Family Medicine, ECCO join forces to serve patientsby Heather WoolwinePublic Relations By mid-summer, MUSC Family Medicine will establish a new outreach practice within the East Cooper Community Outreach (ECCO) building in Mount Pleasant. Medicaid and Medicare recipients in the East Cooper area (Mount Pleasant, Awendaw, Huger and lower Berkeley County) are the principal existing clients of ECCO and often have difficulty finding access to primary care in the East Cooper area because most providers do no accept Medicaid insurance, and an increasing number of practices no longer accept Medicare. “This will be a small practice staffed by one full-time physician with two residents from our University Family Medicine Center establishing continuity practices at the site in the second year of the practice,” said Scott Laird, Family Medicine executive director. “Our office staff will include an office/medical assistant employee with a nurse or CPT also added as the practice grows.” In addition, a free medical student primary care practice is in the works. Wanda Gonsalves, M.D., Family Medicine, and a committee of students are working on organizing and operating the student-run free clinic one to two evenings a week. Called MUSC CARES (Community Aid, Relief, Education, and Support), this student-run free clinic will provide additional care to the underserved patients in the area as well as provide additional clinical experience for students. “With the establishment of the student-run free medical clinic, I believe a symbiotic relationship will develop between health care providers and members of the community,” said Joni Strom, College of Medicine student. “Patients who choose MUSC CARES for their health care needs will experience an environment that is welcoming and safe, and will work with providers who are compassionate and have empathy for varying circumstances.” The 1,000 square foot of shelled space with a separate entrance will accommodate an office with four examination rooms, a waiting room, a small nurse’s station, and a business office. After ECCO donated the space for use by Family Medicine and MUSC CARES, a group of MUSC students began organizing their vision for the clinic through grant writing, doctor and student recruitment, medical supply donations, and medical record organization. “Equally important as helping to build the community are the skills that my colleagues and I will develop, in terms of providing health care, establishing free medical clinics in the future, and working within interdisciplinary teams,” Strom said. “We will become more confident in diagnoses, physical exams, and interpretation of lab values. We will have a greater appreciation for the skills of other providers of health care (i.e., dentist, pharmacists, therapists, etc.) and how we are all “connected” together. Finally, we will be able to develop future sites similar to MUSC CARES because of skills we will develop in networking, fundraising, grant writing, establishing medical records, advertising and marketing, and most importantly, recruiting faculty and student volunteers.” The non-profit organization is looking for volunteers from all disciplines to participate in the clinic, as well as pursuing an ongoing need for increased funding, medical supplies, and donations of time, money, and effort. ECCO currently provides a wide range of services to underserved populations in East Cooper and lower Berkeley County including social service and vocational counseling through DHEC, immigration legal services, a community medical screening program, a food pantry, and prescription assistance for patients in need. The College of Dental Medicine operates a free dental clinic twice a week in the facility and the College of Medicine offers diabetes education classes once a week in the facility. “As a faculty member, I have a strong interest in Service Learning. This teaching methodology is wonderful for adult learners. Classroom objectives are matched to service objectives and both the students and the community benefit. At the free clinic, students will learn early pre-clinical skills, and be able to integrate what they are learning in their basic science classes. They also develop leadership skills and office management. Before joining MUSC, I worked with medical students at the University of Kentucky to reorganize an existing clinic and this is the current model we’ll use at ECCO. It was wonderful to see students really “get” what they are being taught simply because they can apply their knowledge to real patients and real problems. At the same time, the community benefits. ECCO is the perfect place. Many services are offered there, and students will learn about those services that are offered in the community (usually something they don’t learn until residency). I learned about the organization, introduced the concept of the student clinic to the folks at ECCO and they were very willing to expand their services to include medicine. Afterward, William Hueston, M.D., Family Medicine chairman, learned about the space, and now we will have an outreach clinic in Mount Pleasant dedicated to primarily Medicaid folks. We’d like to have any primary care faculty help out with the student clinic, as well as residents who have their license. We hope the clinic will become multidisciplinary, including pharmacy and physical therapy, as well as the existing dental students who have their own clinic on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. We hope to have the ECCO outreach clinic up and running in July.
Friday, April 8, 2005
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