table clinics improve patient care by ad- dressing chronic issues early, provide a much-needed alternative to overcrowd- ed emergency rooms, and often bring hospitals, schools, nonprofits, and other leaders together to address a community need.
In Texas, the community need is desperate. Texas has the highest rate of uninsured in the country: 26 percent of adults and 22 percent of children. Unfortunately, the Lubbock Impact/
TTUHSC Free Clinic, like other chari- table clinics around the nation, is con- stantly at capacity.
Lack of access to health care is not a partisan issue. It’s a state and national problem that harms us all. Without ac- cess to care, costs increase due to more complicated issues, ER waiting rooms become crowded because there is no where else to go, and the spread of dis- ease increases when illnesses go untreat- ed. Neither the Affordable Care Act nor its repeal will ensure that families are able to obtain the care they need. Politi- cal debates surrounding health care will continue and will likely only grow fiercer. For students and physicians alike, these issues are not why we entered medicine. We’re here to help, to heal, and to listen to our patients in need. As Osler said, “We are here to add what we can to life, not get what we can from life.”
Clinics like the Lubbock Impact/
TTUHSC Free Clinic offer a venue to practice medicine in this way. Chari- table clinics serve not only the patients, but also the health care providers. They remind students (and physicians) why they entered medicine. In a community clinic, the focus returns to the patient, his or her hardships, and building re- lationships. Patients aren’t just charts, illnesses, or billing codes. They are the humanistic story of why we became doctors.
My education at Justin Berk
the clinic was not on health care re- form or reimburse- ment codes. It was where I heard my
8 TEXAS MEDICINE December 2013
first breath sounds, caught my first mur- mur, and wrote my first SOAP note. The clinic provides much more than educa- tion. Most importantly, it provides inspi- ration. Our experiences regularly remind us why we study constantly, spending our youth nose-in-book. I’m not only learning about diabetes treatments; I’m also learning about the doctor I hope to become and the medicine I hope to practice.
My experience is not unique. At
least 50 medical schools have student- run clinics, where students engage in patient care early in their careers.6
But
student-run free clinics are in a perma- nently precarious position. They do not sustain themselves; they rely on the con- stant support of institutions, individual donors, volunteers, and advocates across our society.
Whether a physician, a student, a
donor, or a community member with a voice, each of us can make an effort to encourage an environment that centers on the patient. Student-run free clinics shape the future of medicine for the bet- ter and, in the meantime, provide health care to those most in need, those who would otherwise go without it. Within these clinics, all involved — medical students, nurses, physicians, and patients alike — constantly see the humanitarian reasons for joining the medical field. Here, we still have an oa- sis: a pure form of medicine. n
Justin Berk is a third-year student at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine in Lubbock. He will receive his medical degree in 2015.
References 1. Feldman MD. From the editors’ desk: physician heal thyself. J Gen Intern Med. 2011;26(8):823. doi: 10.1007/s11606-011-1755-0.
2. Chen D, Lew R, Hershman W, Orlander J. A cross-sectional measurement of medical student empathy. J Gen Intern Med. 2007;22(10):1434– 1438. doi:10.1007/s11606-007-0298-x.
3. Woloschuk W, Harasym PH, Temple W. Attitude change during medical school: a cohort study. Med Educ. 2004;38(5):522–534. doi:10.1046/ j.1365-2929.2004.01820.x.
4. Griffith CH III, Wilson JF. The loss of student idealism in the 3rd-year clinical clerkships. Eval Health Prof. 2001;24(1):61–71.
5. Bradley E, Taylor L. More medical care: the wrong prescription for health reform. Everyday Health. 2013.
http://www.everydayhealth.com/ heart-health/more-medical-care-the-wrong-pre
scription-for-health-reform-3589.aspx.
6. Simpson SA, Long JA. Medical student-run health clinics: important contributors to patient care and medical education. J Gen Intern Med. 2007;22(3):352–356. doi: 10.1007/s11606- 006-0073-4.
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