娜塔莉•阿冲医生在工作中和生活中一心帮助有困难的人(Seth Harrison)

娜塔莉•阿冲（M. Natalie Achong）医生在纽约皇后区和布鲁克林区的劳动阶层社区长大，她的邻居绝大多数是非洲裔美国人家庭。

尽管她成长的环境绝对谈不上优越，但这位46岁的两个孩子的母亲更愿意珍视她在生活中所享有的恩惠和殊荣：关怀、照顾她的父母以及联系紧密的社区给她灌输了一种种族自豪感和公民责任感。

阿冲和她的弟弟妹妹从小就被教导不管处于怎样的境遇，都要争取成功。

他们的父亲是来自特利尼达（Trinidad ）的移民，并且是她们的一个典范。他从未误过一天的工作，并经常对子女们说，他的任务是每天去上班，而他们的任务是在学校里尽最大努力学习。

高中毕业后，她被几所常春藤大学（Ivy League）录取，但她却选择进入纽约城市大学（City University of New York，CUNY）索菲•戴维斯生物医学教育学院（Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education）的著名本科/医科连读专业，这个专业让她在22岁时成为医生——而她的绝大多数同龄人在22岁才刚从大学毕业。

通过医学培训，阿冲更加坚定地要献身于社会公正和公众服务。尽管她以前从未离家生活过，但这位医学学生发起的一次抗议活动，将当时20岁的她带到美国南方腹地（Deep South），在密西西比河三角洲（Mississippi Delta）的医疗诊所从事帮助青少年妈妈的一起工作。

这段经历使她相信，选择妇产科专业将使她能够对年轻妇女的生活产生真正的影响。她还谢绝了私立医疗机构的聘任，而如果接受这类工作，她将可以享受优越的生活。

今天，阿冲在治疗范围广泛的贫困患者群体的医院服务。

除了在耶鲁医学院（Yale School of Medicine）妇产科及生殖学系（Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences）做全职助理临床教授并在圣文森特医疗中心（St. Vincent’s Medical Center）担任主治外科医生外，她把大部分业余时间都用在治疗以外的职责上。她在当地的一家卫生诊所做义工，参加教会组织的活动，在经同行评审的医学期刊上发表原创研究结果，并参加海外医疗使命工作。这些使命将阿冲和她的同事们带到多米尼加共和国和加纳等地，他们在那里为当地居民开设了免费诊所。

她还参加一个由女性非洲裔美国专业人士组成的名为“连接”（The Links）的组织，积极支持艺术、青少年服务和国际事务。

阿冲说：“我觉得，为那些可能没有钱去看‘好医生’的人提供最好的、优质的、有价值的医药具有更高尚的意义。”

“作为外科医生，这不只是挣钱的问题，还要尽力支持我的家庭，并回报社区。”

阿冲的众多职责需要大量的精力、有效地分配时间，而且最重要的是，需要作出个人奉献。

她每天早晨5点起床做晨祷和打坐静思，然后便一头扎入一天的繁忙事务中。

她最大的乐趣之一来自她的家庭。除了养育两个孩子——这意味着要准时送他们上学，帮助他们做功课等等各种事情，阿冲还积极参加他们的课外活动。

她说：“家里的工作与我在医院的所有工作同样急迫、重要并同样需要身强体健。医生过着复杂的、压力巨大的生活。而作为要养育孩子的母亲，真的是要多方兼顾。”

阿冲承认，很多医生总是没有时间好好照顾自己。

她说：“医生往往没有时间让自己保持健康、平衡、饮食得当。当你要顾及方方面面的事情时，要做到这些是很难的。”

她幽默地、有点自嘲地提到在医疗题材的电视剧中，医生们身材健美，不论白天还是黑夜，他们的外表在任何时刻看上去都毫无瑕疵。她说：“大多数医生的外表都不是那样的。”

除了做义工和参加教会主持的活动，阿冲还定期给医务工作者讲课，涉及的话题多种多样，从文化意识到如何更好地满足缺乏服务的社区的需求。

阿冲说：“还有很多……关于种族的问题要谈，因为这的确能产生影响。在妇女健康问题上，我无疑在医卫方面看到了这一点。”

这一信念是她献身于当地和全球的妇女健康事业的核心因素。

阿冲说：“在很多时候，妇女是一个家庭中对医疗保健问题作出决定的人。是她们带孩子去看医生，是她们照料生病的孩子，是她们去预约，是她们主导所有这一切。”

“即使对我的那些既是母亲，又是医生的同事而言，不管她们所谓的头衔或教育程度多高，通常仍旧是她们照料生病的家人及料理家务。”

那些得到阿冲照顾的民众是幸运的，这位致力于全球救死扶伤事业的医生深感有责任关爱自己的家人、社区及整个世界。

这篇特写是专题文章《通过看电视就能真正了解美国吗？别急于下结论！》的一部分，节选自国际信息局（Bureau of International Information Programs）于2010年刊发的《流行文化与真实的美国》（Pop Culture versus Real America）专刊。

本文的作者梅根•王（Megan A. Wong）是美国国务院的一位外交官员。

M. Natalie Achong, M.D., grew up in the working-class New York City boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn, where her neighbors were predominantly other African-American families.

While she was by no means raised in the lap of luxury, the 46-year-old mother of two likes to focus on the blessings and privileges that she has enjoyed in her life: caring, attentive parents and a close-knit community that instilled in her a sense of ethnic pride and civic responsibility.

From a young age, Achong and her two younger siblings were expected to succeed, regardless of circumstances.

Their father, an immigrant from Trinidad, was a major role model. He never missed a day of work and told his children that his job was to go to work every day and that their job was to do their best in school.

After graduating from secondary school, she was accepted to several Ivy League universities but instead enrolled in a prestigious, accelerated B.S./M.D. program at the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education at the City University of New York (CUNY), which enabled her to become a doctor by age 22 — when most of her peers were just finishing college.

During her medical training, Achong solidified her commitment to social justice and public service. Although she had never before lived away from home, the then-20-year-old medical student initiated a protest that took her to the Deep South to work with teen mothers at a health clinic in the Mississippi Delta.

This experience convinced her that she could make a difference in the lives of young women by specializing in obstetrics and gynecology. She also declined offers to join lucrative private medical practices that might have afforded her a luxurious lifestyle.

Today, Achong serves in hospitals that treat a broad spectrum of needy patients.

In addition to working full time as an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the Yale School of Medicine and as an attending physician at St. Vincent’s Medical Center, she spends much of her spare time on nonclinical duties: volunteering at a health clinic, joining church-sponsored activities, publishing original research in peer-reviewed medical journals, and volunteering with overseas medical missions that have taken her to the Dominican Republic and Ghana, where she’s helped set up free clinics for local residents.

She also supports the arts, youth services and international affairs through involvement in an organization called The Links, composed of African-American professional women.

“I feel that there’s a higher calling in working and imparting the best, excellent and valued medicine to those who maybe can’t afford the ‘good doctors,’” she says.

“It’s not just about making money, as a physician. It’s also about doing my best to support my family and also give back to the community.”

Achong’s many obligations require a great deal of energy, time management and, above all, personal commitment.

She rises daily at 5 a.m. for prayer and meditation before diving into her activities.

One of her greatest joys is her family. While raising two children, which means everything from getting them to school on time to helping them with their homework, Achong participates in their extracurricular activities, as well.

“The work [I do] at home is as pressing, important and demanding physically as anything I do in the hospital,” she says. “Doctors lead lives that are complicated and pressured. And as a mother raising kids, it really is a juggling act.”

Achong admits that finding time for self-care is a constant dilemma for many doctors.

“Doctors may not always have the time they would like to devote to keeping themselves fit, in balance and eating well. It’s really challenging to do that when you’re being pulled in so many directions,” she says.

She humorously adds a self-deprecating reference to the television medical dramas that feature physically stunning physicians who look flawless at any hour, day or night: “Most doctors don’t look like that.”

Beyond volunteering, Achong regularly lectures care providers about topics ranging from cultural awareness to how to better meet the needs of underserved communities.

“There is still a lot that needs to be said … on issues of ethnicity because it does make a difference. I certainly see that in terms of health care when it comes to women’s health,” she says.

This belief is at the core of her devotion to women’s health, both locally and globally.

“More often than not, women are the ones who decide health care issues in a given family. They’re the ones who take the kids to the doctor, they’re the ones who take care of the sick children, they make the appointment, they’re the ones that drive all that,” says Achong.

“Even for my colleagues who are mothers and physicians, even with all their so-called titles and education, they’re still the ones that tend to the sick and the home, more often than not.”

Those whose lives have been touched by Achong are fortunate that she feels a responsibility to care for her family, community and wider world as a truly global healer.

This profile accompanies the essay Think you know all about Americans by watching TV? Not so fast. It is abridged from the original, which appears in Pop Culture versus Real America, published in 2010 by the Bureau of International Information Programs.

The essay’s author, Megan A. Wong, is a foreign affairs officer at the U.S. Department of State.