Brandon Ball – Urban Health Fellow

Student Reflection, 7/22/14

“On Tuesday I got to go to a blood bank at UCLA. I learned the different blood types that everyone has. The blood types are A, B, O, and AB. If you put the wrong blood types together they will clot and it can be deadly. But the coolest thing about that day was I got to actually feel a blood clot in someone’s blood. It felt like Jell-O when I squished it in the packet. Then we got to see red and white blood cells and plasma all separate in the same pack. They separate them by putting them in a machine that multiplied gravity by a ton.”  

–Brandon Ball

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The United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, in a 2009 report stated, the death rate for African Americans was higher than Whites for heart diseases, stroke, cancer, asthma, influenza and pneumonia, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and homicide.

In response to the health crises impacting communities of color, SJLI with funding from The California Wellness Foundation has developed a five-week, hands-on internship and training fellowship. A Fellow wrote the preceding journal entry during his Urban Health Fellowship training.