{"id":369846,"date":"2026-07-11T22:56:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T22:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/369846\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T22:56:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T22:56:31","slug":"world-cup-inspires-cross-cultural-conversations-at-tcu-med-school-nbc-5-dallas-fort-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/369846\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup inspires cross-cultural conversations at TCU med school \u2013 NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new class of students at the TCU Barnett School of Medicine is about to start. They get their ceremonial white coats this weekend, just as third-year med student Michaela Mitchell did when she started.<\/p>\n

“Yeah, I mean everyone gets that white coat syndrome, myself included,” Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

Med students learn the tools of their trade there. But the focus is learning other languages to connect with patients.<\/p>\n

“I’ll say like, puede escuchar tu coraz\u00f3n, can I listen to your heart? Or respirar profundo, like take a deep breath,” Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

“If you’re able to do that, if you’re able to connect in the context of language and culture, then it’s a much better relationship,” Ph. D. Karla O’Donald<\/a> said. “Cafecito for Latinos is a time to sit down, to talk. You have a cup of coffee and a conversation, and you look at your watch, and it’s three hours later.”<\/p>\n

Michaela helped start the med student initiative, Charlar con Cafecito, chat over coffee, a monthly gathering at Cafe Azul in Fort Worth’s near South Side. The program recently got a $3,000 grant from the Texas Medical Association. <\/p>\n

“So we do have interpreters and lots of new technology, but we can really feel that there’s a disconnect between us and the patients when we’re not able to speak the same language,” Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

“Covering the ocean that is between you and the patient. And you’re going to be able to take care of your patient much better,” Ph. D O’Donald said. “That vulnerability, I think specifically for students, medical students, is just another, you know, another tool to their belt, right?”<\/p>\n

It’s about having empathy to meet people as they are.Because understanding the person is the first step to treating the patient. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new class of students at the TCU Barnett School of Medicine is about to start. They get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117,584,2940,10867,1562,16235,853],"class_list":["post-369846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-health","tag-health-science","tag-health-wellness","tag-health-care","tag-medicine","tag-tcu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}