We Got Us: Health Care at Risk and the Power of Proximity

(A Storytellers Collective Feature)

Across the United States, health care systems are straining under the weight of policy decisions made far from the people most affected by them. For millions of families, access to care is fragile — shaped by underfunded systems, racial inequities, and growing threats to Medicaid and other safety-net programs.

Yet within these same systems, stories of faithful presence can be found — stories that challenge the idea that justice is only built through sweeping reform. They remind us that healing often begins with proximity: with listening, walking alongside neighbors, and refusing to look away.

This We Got Us podcast episode, produced through Christians for Social Action’s Storytellers Collective, tells one such story: The journey of Dr. Flo Shall, a family medicine physician serving at Lawndale Christian Health Center on Chicago’s West Side, and the community that has shaped her understanding of justice, faith, and hope.

A Calling Reoriented

Dr. Shall’s path toward health justice did not begin in a clinic. It began in classrooms and lecture halls, studying global health and policy from what she describes as an “eagle’s-eye view” — learning how systems should work and imagining how they might be fixed from the top down.

But during that season, Dr. Shall sensed a deeper conviction from God:

“What do you know about serving the poor? What do you know about underserved care?”

That question reshaped her vocation. Rather than pursuing prestige or distance, Dr. Shall chose family medicine — a specialty grounded in long-term relationships, prevention, and care that meets people where they are. It is a field often undervalued in the medical hierarchy, but one uniquely suited for the kind of justice she felt called to practice.

A Clinic Born from Listening

Lawndale Christian Health Center itself was born not from institutional planning, but from neighborly attention. In the late 1970s, community members and church leaders recognized that Lawndale had virtually no access to health care. Infant mortality rates were devastating. Hospitals were overwhelmed. People were left with nowhere to turn.

The response was simple — and radical: listen to the community, and build something together.

Out of that listening came a federally qualified health center rooted in Christian community development, committed to offering quality, affordable care in a neighborhood long shaped by disinvestment.

Today, Dr. Shall serves patients across generations — delivering babies, caring for elders, and training new physicians — all within a model of care shaped by proximity rather than efficiency alone.

Trust, Trauma, and the Work of Repair

Practicing medicine in Lawndale has also required her to confront the deep mistrust many patients hold toward the healthcare system — mistrust rooted not in misunderstanding, but in history.

“The history of the American healthcare system is quite racist,” she notes plainly.

One story stands out: an elderly patient with multiple chronic conditions, and her son, often labeled “difficult” or “aggressive” by other providers. When Dr. Shall took time to listen, she recognized something else entirely — a son who had spent a lifetime fighting for his mother’s survival.

When she named that love aloud, walls fell. Trust grew. Care deepened.

She describes these moments as small victories — fragile, hard-won, and essential. They are reminders that justice is not abstract. It is relational.

When Systems Fracture

But proximity alone cannot carry the weight of a broken system.

This episode unfolds amid looming federal Medicaid cuts that threaten to destabilize clinics like Lawndale across the country. In Illinois alone, hundreds of thousands risk losing coverage. For community health centers, the consequences would be immediate — lost funding, overwhelmed clinics, and patients forced to delay or forgo care altogether.

And as the episode makes clear, these impacts will not stop with Medicaid recipients. When clinics close and providers disappear, entire regions suffer — insured and uninsured alike.

This is not a story with tidy resolution. It is a story still unfolding.

Hope That Outlasts the Moment

In the face of uncertainty, Dr. Shall returns to Scripture — particularly Jeremiah 29:11 — reading it not as a promise of quick rescue, but as a reminder of God’s long faithfulness amid exile.

“There’s a bigger picture that God is working on,” she reflects. “And it’s usually more than what we can imagine.”

Her hope is not rooted in guarantees, but in endurance — in trusting that God’s work continues even when visible outcomes lag behind faithful labor.

Proximity as Practice

As the episode closes, listeners are invited into their own work of proximity:

• With policy: engaging elected officials and civic spaces where decisions shape real lives.

• With community: learning what resources already exist, honoring neighbors’ gifts, and showing up consistently.

• With one another: recognizing that justice is a team effort, where every role matters.

For students and young people wondering whether they have anything to offer, Dr. Shall’s message is simple and expansive:

“There is no such thing as ‘just’ a student… Your presence matters.”

Justice, she reminds us, is not a sprint. It is a marathon — sustained by community, faith, and the refusal to abandon one another.

Why This Story Matters

Health justice is often framed in numbers, budgets, and policies — and rightly so. But this story insists that justice is also formed in exam rooms, conversations, letters written on behalf of patients, and time spent listening when no one else will.

It reminds us that while systems must change, transformation often begins with proximity — with choosing to be near, to stay, and to believe that faithful presence still matters.

Listen to the full episode here: