Welcome to The Waterbury Talks. I'm your host, Grant Copeland. Today's conversation is with Celina Caetano. Celina is a doctor in residency at Yale New Haven Health, and a Waterburian through and through. She was raised in one of the city's diverse neighborhoods, has been active since childhood in a local church, was taught by the Waterbury Public School System, and was inspired during her time on the UConn Waterbury campus. Hear about the best advice she ever received, what career she originally wanted, and her recommendation for others to see what Waterbury is really all about. It's a motivating conversation that showcases a next generation leader in our community. So join us, as The Waterbury Talks with Celina Caetano. Celina, thank you so much for the time today. We sincerely appreciate it. Nice to see you guys. Tell us about your current role as a health care professional. a lot has changed over the past year, I would say. Just graduating medical school, and now I'm a physician down at Yale. just finished on my first year of residency, so got two more to go. But it's really changed a lot. I love meeting people perpetually sleep deprived, so a bit of makeup under my eyes, you guys don't see the bags. but I love it. I hear stories every day from people. I hear families and get to sometimes become a part of it. So I'm really enjoying it. Tell us some of the main responsibilities you have in that role. as a doctor right now, especially in my residency, It's getting exposure after just completing training. I have a great crew there that are really helpful to support, but in the outpatient setting, I'm that primary doctor where people come see their routine visits. I love the visits where it's just, everything's healthy, how's the kids and the dog? but I actually will go into the hospital on some rotations and then the primary care doctor there. I just got off a rotation of nights, so still trying to adjust to the sunrise, which I love. you see a lot. you see a lot of different types of things that make people sick. The chronic diseases, the ones that really impact someone's life, to the broken finger that comes through the door. You earned your doctorate from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. Give us a little context as to the path, your experience there, and how that's really helped you prepare for a professional career. I -initially didn't know I wanted to be a doctor. I thought I was going to be the next American Idol. and then I realized I didn't have the chops to pay the bills and the insurance for that. someone gave me the best advice in my life was list the three things you love in order. Make the first your hobby, the second your career, and the third one incorporate somewhere in those other two and you'll never work a day in your life. So for me it was music. And then the next one was science. And the third was helping others. I tried to incorporate music into when I was choir directing at my church. I loved that, was able to do that for multiple years. And then just trying to figure out where best worked for me. If it was with medicine or not. And I had incredible mentors. And it was really at UConn Waterbury when I met, one of my professors, Dr. Susan Berlin Preston, who just connected me to the right people at the right time. And initially I wasn't supposed to go to UConn Waterbury, so that was the other big thing. It just, it epitomized everything happens for a reason, meeting the right people at the right times, and she connected me to people with UConn Health even before I got into the medical school. yeah. So it was just great to see how everything connected and who wouldn't wanna stay in Connecticut to be able to continue. And at UConn, just a great institution through and through In advance of graduation, you were selected by your student peers to give the School of Medicine's commencement speech. What were some of the main points that you were trying to convey at that time? I think for that speech, first off, I was so honored to be able to speak at graduation. I had a wonderful group of peers. during that speech, it was really trying to summarize four years of probably the hardest times of our lives and really give them a message for going forward. Since I was little, I always ate a ton of apples, and I knew I wanted to start off light hearted. Because I was nervous, and I was like, okay, if I can, one, make it over to the podium without tripping, two, be able to see over the podium. We're already halfway there. And then, how can I tie it in? eat a ton of apples every day. There's always, if you ate an apple a day, keep the doctor away. I want to play on that kind of theme. So, that made it lighthearted. And then in the beginning of my medical school, my brother actually got me a little pin that has all of the cancer ribbons, and in the middle it says hope. So since I wore that every day, that was my message I wanted to convey. Every time we went into a new rotation, something wild, crazy exam, new board exam, applying for residencies. There was always fear, so I was trying to see how do we tie in fear and hope. So the whole idea was that the solution to fear is hope. Something we're always told that we have to be conscious of for ourselves and for others is burnout. and I think that's something in the back of every healthcare provider's mind and every professional in any job is burning out and it's really hoping for the next step, even if it's how do I get through the next 20 minutes? It's hoping through that. And so my hope to them was that they wouldn't stop relying on what they learned. Don't stop trying to learn hope for what tomorrow will be, whether or not it's what we plan it to be and the hope I'll be able to see them all again. Hearing what they accomplished during the past few years. And prior to the University of Connecticut, you began your college journey undergraduate at UConn here at Waterbury. What was the UConn Waterbury experience like for you? it felt like home. if you have that transition from high school to college, everyone knows it's probably the craziest transition you can experience. You're relying on yourself more, having to figure out, what's time management? The professors there, I like the intimacy of the smaller classes. but everyone was just so welcoming. They have a beautiful three floor library. And this was before they expanded over to the downtown area but still, they just made it a place where if I got there at six o'clock in the morning, I left there at six later in the afternoon. Every moment was filled with something. If I needed to get away, there was enough space to just go by the fountain and be like, incredible facilities. I remember being able to seeing my own cheek cells under a microscope. And then the next lab was the classic frog dissection that everyone's able to do. English, mostly the sciences I had down here. It was just nice to be able to engage. And something else too, there's some majors now that you can start here, finish here, but when I was at Waterbury UConn, It was the start and then transition for medicine. And there was that bridge. We were able to meet people down here. I had research opportunities that I can continue up there. So I never felt like I was losing Waterbury. It was just, where was Waterbury leading me to? Speaking of Waterbury, you're a born and bred Waterburian. How did this community prepare you to set such lofty goals for yourself? Waterbury has been there since the beginning. I would say my family found Waterbury. And what I mean by that is my parents are both immigrants from Portugal and the whole immigrant experience of coming on over, we didn't have family here. And so figuring out where to be at that point, they already had their community. There was already a Portuguese grouping of people from where we were in Portugal coming on over. So to just know that it was already welcoming was something that translated throughout my life. Everywhere I go was welcoming. When I was able to go to Rotella and all the other public schools that I had the pleasure of going to, always welcomed. I saw diversity. You look at any street corner, you'll see a new pizza place that you have to try because somebody said it was the best. But then also you see somebody else that's completely different from you. And here that's okay. I was welcomed in my own community, faith based, with the Catholic churches here with the Portuguese community down in Baldwin Street. But in case I wanted to try something else, there was the Greek festival not too long ago, you can go to the Albanian festival. They had the food truck festival too, there's just something always new and that's what you want to be a part of. Every age group, it's always alive and it's changing too. something I want to touch on that, question is, when you hear Waterbury and you've been in Connecticut, it unfortunately had a negative stigma of what was. but I would say Waterbury is what it is now, an evolving city, changing, understanding what our past was, but being celebrated for what it was, too. and to the point that it's changing we are still one of the best, and should be recognized for the shining stars that are coming out of here. Why did you choose healthcare as a professional? Was there a particular moment that a light bulb went off? Or was there some circumstance where you felt like, here's some clarity, I want to be a healthcare professional, I want to be a doctor. I would say doctor found me. it was just a random chance of events. there's a lot of people that knew when they were a kid, they got that toy stethoscope and I would say that wasn't the case for me. If anything, I played with my brother's toy cars more than I did any plastic stethoscope. but thank God I never went to mechanics because I could never figure out how to do it. it was really end of high school. I knew maybe healthcare. I really loved getting to know people, getting to know their families. but I also like those times where it's, The most vulnerable someone could be. if you talk to my parents, they'd say I'd like to be a know it all. But more to the point of I loved asking questions, I think, was the other thing. And something my mom likes to tell, too, is the reason we got a computer in my house was I asked so many questions that my mom was like, just Google it. So we had to get Google in my house. And the whole role of being a doctor is asking questions. And trying to see, what was the answer? And it reflects every day when I get to go to work. Actually, right before coming here, I had a patient who seemed like classic something was wrong with their shoulder. Everybody thought that it was something with their bones, but it was through asking questions that you really got to the nitty and gritty of what was going on with this patient. Getting to hear their intimate story and how they've been a worker their whole life. And that this was a change from their normal shoulder pain. And so just with a 20 minute visit, it felt like I knew someone for months and months. You mentioned faith being very important to you. And it seems that faith to some degree at its root is about having trust in others and giving of yourself to build more trust. Along these lines, you said in your commencement speech, that hope is a desire that takes action, but requires patience. Tell us more about your belief system. I've been Catholic my whole life. Proud to this day. I would say faith is something that has been, the epitome of my whole life. I always say I have my four F's that I follow every single day. Faith is the first one, family is the next, food is the third, and futbol, which is soccer in Portuguese, just to fit the acronym. But faith is what gives me hope. I love going to church every Sunday. It's just a reminder of where is my foundation. but it does tie into healthcare to, to paraphrase something that mother Teresa said is that all the hatred in the wars that occur every single day is when we forget that our lives are for others. approach every person with patience. Let them tell their story. just open up your heart and share it with others. I can speak from Catholic religion, but I've seen it with everyone. That the whole idea is to really trust in others, that everyone is inherently good. Sometimes it's a world that taints it, but experience can speak a lot. Being patient to hear their story, to hear, maybe what happened in your world that changed who you are. And also understanding that to have that relationship takes time and takes action. You touched on an initial interest of being an American idol, and I think there's a wonderful little story about young Celina singing in the church choir, do tell. Yeah, so when I first started out in the choir, it was all older kids. When I say older at that time, I was the six year old and everyone was in high school. so I used to fall asleep in church, which is like completely opposite of how I am now for math. So that was the first funny point. But being the first young kid, And I'm still short to this day, but I was even shorter than if you can imagine. And I had a solo, so they had to figure, none of the microphones would go as short as they could. So I was standing on a chair trying to sing out my two line solo. That was just ready, been practicing for, I didn't fall off the chair. Per everyone in the audience, it went well. And, my priest still jokes around to this day when he introduces me to somebody new. Be like, she was the one that sang and had to stand on the chair with the microphone right on her mouth. You have an interesting hero, Abraham Lincoln. What's the connection to him? We share the same birthday. Thank you, Abraham Lincoln, for letting me have the day off from school in the public school system every year. but no, he was, he was really an inspiration just hearing how honest he was, but he stood for equal rights early on in a time where it was controversial and a changing time for the country too. You've also mentioned that a certain Olympic fencer is an inspiration to you. Yeah, so I, I've never played fencing in my life, but I remember watching the Olympics and love hearing Ibtihaj Mohammed, her story. And I love hearing sports people because physically they just put their bodies through the test. And to have that mentality, to be able to do that, structure themselves to have such, Successful outcome is first off amazing. And we were touching on before about how my faith is important to me. She was one of the first Muslim to wear the hijab in the Olympic system and how she wore that to be proud of who she is and to share that with others was just absolutely incredible. So you grew up in Waterbury, you go through the Waterbury public school system, you attend the UConn Waterbury campus, and now you're caring for people in and around greater Waterbury and the state of Connecticut. What would you say to anyone who perceives Waterbury as a level down from the highest quality of education. Can I say they're wrong? Cause I think this happens for a lot of places. Imagine that restaurant that you hear great reviews from person to person, but then you go online and it's not the best. Trust in it. First hand experience. If you look up just general Waterbury news, you may not hear what this city is. What you need to know is what it is. It is a place that families grow. Is a place where the school system allows it to thrive. I remember in elementary school, they had this Olympics of the mind where it literally was to showcase what the young elementary school public schools could nurture, foster, and grow. I remember being one of the top kids and so proud of this calculator that I got that I still have to this day. and it was just an incredible opportunity. You got so many opportunities. throughout all of the school system. and what does that mean? It means taking what you were nurtured here, like those little seedlings. You always get the roots here, but it's really what fruits can you share with others? If it's with the trades, if it's going on to college, it's whatever you can make of it. And that's one thing Waterbury is we do. We don't stop at what the school system gave us. We are doing things with that. We're using those calculators still. If it's not in Healthcare, maybe someone is manufacturing something, the new invention. I would say to those people who may think it's a step down, is take the ladder up to see where we really are. Be our Waterbury tour guide for a moment. Where should we go? What should we do? What should we eat? I wish the viewers could see what's right behind you because we have the great green here. in every season it's new. in the winter, right by December, they're lighting up the tree. so I'd say you have to start down here because this is where the most change has happened. You see the Mattatuck Museum that was just recently renovated. I was just commenting when I was here on field trips. It's so much different than what it was then to what it is now. You see all the different faith based, I'll go to the Immaculate Conception Church downtown. But you see all the other prideful, wonderful religions. So when you start down here, you can go down Elm Street and you see UConn, you see my old high school, Waterbury Arts, and then just keep following that. You'll see Holy Land that if you have a chance to go up there, sunrise, sunset, both of which is just a beautiful experience, but you see where Waterbury has reached out. You can see the South end where a lot of cultures are very proud. You go down to the East end where a lot of the schools, that's where I'm from. You can go to Antonio's Deli where I love getting my wraps. When I was in Waterbury, I will sinfully say that I went there at least once a week. and then you could just go up to Oakville. They have Highland Avenue where there's some amazing restaurants over here. And I will say I connected with a lot of the patients that I have that are from Waterbury that I see in New Haven now. We all talk about, what Highland Avenue restaurant did you go to? D'Amelio's was always the first one, so shout out to them. And we have great shopping centers. The mall is still up and thriving. I know there's been a lot of changes in stores there. JCPenney is still there. So that's where I'll still go. And then the YMCA, I think is where you can come back to remind yourself that's a great place to exercise and I have to say as a doctor, you got to get your 30 minutes somewhere. So if you didn't get it on that walk, stop at the YMCA. How have you contributed over the years to the Waterbury community? the Waterbury community has really been a part of my everyday life. So I don't know how much I've contributed to it as opposed to just living what it's given me. a few things come to mind was being able to be the choir director over at my church. Starting off singing, but then at age 12, 13 is when I started doing the organ and another one was St. Mary's, which was the hospital I was born at, was then a volunteer there too, when I was trying to figure out, is medicine for me? And it was cool, full circle, because when I was in medical school, I was able to do one of my rotations there. Special Olympics was another one. And then I had the chance to be able to just interact with some of the people. Beth athletes there. I recommend to anybody who is even thinking of it to jump in full arms. You don't need any experience for it. It's beautiful families, beautiful athletes. boys and girls club was another thing at Waterbury UConn. I was able to do, and I had classes. I went from age six to age 17 and I was teaching health. So you can imagine what those classes were like. And then, teaching assistant actually at Waterbury UConn for a couple of years with Dr. Berlin Preston for a while, was able to see all the people that would come from Waterbury, the neighboring towns too. You've touched on this a little bit earlier in the conversation, but talk about the melting pot of the Waterbury culture, how welcoming it is. And Even more broadly speaking, what is it that makes Waterbury such a unique and special place? I touched base before about how my parents were immigrants and I was born here, but I would say my heart has been divided into countries with a lot of my family still in Portugal. But knowing I could still keep it alive here. we have the Portuguese Social Club, we have the Portuguese Church as well, Our Lady of Fatima. In having our festivals every summer to really celebrate. who are we actually just finished celebrating Portugal Day, which was a celebration of the traditions, the values that a lot of similar families like my own that have brought over to this country. But the reason I want to bring up with the Portuguese is we're not unique. We melt, we talk with the Italians who came here, people who come from Jamaica, from Puerto Rico, that come and just celebrate who they are. If I'm able to pinpoint one thing that allows us to really thrive and what Waterbury allows it is one, the food. It's going to be two things. One, the food is everybody's able to showcase their fusions, their expertise. what is real about what makes us come together, it's our dinner table. But another is the language, which is ironic 'cause every person has a different language. But we're all saying the same things. Come over to my place, I cook you something good to eat. show me what makes you you. And I'll show you what makes me me. And looking at what you have already accomplished and what you're accomplishing now in future. What do you hope that younger people in Waterbury see as possible for them? I'd say for those little kids in Waterbury, hope. Define hope for yourself. Understand what it means for yourself now. And hope for the future. Give yourself a timeline. Understanding, here is your start. And where are you going to build up from here. I would say for myself, I didn't expect to end up at Yale, but again, life is unexpected. I was hoping to have a career where I can still serve the Waterbury community. And part of the program that I'm in right now for my residency actually started at Waterbury hospital. And now that it's over at Yale, a lot of my patients are my neighbors. And I'd always say, Oh, you're from X, Y, and Z. I grew up two streets over. And that immediate connection. So don't lose what you got here. See how you can build on what you have. Stay close to your family, however you define your family. And really, come back. Because I want you to see where you have grown, how much you have grown. And what are you going to give back? So you're a first generation doctor. how does that make you feel? It was scary at first. I thank my parents for letting them be the first patients for every new skill, clinical assessment tool that I was learning in medical school. when I brought home our little portable ultrasounds, it's dad, I got to check your abdomen. And he was very willing to allow me to do that. it's very humbling though, I will say. I love the calls that I get from the family and be like, so such and such hurts. My eyes feel itchy. What do you think I should do? but it's nice to also be that voice Something I was proud of was to be part of what was a first generation club at my medical school And I'm happy to say I was able to build off other systems that were started down at Yale, from their pre medical and the undergrad to the medical school, to the residency and also the attendings as well. So it's beautiful to see this kind of self sustaining full circle of what's common between us. We didn't have that person that told us, what doctor experience, what was supposed to be on that resume, but let me help you get to where you want to be. Celina, thank you so much for the conversation. So I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. And I appreciate all the work you're doing for Waterbury and showing what it is. Listen to every episode of The Waterbury Talks podcast at TheWaterbury.com/podcast and check out a full library of video stories just like Celina's at TheWaterbury.com/videos