Krista Dominguez-Salazar is an Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy.
Neuroscience is uncovering self-directed neuroplasticity mechanisms that support the adage, “Whatever you feed will grow.” Curating a consciously constructed mindset is relevant and crucial to achieving healthcare equity in today’s racial climate. Mindsets we adopt influence how we think, choose, and feel. And because we also embody thoughts that are not our own that hold bias, conscious and unconscious, we must curate with intention to grow what builds community and affirms all human experiences. Practicing mind intervention that leads to curation requires “an engaging and educative method.” Olamide Adejumo describes this in “Truth, Reconciliation and Racial Unification in America” (Intima, Fall 2021). Adejumo advocates for application of personal narrative to heal, repair broken dignity, personally empower, and humanize for promoting empathy toward oneself and others. Leading change in a manner that upholds trauma-informed healing requires conscious mindset change, a consciously engaged development to heal mind, body, heart and soul.
Healing of this nature calls for courageous acuity to notice life-sprouting edges of change where renewed healthcare systems can thrive and former systems can decompose. In this space, courage beckons with intensity for change resembling death. Consciously curating growth mindset encourages timid-me with thoughtful fierceness, and emboldened-me is compelled to listen. This actionable and learned fierceness toward befriending death is eloquently described with humor-filled honest-tenacity in Catherine Read’s poem “Teatime” (Intima, Spring 2022). As Read describes interactions with death, I am reminded of my mortality and encouraged to engage change-dialogue that all too often feels like death. My dedicated conscious pursuit for growth mindset compels me to engage life-promoting-possibilities through a will that is authentically my own, while at the same time living in space of community. Both Read and Adejumo describe interactive mingling through everyday narratives to uphold healing and acceptance in spite—or maybe because—of our past experiences.
A precursor to befriending death, in the brave manner as described by Read, requires a consciously responsive building of personal capacity that supports personal and community healing. This can be nurtured only from growth mindset, a quality necessary for sustaining community “where narrators from different races not only come to be heard but also listen” (Adejumo) because in the end, participating in change that promotes this kind of healing is all too real a possibility to not engage in consciously fierce action and pursue it like a friend.
Krista Dominguez-Salazar is an Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy. She has co-pioneered many learner-centered academic programs promoting critical thinking through active learning strategies within the doctor of pharmacy program and the interprofessional program. Her background includes extensive training in motivational interviewing, relationship-centered communication framework, de-escalation training and developing active learning curricula in both academic and the practice settings. As a pharmacist serving a vulnerable population, Dr. Dominguez-Salazar has developed an appreciation for the vital role empathy has in patient care, its translation to behavior change and the desired outcomes as determined by patient. As faculty, she has extensive skills development to build strategies to intentionally imbed learning activities for facilitating student-pharmacist learning that transfers into their clinical practice, individually and in teams.