Practicing Medicine as a Citizen of the World

here are many choices available to medical students when they decide on a specialty to pursue. But Marie-Denise Gervais, M.D., didn’t want to choose. She wanted to do it all.

So Gervais decided to train in family medicine. And as an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health who staffs the medical clinic at the Center for Haitian Studies, Gervais definitely has the opportunity to practice a wide range of medicine. “I like every aspect of medicine, so I’m thrilled not to know what’s behind the next door,” she says. Twenty-nine percent of the practice focuses on pediatrics, but Gervais will often treat a baby, mother, and grandmother in the same day. “That’s the beauty of family medicine—I can treat multigenerations in one afternoon.”

Gervais sees about 100 patients a week at the facility, a free medical clinic for the poor located in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood. Helping her out in the clinic are first-, second- and third-year medical students who not only develop medical skills but also learn “cultural competence,” says Gervais. “It’s a win-win situation. It’s totally hands-on for the students and for me. I love teaching—it’s my favorite part of my job, but I also like the medicine and treating my fellow Haitians.”

Gervais’s parents were born and raised in Haiti, but Gervais considers herself a “citizen of the world” who’s lived in St. Louis, Montreal, and Haiti—among other places. She studied medicine in Haiti and practiced public health in Paris before coming to Miami to train in family medicine.

Three years ago, the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health opened the clinic in Little Haiti. “There was nothing there before that,” Gervais says. It’s not an easy place to practice medicine or get medical care. “In Little Haiti, they are the poorest of the poor. Access to care is the big problem for them,” she says. “They have no insurance and no way of knowing the system.” But now the patients not only have a community center and a clinic for their health care needs, they also have a physician who speaks their language and understands their culture. Gervais says she shares the love of the Haitian nation with her patients and practices the kind of medicine she enjoys: “My professional life is very full.”