Hamdi Farah is the only Somali psychiatrist resident at Hennepin County Medical Center.
MINNEAPOLIS — Getting the medical attention you need is hard when you feel like no one is listening, or if you don’t see yourself in any of the doctors.
“Growing up, I never saw a doctor that looked like me,” said Hamdi Farah.
Farah is a third-year resident at Hennepin County Medical Center and is becoming the doctor she never saw.
“I’m the only Somali psychiatry resident currently,” Farah said. “I’m going to be one of the few psychiatrists of Somali-descendent entering this field and for me that’s huge.”
Currently, she works with Somali patients and is immediately able to connect with them.
“Sitting with a Somali patient, being able to connect with them with our culture, our language, and our heritage it just adds another dynamic to our relationship, and I think it’s so important to have providers who look like you and can resonate with you and part of your experience,” she said.
Farah said growing up she’s always been the only person who looks like her. She’s hopeful diversity will continue to grow within residency programs.
“We definitely need more people of color in our program here at Hennepin and the other programs here too. Our patients need that,” she said
Farah said they need to have more conversations in the Somali community to destigmatize mental health. She also said more work needs to be done to make resources more accessible to the Somali community and debunk myths.
“As someone who is from a marginalized community, being Somali American, I’ve seen people suffer in silence and it’s really important for me to be a voice for people whose voices have been silenced for a really long time,” she said.
Farah said she grew up in Hennepin County. Her interest in mental health peaked in college when she learned something shocking.
“I usually tell people mental health is what introduced me into becoming a doctor and a lot of that was due to the fact that the largest mental health facility is actually a county jail,” Farah said. “Since then, I’ve always kind of been intrigued about how does law play in mental health in general.”
She started volunteering in the emergency department at HCMC. Now, she volunteers at the Hennepin County Jail.
“Particularly for patients in the in carceral system, I feel like we’ve failed them quite a bit in the sense that these patients are quite ill,” she said. “For me, it’s all about bridging that gap being able to put myself where I feel like I’m really needed.”
Farah said what she loves about mental health is the ability to help people feel better.
When she finishes up her residency program, she wants to continue working in the Twin Cities and give back to her community that helped raise her.
“I think it’s really important for me to give back to the very community that brought me here today,” Farah said.
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