As a student and a nurse, she says she is always looking for ways to build connections among people. She remembers choosing UConn as an undergraduate in part because it felt like a place that could be as big or as small as someone wanted it to be. On the one hand, it was a global university. On the other, it nurtured and supported students as individuals, offering different points of contact within the larger community.

“I wanted to go to a school where I would meet other Ghanaian people, other African people, and people from other continents and backgrounds,” Adjoka-Nartey explains. “That was very important to me. And having been able to do that as an undergrad and now as a graduate student has been very interesting. You see that the school becomes bigger and bigger and yet smaller and smaller.”

When she completes her MSN in May and gets certified, she plans to practice in neighborhoods afflicted by lack of health access and poor health literacy, places where people end up using the emergency room for even minor issues.

The dearth of primary-care resources produces poor outcomes for everyone. Patients who rely on hospitals for initial contact may not be getting adequate preventive care to begin with and, after discharge, are at risk of missing follow-up treatments. Meanwhile, emergency rooms are overwhelmed by people who aren’t having emergencies, straining the entire system.

“I want to be part of the movement to increase health equity in the communities that need it most,” says Adjoka-Nartey. “That’s my calling, that’s what I really want. To be able to bring resources to people affected by health disparities.”

One key to patient-centered care, Adjoka-Nartey believes, is a provider’s ability to collaborate with patients. Every person coming through the door of a primary care facility arrives with unique issues and a varying ability to articulate them. Effective treatment begins with the provider figuring out where the patient is coming from, listening carefully to what they are saying — or possibly not saying.

She cites the example of a woman who presents for prenatal care. During examination, the patient gives off nonverbal cues that cause the nurse to suspect she’s in an abusive relationship. But the partner is present and the woman’s not talking. On the fly, the nurse must find a way to extract the critical information.

“I’m really excited about my future as a family nurse practitioner,” Adjoka-Nartey says. “There are just so many things that require collaborative care with the patient. Through teaching, patient education, evidence-based practice, I’ll be in a unique position to do that.”