Friendship Clinic

This morning, I volunteered with The "Friendship Clinic." This is a student-run clinic for underserved groups in the Lansing area. Most of the patients that are seen have either Medicare, Medicaid, Ingham County Health Care, or are uninsured. The clinic also receives a large homeless population. I have been thinking about volunteering for a while and was excited to get going!

I arrived to the clinic at 7:30 AM. I was given a tour of the clinic, which was actually a lot nicer than I had imaged it to be! We then began seeing patients. I was given the option of seeing a patient alone (which I was totally not ready for) or seeing a patient with a second year student. I obviously opted for the latter. So, a second year medical student and I went in to see my patient. We helped her complete all of the necessary forms, took a full medical history and family history and gave the patient a full physical. [First time I have ever heard bowel sounds...cool!] After seeing the patient, we went to present to a physician. The physician was fabulous! He not only had a great passion  for his job as a doctor, but also really wanted us students to learn. I had never presented to a physician before, so after the second year and I stumbled through it, he went through exactly how it should sound. He then had us bring in some lab work forms and scripts. I was expecting him to fill them out and give them back to see our patient, but to my surprise, he had us write them! Thats right, I wrote my first script today! It was pretty awesome! Definitely felt like a real doctor for a second! After the patient left, we completed all of the paperwork...which is a lot. I also wrote my first SOAP note, which is a document that includes: Subjective info (what the patient describes, old lab tests, etc), Objective info (things you find in a physical exam), Assessment (what diagnoses we have come up with) and Plan (what treatments and referrals we have given the patient). I know it sounds silly that I was excited about paperwork--scrips and soap notes--and that when I get farther along in this career path, I will dread doing it, but for now I am excited about doing all of these little aspects of a doctor's job.

It really was a great morning! I had such a positive experience with the Friendship Clinic and definitely will be back in the future! :)