fund at IECF, uplifting and investing in the IE's Latino community. For KVCR News, I'm Yvette Walker.
