A Dare to Dream About an End to Diabetes

A FAMU alumnus receives a blood pressure test from an FSU medical student. 

On a crisp afternoon at Cascades, the park is dotted with white tents in a sea of bundled up Tallahassee festival-goers. One of those tents is shielding Florida State College of Medicine students from the brisk winds and glaring sun–a contradiction the city’s natives have become all too familiar with this winter. At the edge of the 6th Annual Annual MLK Dare To Dream festival a table is set up by the these doctors in training offering free blood pressure testing and BMI screening for attendees.

This year’s theme for the MLK festival came with a health-conscious slant, specifically “the prevention and treatment of diabetes,” according to the MLK Dare 2 Dream’s website. With this in mind it became the perfect opportunity for members of FSU’s Student National Medical Association to put their own skills into practice.

“The mission of the organization is to kind of cater to minority and underserved communities in cultivating culturally competent and socially aware physicians. So we came out and we wanted to reach the minority and black community to make a difference,” said Ciara Grayson, a first year medical student at FSU and current president of SNMA.

According the Center for Disease control nearly 30 million Americans suffer from diabetes. On top of that statistic the American Diabetes Association reports that African Americans are disproportionally affected being, “1.7 times more likely to have diabetes as non Hispanic whites.”

Knowing this Grayson saw an opportunity for SNMA to actively serve their immediate community in a big way, “ We really just wanted to provide some numbers because some people haven’t been to a physician in years. We want to show them like look this is your blood pressure: Maybe it’s right on target, or maybe it’s really high and you need to see someone right now…We really wanted to just reach out to the community and provide a little bit of health screening and some education.”

Even with their set-up on the outskirts of the festival, Grayson and her colleagues were kept busy with a constant flow of interested passersby; their chairs were not abandoned for long before the next person sat down for a screening. Willie Williams, a talent development specialist employed by the city of Tallahassee, was one of those eager participants. 

“It’s a common myth that African-American men don’t pay as much attention to their health as they need to. A lot of times there may be some factual truth to that so since it was right here–being that their was a health component to the MLK event–I thought why not check and see if there’s anything I need to be worried about,” said Williams.

William’s praised the work of SNMA in fulfilling Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream in more ways than one, “ Health is wealth. It’s important for people to be able to go ahead and go forth as the leaders of tomorrow and you have to be healthy enough to do that,” said Williams.

An integral part of being a healthy individual is also having access to the proper healthcare to stay on top of both ones physical and mental health. In the case of diabetes and weight-related illness many underserved communities fall victim to the cycle of disease due to insufficient means to detect and prevent these ailments early on.

To combat this health crisis the Dare to Dream service mission included a drive to collect items such as portion control plates, lancets, true metro sticks among other supplies to Immokalee Diabetic Center and TMH Metabolic Center.

As a city employee accustomed to serving youth coming from often deprived communities, this too hit home for Williams as healthcare remains a hot button issue for many Americans. Yet the work done by people like Ciara Grayson and fellow student volunteers must be applauded in working toward a bigger dream. A dream established by Dr. King over 54 years ago.

Williams finished,  “A big debate today is what’s going on with health and who deserves access to healthcare, and Martin Luther King’s vision was equality for everybody.  So until we get to the point where everybody has equal access to healthcare, then what this university is doing by having people out here providing healthy screening and free screening is definitely filling in that role until we get to the point where we need to be.”