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B10 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | SEPTEMBER 30, 2024 HEALTHCARE HEROES | 2024 Awards gee children living in Connecticut and isolated by COVID-19. EMPOWER has since been delivered to hundreds of refugee children living in New Haven County and modified for Ukraine to support the neurodevelop- ment of children impacted by the war. Refugees and displaced migrants face significant barriers accessing care (language, cultural, institutional practices). Our EMPOWER team works with community partners such as IRIS, Elena's Light and the Ukraine Ministry of Education, to design interventions for outside the traditional clinic setting to meet children where they're at: neighborhoods, classrooms, migration centers, etc. What's your next major goal and/or challenge? e greatest challenge we face is scaling the program to meet the needs of diverse refugee and migrant communities. Winner Category | Volunteer Tricia McDonough Ryan Gaylord Specialty Healthcare Pediatric Neuropsychologist, Center for Brain Health D r. Tricia McDonough Ryan specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of the acute and long- term effects of brain injury, disease and toxicity in children and young adults. Outside of Gaylord, she partners with regional and international refugee stake- holders to develop pediatric brain health initiatives and conducts training on the neuropsychological effects of pediatric brain injury. She is also the co-founder of a volun- teer initiative called EMPOWER — the EMotions Program Outside clinic & Well- ness Education for Refugees and arrivals. What have been your significant contributions? Millions of forcibly displaced refugee and migrant children around the globe are at risk of immediate and long-term neuropsychosocial effects due to the circumstances of migration. In 2020, along with a multidisci- plinary team of refugee healthcare and resettlement stakeholders, I co-created EMPOWER, a trauma-informed, culture and strengths-driven intervention aimed at social-emotional adjustment and brain health development for refu- Tell us about a challenge in your job that you were able to overcome. e biggest challenge is seeing patient needs and feeling helpless, whether it's talking with a family who ran out of food as a UCHL volunteer, or sitting with a patient who can't afford their insulin as a medical student. To overcome requires creativity, commitment and knowl- edge of your community's resources. What's your next major goal and/or challenge? e next stop on my professional journey is residency, where I hope to continue this work. Additionally, several of my UCHL pre-health mentees — many of whom are first-generation in medicine — have applied to medical school, so another major goal of mine is to celebrate their acceptances in the upcoming months. Winner Category | Volunteer Nivedha Natchiappan UConn Health Medical Student, School of Medicine N ivedha Natchiappan is a fourth- year medical student at UConn and part of the UConn Health Leaders (UCHL) leadership team. UCHL is a volunteer organization that trains pre-health students to screen patients for and address social determinants of health (SDoH), which are social risk factors linked to health outcomes (i.e., food insecurity). What have been your significant contributions to your organization in the past year? I've been extremely fortunate for the opportunities I've received through UCHL. I've personally trained over 100 volunteers who have gone on to screen more than 10,000 patients across Connecticut for SDoH barriers. I also created a gynecologic oncology project aimed at identifying and address- ing SDoH needs in newly diagnosed cancer patients. is has been especially meaningful because these patients not only have a higher burden of unmet social needs, but SDoH barriers also make it harder to complete their therapy. e hope is to ease the burden patients face while giving them the best chance to complete their cancer treatments. Join us as we recognize and honor outstanding C-Level Executives who are excelling in leadership! OCTOBER 10 AT FARMINGTON GARDENS PRESENTED BY MAJOR SPONSOR SUPPORTING SPONSOR SUPPORTING SPONSOR FOR EVENT TICKETS GO TO: HartfordBusiness.com/HBJ-Events or scan the QR CODE