Week 2

Sara Johnston

17 February 2007

MIDS 201

Journal Entry #2

I did finally get to start my service-learning this week at the Joplin Community Clinic. On Tuesday I arrived at 1. The first thing that surprised me when I walked in was that there was no one in the waiting room. Because all I ever hear about the Community Clinic is their desperate need for volunteers and supplies, I figured it would be packed all of the time. I learned that this was due to the fact that they do not have doctors in every day at all hours- they have different clinics on different days.

I did not even get a tour of the facility like I expected- the volunteer coordinator showed me where to hang my coat and where to sign in and out. She then gave me the task of stuffing envelopes with the Clinic newsletter. I did not mind this at all, even when I then had to address a few dozen and then lick them all. I was then shown the filing system. I pulled a few charts from a list of people I was given. I wrote down the patient’s name, city and county, and whether or not they had Medicaid.

When I left at 4, the waiting room was full of people there for their medicine refills, which is also something that is only done at a certain time a certain number of times a month. This tight scheduling of services indicates to me that if someone is serious about receiving care from the Community Clinic, he/she must be careful to know when the clinic offers the services he/she needs, and that the Clinic will be offering prescription refills before he/she runs out.

On Thursday I arrived at the Clinic at 4. Thursdays are the adult clinic days, so they are the busiest days of the week, when there is the most to do and the clinic is open the latest. One of the doctors that my mom works for, Dr. Anthony Arvelos, volunteers on those days, and I had already arranged with him that I could be his shadow on those days. When I first got to the Clinic, I did not see him because he was already with a patient, so I pulled all the charts of the people who were coming in the next day for the dental clinic. I then was able to see a few patients with Dr. A. Two out of the three patients had borderline diabetes. The third one was a man who Dr. A was not seeing officially; when Dr. A walked past the room he was in and saw him, he stopped to talk to him. The patient was an example of what people often think of as the stereotypical person who would need to use the Clinic’s free services: he was a ragged man, with missing front teeth, no car, and more things wrong with him than can be counted. He was there to see the dermatologist about a skin rash; an R.N. about his high cholesterol, blood pressure, and a giant lump on his elbow from where his arm had already been broken and then was fallen on. It was pretty amazing that Dr. A remembered everything about this patient’s history and was willing to help him.

When Dr. A was done with his patients, he talked to me a little. He told me that most of the people there were good people who knew that the Clinic was their last place to receive healthcare, and that they would do whatever they were supposed to to keep those very needed services.