Jessica Ludizaca wanted to be a doctor since she was 4 years old. Just before she left New York City for medical school at St. George’s University in Grenada, she broke her wrist.
As her cast was being set, she told the doctor she couldn’t make it to the follow-up appointment two weeks later. She would already be gone. So her provider moved it up a week, making sure she’d have the aftercare she needed before leaving the country.
It was a small accommodation, but it’s the kind of care Dr. Ludizaca says she has received since birth at Elmhurst Hospital. Now she’s the hospital’s chief resident of pediatrics, and a Latina doctor like the ones she rarely saw growing up. She strives to give her own patients the same sense of care and belonging.
“That’s one of the things that really resonated with me: if you told them a problem, people would try to find the solution,” Dr. Ludizaca said. “Now, from a doctor’s perspective … how can I do my job if my patient can’t even make it there?”
To her, that flexibility is the core of good care. “That’s the most important part about being a patient and about being a doctor,” she said. “Having someone that works with you.”
Long before her broken wrist, Dr. Ludizaca felt heard while navigating health issues and surgeries throughout her childhood. She grew up in an Ecuadorian immigrant family in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, near the Queens border. Elmhurst Hospital was the closest medical center to their home and became a kind of second home.
Instead of leaving her dreading hospitals, the frequent visits she made as a chronically ill child helped solidify her desire to become a doctor. The stickers from those early doctor’s visits may have helped, too.
As a teenager, she felt what she said mattered. “There was always that relationship there that people cared about what you were saying,” Dr. Ludizaca said.
She also remembers her mother needing an interpreter to be understood during those visits. It means a lot, she said, that she can communicate with her Spanish-speaking patients in their own language, at a hospital that serves patients who speak more than 120 languages.
Beyond the increased availability of interpreters, she noted, it’s nice to see more Latina doctors than she did growing up. As the oldest child of immigrants, Dr. Ludizaca didn’t have anyone ahead of her who could explain how to get into college or medical school. “It wasn’t an easy road,” Dr. Ludizaca said. Internet access was limited, and she rarely saw doctors who looked like her.
“For me, the hardest part was being able to get the resources when you’re the first child going to school, going to college, doing everything,” she said. “I had to do a lot of the learning myself and then kind of be that guy for my other siblings.” That included helping her sister, who is six years younger and also wants to pursue pediatric medicine, as well as her brother, who is now a pharmacist.
That experience helping others navigate unfamiliar systems carries over to her role as chief resident, serving as a liaison between them and hospital leadership. Part of the job is guiding them to be their best, from showing up on time and solving problems creatively to “the way they hold themselves, the way they speak to their patients … that puts professionalism at its peak,” she said.
Her pull toward teaching started long before residency. In college, she volunteered at elementary schools, taught Sunday school and briefly considered becoming a science teacher. “Teaching is a big, big, important aspect of my life,” Dr. Ludizaca said.
Working with such a diverse patient population, she also had to learn about cultural differences to become a better educator – and that involves staying curious. Even among Spanish speakers, the words for everyday things can vary. Like peanut butter, which can be referred to as mantequilla de cacahuate or manteca de maní in some Latin American countries. When that happens, she asks questions to understand what they mean and has even pulled up pictures of foods so no one is lost in translation.
Sometimes the thing that needs translating is a family’s situation. One of Dr. Ludizaca’s patients, who had multiple medical conditions, had missed several appointments. When she next saw the family, she didn’t scold. She brought up the missed visits and asked what was getting in the way. The mother explained that her husband had been ill, so it was hard to manage the visits on her own.
Dr. Ludizaca wanted to give back the kind of understanding her family found at Elmhurst years ago.
“I felt like I always wanted to get back to the same people that were taking care of me,” she said. “Now I’m in a great position to do the same thing.”
