This week on March 22, I volunteered again at the clinic. I was put in touch with the community outreach department which needs help with spreading the word about the clinic and making the community aware of the fact that health care is available to them. This will be a very rewarding experience hopefully because I will be assisting other members of the department host classes about general health and prevention. Some classes will include giving information to women who are pregnant or prevention classes about sexually transmitted diseases.


I hope to see a new perspective of the community as we go out and spread the word of the new clinic. Many people are unaware of the health care opportunities and would love to have them. This again is an idea which is new to me because I have always had health care growing up and It is very humbling to be around those who weren't as fortunate as me. This new community outreach experience will hopefully be one which will become more aware of the reality of healthcare.

This week I helped out at the clinic by making patients feel more welcome in the lobby, answering general questions about what they needed to do to get care and I also promoted the grand opening of the clinic. The Legacy Clinic in the fifth ward on Lyons blvd just opened up and they are having a grand opening celebration. It was interesting to see how genuinely interested many people were for the clinic opening. The clinic will offer dental, eye care, maternity, pediatrics, and other general health care. I was surprised at how many people were excited for the clinic opening because they currently did not have any access to eye care or dental. It made me realize again how lucky I am to have these services in my life and now I will not take them for granted when I have to go to a dental appointment for a cleaning. One gentleman said he hadn't had his teeth looked at in many years and that he also needed glasses. I was glad I could help him by  letting him know of the grand opening celebration.


Overall the experience at the clinic was more fulfilling than I thought it would be and it really put things into perspective. I did not think that anyone would care about the grand opening party for the clinic because it seemed as if I was bugging the patients with fliers. But I soon realized that these people came from a different place than me and something as simple as a new clinic opening was a big difference to them.

Next time I am going to help out with the nurse in charge of immunizations and I hope that the experience will be as rewarding as the others.

Good experiences

So last week I met with Ashley on Friday and I helped plan the community grand opening which will occur on March 24th. It is a big grand opening for a clinic and will have lots of outdoor activities, barbecue, almost like a festival. It seems fun and I will be helping out at the grand opening. It should be a good experience to see the community coming together for the opening of a health care clinic which could help many peoples lives. I never realized that I always had healthcare access when I was younger and I cant imagine those who are actually troubled by access to treatment when they are sick or ill.


I also meet with Chris this week for some rotations in the clinic. Chris is the director of clinical administration. He gave me a good tour of the different places where I will be working and helping out in anyway I can. He said he would like to have me work in the different areas as I am needed. Some areas include the lab, pediatrics, helping out with computer processing at stations, and even just general greeting and helping patients feel more comfortable in the clinic, taking them back to the doctor, ect. I helped out for a few hours on Tuesday and it was fun. I talked to many patients and had a very interesting conversation with one woman and one man about their take on healthy diets. It is interesting that sometimes the difference between healthy eating and not is the knowledge. The woman was unaware of the implications of a very high sugar diet, and I had a good discussion with her about what my diet is and other examples of healthy diets. I even mentioned to her the fact that I will be making a brochure on some form of health advice. The conversation that I had with her made me realize that I would like to distribute information about healthy eating.


I am going back to help at the clinic this Thursday and look forward to helping out. People are very grateful for any kind of help I can offer and it feels good that I can put just a few hours of my day in to make a much bigger difference.