University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics
Location
Free Webinar
End
18th September 2026
Operation Metro Surge created rapidly changing barriers to healthcare access that challenged traditional assumptions about the responsibilities of healthcare organizations. While healthcare and community organizations responded to the same crisis, they often recognized its impacts differently based on where they encountered patients, how they gathered information, and what they were positioned to see. Drawing on the experience of Inspire Change Clinic and community partners, this Grand Rounds examines how changing conditions reshape healthcare access and organizational responsibility, highlighting the capacities needed to recognize and respond to emerging barriers to care.
Learning Objectives: After this webinar, attendees will be able to:
Describe how rapidly changing conditions can create new barriers to healthcare access and expose gaps in existing healthcare systems.
Examine how organizational structures, decision-making processes, and levels of flexibility influence how healthcare organizations recognize and respond to emerging community needs.
Evaluate the ethical responsibilities and organizational capacities healthcare organizations need when rapidly changing conditions create new barriers to care
Speakers: Munira Maalimisaq, APRN, FNP-BC, is a Family Nurse Practitioner and the Founder and CEO of Inspire Change Clinic, where she advances innovative, community-driven approaches to improving health equity while providing trauma-informed, culturally responsive primary care to underserved Communities
At Inspire Change Clinic, she leads the Motherhood Circle, an innovative community initiative that promotes vaccine confidence, maternal health, chronic disease education, and equitable access to care for immigrant and underserved communities. She also led the cross-sector collaboration that resulted in the first U.S. fatwa supporting the use of anonymous donor human milk for medically vulnerable infants, removing a longstanding barrier to lifesaving neonatal care for Muslim families. This landmark initiative has since gained international recognition and has been used as a model in 13 countries.
In 2025, during healthcare disruptions related to Operation Metro Surge, she launched community-based initiatives to sustain access to care for immigrant communities facing significant barriers to traditional healthcare systems. She mobilized a network of volunteer clinicians to deliver care directly in the community. Since then, the clinic has served more than 300 patients through home visits, transportation assistance, care coordination, and crisis support
Ms. Maalimisaq’s leadership has been recognized through her selection to the Young American Leaders Program at Harvard Business School, inclusion in the Minneapolis–St. Paul Business Journal’s 40 Under 40, and her Policy Fellowship at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, where she advanced policies that improve equitable access to healthcare
Jennifer Needle-Suarez, MD, MPH, HEC-C, is an Associate Professor in the Center for Bioethics and Department of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota. She earned her MD from Howard University in Washington DC, and a Masters in Public Health in Epidemiology from Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. Dr. Needle-Suarez completed her residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and fellowship in Pediatric Critical Care at the University Hospitals of Cleveland/Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. She completed her fellowship in Biomedical Ethics at the Center for Ethics in Health Care at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon.
Dr. Needle-Suarez joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota in 2013 and is board certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Critical Care. She has established a national reputation as an emerging leader in pediatric palliative care and health equity. She has served as principal investigator or co-investigator on grants from the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society, studying advance care planning for adolescents and young adults with cancer and bone marrow transplant. She also received funding from the Cambia Health Foundation to examine palliative care experiences among Somali, Latino/a/x, and Hmong families.
Her research is published in journals including Critical Care Medicine, Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, Palliative Medicine, The Journal of Clinical Ethics, and Annals of Family Medicine. Dr. Needle-Suarez’s current academic work focuses on health inequities in pediatric serious illness, particularly among families with non-English language preference. She has collaborated with the SoLaHmo Partnership for Health and Wellness at the Community-University Health Care Center and is currently partnering with Inspire Change Clinic to develop the Common Thread Health Collective—an initiative to address cultural and linguistic barriers to equitable pediatric care.
She is pursuing a Master of Public Affairs at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, with a focus on healthcare policy and its impact on non-English speaking communities. Dr. Needle-Suarez also serves as co-chair of the University of Minnesota Medical Center Ethics Committee and co-leads the clinical ethics consultation service for M Health Fairview system hospitals
Event start time: 12:00 pm
Event end time: 01:00 pm
