The clinic, located in the South Omaha Neighborhood Association building at 5211 S. 31st St., is the first UNMC clinic to be run by students. It extends and complements the services offered through Family Health Care Center, an existing clinic run by the UNMC College of Nursing. The students running the clinic have coined the acronym of SHARING (Student Health Alliance Reaching Indigent Needy Groups). The group includes medical students and nurse practitioner students.
The medical students will be primarily second year students along with a few first and third year students. The nurse practitioner students all have their undergraduate nursing degrees and are working toward their master’s degrees. All the students will be supervised closely by physicians from UNMC’s family medicine department and nurse practitioner faculty from the UNMC College of Nursing.
The clinic will run from 6 to 8:30 p.m. every Tuesday, beginning Sept. 9. Appointments can be made by calling 595-3142.
Uninsured patients will be charged a flat fee of $5 per visit. The students will receive no payment for their services, but they would accept donations to help defray some of their out-of-pocket expenses for such things as office supplies and laboratory expenses.
The students will be able to provide a complete line of health-care services for children and adults. Services will include physical exams, acute care, well visits and routine lab tests such as pregnancy testing, strep testing and urinalysis testing. Any laboratory tests done at the clinic by students will be under the supervision of trained laboratory personnel.
“We’re really proud of the students for taking on this major undertaking,” said Paul Paulman, M.D., associate professor in UNMC’s family medicine department and one of the physicians who will be supervising the students. “Going to medical school or nursing school is a monumental task in its own right, and running this clinic just puts another thing on the students’ already full plates.
“The clinic will give them exposure to a diverse group of patients, and this can only help them in their development as health professionals. The experience they will gain will be invaluable, and it should provide quality health care to people most in need. There’s no substitute for on-the-job experience, regardless of what you’re doing. We know the book knowledge the students gain is absolutely vital, but the clinical experience they gain truly makes the book knowledge come alive. There’s nothing like it.”
Medical students traditionally have done nearly all their clinical training in their third and fourth years, while doing exclusively classroom and laboratory work during their first two years. UNMC’s College of Medicine modified its curriculum several years ago, however, to provide students with more opportunities to perform clinical work during the first two years.
The UNMC College of Nursing has been providing nurse practitioner education since 1992 and has provided primary care services to the underserved in South Omaha since 1993.
“The special opportunity that a clinic of this nature provides is for interdisciplinary learning,” said Catherine Todero, Ph.D., associate dean of the UNMC College of Nursing and one of the nurse administrators of the clinic. “Students in medicine and nursing will learn together the contributions each discipline makes to the care of patients who are vulnerable and complex in their health care needs. Opportunities for team learning are essential for health care practitioners of the future.”
During the course of the year, it’s anticipated that most second-year medical students as well as most family nurse practitioner students and undergraduate nursing students will spend some time at the South Omaha clinic.
The students hope to make the clinic an on-going project for future UNMC students. In addition to medical and nursing students, they hope to include pharmacy, physical therapy and physician assistant students in the future.
UNMC is the only public academic health science center in the state. Through its commitment to research, education and patient care, UNMC has established itself as one of the country’s leading centers for cancer research and treatment and solid organ transplantation. Nearly $25 million in research grants and contracts are awarded to UNMC scientists annually. In addition, UNMC’s educational programs are responsible for training more health professionals practicing in Nebraska than any other institution.