The dirty white stucco and brick building at 2955 Farnam St. was beginning to look pretty shabby.
Jennifer Brown, M.D., ambulatory chief resident and Turner Park Health Center medical director, was stumped to find a way to spruce up the clinic.
Then Dr. Brown had an idea: if the internal medicine residents at the clinic provided the labor maybe the building’s owner would provide the paint.
The landlord, who also owns the Godfather’s Pizza next door, agreed. “It worked out pretty well,” Dr. Brown said.
On Oct. 5, Dr. Brown along with 14 other residents, three staff physicians and two nurses from the clinic spent all day painting the exterior of the building, making small repairs and cleaning up the surrounding property.
“Everyone brought their own ladders and roller brushes,” Dr. Brown said. “So we were able to keep the cost down that way, too.”
They hope to finish the job Saturday, (Oct. 11) she said.
Even though the colors, a terra cotta brown and mustard yellow trim, aren’t the top choice among the residents, the new paint has made a difference. “Once we started painting it, we began to realize the building looked worse than we thought,” Dr. Brown said.
Patients also have commented on how much nicer the building and grounds look.
“We serve a very diverse and needy population,” said Tom Tape, M.D., vice chairman of primary care for the department of medicine at UNMC and one of the three staff physicians who helped paint. “We didn’t want patients to feel like they were getting second class care, because they are in a second class-looking building.”
Besides making the building more appealing for patients, Dr. Brown said the project also was a way to give the residents who work at the clinic a sense of ownership in the practice.
The Turner Park clinic is truly unique, Dr. Tape said. It is operated by the residents who work there as a way to give them the experience of running a practice. In July, the job of clinic medical director was turned over to the ambulatory chief resident, Dr. Brown.
After taking the position, Dr. Brown immediately formed a board of directors made up of one resident from each of the 10 clinic sessions, Dr. Tape said. One of the first actions of the new board: re-paint the building.
“The residents really take pride in the practice,” said Kathy Morgan, a nurse manager who helped with the project. They also have come to understand the cost of running a practice and will often do small repairs themselves, she said. “The money is just not there, so you make choices and when you want to fix something, sometimes you have to pitch in yourself.”
Said Morgan: “We also want to show that we take pride in this community.”