2013 Poster Session Summaries - AAMC

The DOCS Community Outreach Conference and Florida Keys Retreat is an opportunity for student leaders
from different medical schools across the country to share their models of student-run community service
organizations, discuss some of the biggest challenges student-run organizations face, and get hands-on
experience at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s biggest health fair of the year in the Florida
Keys.
Through the DOCS Community Outreach Conference and Retreat, attendees have the opportunity to
discuss common challenges that medical student organizations across the nation face in planning and
implementing community health projects. This is accomplished through power-point presentations given by
each participating school, problem-solving breakout sessions, and interactive discussions. The large group
wrap-up allows all of the retreat attendees to gather at the end of the day to discuss the problems brought up
in each problem solving session and to collectively brainstorm solutions for these challenges. The attendees
also learn how they can implement the DOCS model to help strengthen their own medical schools’
community service efforts.
The Retreat also provides hands-on experience as attendees are paired-up with a DOCS student leader
while they volunteer at the DOCS Florida Keys Health Fairs. Retreat attendees are assigned to health fair
sites in Key West or Big Pine Key, where they volunteer at two different health stations. This experience will
demonstrate the ability of a comprehensive community screening health fair to deliver valuable care and
education to underserved communities and provide attendees with the opportunity to see the DOCS model
of community service in action while working closely with patients and faculty.
Thus far, forty-six students, representing twenty-one medical schools across the country and Canada, have
attended the DOCS Community Outreach Conference and Retreat. After the weekend, we hope that our
attendees find themselves empowered to implement the key concepts they learned at the conference in
order to make impactful changes at their respective schools and communities.
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA MEDICAL SCHOOL, TWIN CITIES [Poster # 52]
Program/Project Title: Phillips Neighborhood Clinic: Providing Health Care Access to the Underinsured
Presenter(s): Joseph Valentin
Email: valen243@umn.edu
The Phillips Neighborhood Clinic (PNC) is a free clinic located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. There are two
objectives in the clinic’s mission: to provide health care access for the underinsured population in the
Minneapolis area and to offer University of Minnesota health professional students the skills and experience
to serve patients who are in need of medical access. PNC operates on Mondays and Wednesdays during
the evenings, it is ran by a team of volunteer students and professionals from the schools of Medicine,
Physical Therapy, Pharmacy, Nursing and Public Health. Together all of these volunteers, with the
supervision of licensed clinicians, are able to provide clinical services such as: blood pressure monitoring,
mental health, women’ health, pediatrics, physical exams, laboratory testing and many others. The clinic
opened its doors in 2003, operating one night per week. However, in 2009 PNC started providing service two
nights per week serving around 1000 patients per year. This clinic is especially important for the Hispanic
community living in Minneapolis since for many of them English is not their native language, therefore PNC
provides Spanish interpreters to many of these immigrants so they can feel that language is not a barrier for
health care access. Phillips Neighborhood Clinic has had a tremendous impact on the underinsured
Minneapolis community, especially the Latino population, for the past 10 years. It is my goal to highlight
PNC’s impact for its patients, how its model has succeeded and can be used in other parts of the country to
serve those in need of accessible and appropriate free health care services.
UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE [Poster # 53]
Program/Project Title: Community Health Advocacy Project
Presenter(s): Wilfreda J. Lindsey
Email: wlindsey@umc.edu
INTRODUCTION. Mississippi leads the nation in many chronic diseases. The limited number of primary care
providers coupled with low health literacy in many regions in the state exacerbates this issue. The
community health advocacy (CHA) project was begun to reduce health disparities in the state of Mississippi
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