Health disparities in minority populations are prevalent at both the local community and global level. An individual’s health outcome is largely impacted by their environment, culture, language, sexual orientation, financial stability, education level, and even geographic location. For example, healthcare becomes a financial burden for uninsured patients. Those with language barriers have difficulty communicating with medical staff leading to miscommunication and lessens the quality of care. Rural communities struggle with access to healthcare due to a lack of medical professionals and facilities. As a medical student, I strive to use my medical knowledge and skills to improve health outcomes in our most vulnerable and underserved communities by focusing on preventative health through community medicine. As a patient advocate and translator for VNCARES, a student-run clinic that serves the underserved Vietnamese population of Sacramento, I take vitals and room patients for our volunteer physicians. While translating, I listen to the physicians ask questions about patients’ herbal medicines or Tai chi, trying to integrate their cultures into the care plans. With these connections, I watch the fear melt from patients’ faces as they begin to engage more, comfortably asking questions and vocalizing their concerns. In our space, we share resources in various languages on cancer screening, cardiopulmonary resources, and diabetes services that address the three common health disparities in the Asian American population. Throughout my time volunteering, I see how providing culturally appropriate care leads to higher engagement and stronger trust within a community that so often struggles in the American healthcare system, inspiring me to deliver the same patient-centered care in the future. As a volunteer for the Willow Clinic, a student-run clinic in Sacramento that provides free healthcare to the unhoused population, I begin to recognize other social determinants of health beyond language and culture. Serving a demographic with a different set of healthcare barriers, including economic instability, stigma, and substance use, I take the time to learn about their unique needs before developing any strategies to help. Through each conversation with our patients, I gain more understanding of the houseless community’s unmet needs by carefully listening to stories about their background, personal struggles, experience with healthcare, or simply about their day. Using this knowledge, our pharmacy committee develop the idea to implement a needle exchange program. Before beginning any logistical work, as a clinic, we initiate honest discussions regarding any implicit biases and their effect on our service. We research the impact of substance use on our patient population and invite professionals to present on topics like harm reduction. Leading this project, I continue to emphasize the importance of centering the community that is impacted by our work, and through these intentional efforts, we can help our patients practice safer needle-use habits. With the same sense of sensibility and humility, I plan to incorporate design justice principles in my future work serving marginalized populations. Through the various examples of compassionate and culturally relevant care I have witnessed, I intend to promote patient autonomy by providing education and tailored resources that promote linguistically and culturally accessible medical knowledge. With intentional efforts to learn with humility from and about the communities I serve, I hope to cultivate trusted relationships with my patients and advocate for their individual needs. By serving as a physician who practices medicine through a holistic perspective while incorporating public health principles, I hope to reduce the burdens of healthcare barriers for individuals in underserved and vulnerable communities.