Dr. Kelley Jewett

Kelley Jewett, MD, MPH is the Clinic Medical Director.She has extensive experience working with refugees and displaced people.She speaks two Liberian languages and the Marathi dialect of the Indian language.

Born and raised in the small town of Swatara in north central Minnesota, Jewett joined the Peace Corp after completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota - Duluth and then worked in Liberia.She returned to enter the U of M Medical School and completed her residency at St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul.

It wasn't long before Dr. Jewett returned to do medical relief work with Methodist Church in Liberia during the civil war.She also worked in community health, hospitals and clinics for the next 15 years in Sierra Leone, Jamaica, Bolivia, Brazil and India, before returning to work as a staff physician for Model Cities, and completing a Masters in Public Health with a Bush Medical Fellowship.

The thought of going to work for an "assembly line" corporate health plan did not appeal to Dr. Jewett."I never want to go back in that setting," she added.

She completed a physician management and administration program at the University of St. Thomas, and joined the New American Clinic in May 2006.

"This for me is very fulfilling," she said."I feel that I am providing people with care that they need; and it is partly because of the way our system works that they are not able to get that in a lot of other places."

In the initial appointments with patients, more times is taken to establish a relationship with the doctor.They take time to let the patients tell their stories.Jewett said this is part of the healing process and makes a difference in treatment outcomes.After that, the follow up appointments can be brief.

"One of the things people love about this is the time that I spend with them," said Jewett.
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Dr. Jewett said that patients do not realize they have PTSD, and it often manifests itself as headaches, backaches or other physical complaints.The mainstream system is not equipped to deal with the level of refugee emotional trauma and mental health issues.Ramsey County Health Department has a waiting list.There are very few places for people to go without insurance with the exception of the Center for Victims of Torture.

"Every person who is a refugee has seen their family members shot, or have physical trauma themselves, or still don't know where children, brothers or sisters are that have been missing for years," said Jewett.