U of T student aims to deliver culturally competent health care in the community she calls home

Lakshmi Asokan was in Grade 4 when she first noticed the cultural and language barriers faced by her immigrant Sri Lankan family as they navigated the Canadian health-care system. 

Her grandmother had just been hospitalized. Asokan watched her parents sit through complicated updates on blood work and treatment plans – but wondered how much of the medical terminology was actually being absorbed. 

It often fell to Asokan and her sisters to fill in the gaps, piecing together how to move forward with her grandmother’s care.

“It was very scary,” she recalls. “There were some parts I didn’t understand but I did my best to translate. I was lucky enough to have three sisters who shared the burden.”      

Now a registered nurse and incoming nurse practitioner student at the University of Toronto's Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, Asokan still thinks about that hospital room and the families who faced the same struggles.

Asokan is a member of Bloomberg Nursing's first cohort of nurse practitioner students in the Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health (SAMIH) at U of T Scarborough. The expanded program, which launches this fall, is designed to allow students to complete their clinical placements in the eastern Greater Toronto Area, with SAMIH providing training for physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and physical therapists, with the goal of advancing the region’s clinical capacity.  

For Asokan, the program offers an opportunity to deepen her clinical expertise while serving the community she has long called home. 

After completing her undergraduate degree in human biology and psychology at U of T Scarborough, she worked in various roles at the Scarborough Health Network and at North York General Hospital in the neonatal intensive care unit and pediatrics.  

But as a registered nurse, Asokan felt limited in the care she was able to provide. “There have been a lot of times where I knew what my patient needed, but my scope of practice meant that I couldn't provide the care independently,” she says. “So I guess I just wanted to be able to assess, diagnose, prescribe and provide continuity of care instead of just handing that responsibility off to someone else. 

“Becoming a nurse practitioner allows me to combine compassion and a holistic care approach.”

That commitment to community has been evident throughout her life. While volunteering in patient relations at Centenary Hospital, part of the Scarborough Health Network, Asokan was occasionally called to other units to help translate for Tamil-speaking families. “As soon as the family saw me, I saw relief in their faces,” she says.

Experiences like that helped shape Asokan’s ambition to eventually open her own clinic in Scarborough.

Beyond providing treatment, she envisions the clinic as a hub of community resources that can help families navigate complex scenarios. “My approach would definitely be looking at everyone’s life as a whole and not just one treatment or one illness – culturally competent care, and focusing on the individual and their life versus just their illness.”  

For Asokan, the goal is to create the kind of patient-centred environment her own family often struggled to find – one that places greater emphasis on communication, community-based follow-up care and the impact of diet, lifestyle and cultural practices on health outcomes.

Scarborough has always been home, and I understand the community

That same commitment to supporting community has also shaped Asokan's involvement outside clinical settings. As a U of T Scarborough undergraduate, she was involved in an array of campus activities and organizations, ranging from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Toronto and the UTSG Tamil Students’ Association to the Racialized Students’ Collective and the Love Scarborough campaign. 

She hopes to be equally engaged as a graduate student – she’s already signed up as a mentee in a new peer mentorship program for incoming nurse practitioner students, and aims to become a mentor herself next year. 

Now, as a member of the inaugural cohort of the nurse practitioner program, Asokan sees an opportunity to bring those experiences together while helping shape the future of care in Scarborough. 

"Scarborough has always been home, and I understand the community,” she says. “Being part of the first cohort feels like a chance to help build something meaningful from the very beginning.”

Read more about Lakshmi Asokan at Global News