For homeless Austinites, affordable health care is hard to find. UT med students want to help.

From KUT News:

A handful of medical school students gather in the back room of a small building inside the Esperanza Community in Southeast Austin on a Sunday in December. Hunched over laptops, they prepare for the afternoon’s patients at the C.D. Doyle Clinic, a once-a-week enterprise to treat patients who are homeless or uninsured.

Running the show is Sahana Prabhu, who serves as the clinic’s co-CEO while keeping up with the normal responsibilities of being a fourth-year student at Dell Medical School.

“I was really drawn to the mission of providing care to the underserved population, regardless of their background or insurance status,” Prahbu said.

The student-operated clinic is run out of Esperanza’s community center, behind rows and rows of small, candy-colored shelters that serve as transitional housing for people trying to get back on their feet.

Lack of insurance and high out-of-pocket costs can be significant barriers for people experiencing homelessness or in the process of establishing stable housing. But for several hours each Sunday afternoon, C.D. Doyle opens to provide free health services that are just a short walk away for residents of Esperanza, who make up the majority of the clinic’s patients.

One community resident, R-Sya Chen, said he visits the clinic weekly to have his vitals checked and occasionally ask for a refill on a cream to treat a skin condition.

“My blood pressure is high because I’m worried and depressed,” Chen joked after an undergraduate volunteer checked his blood pressure. “Otherwise I’m OK. I’m 68 years old, so I’ll have some trouble. It’s reasonable.”

C.D. Doyle patients most often come in to seek treatment for acute concerns, like respiratory issues, skin infections or abscesses. Others may need a prescription filled on short notice.

That was the case for another Esperanza Community member, Warren Senegal. Because he’s being treated for cancer and has a complex prescription regimen, Senegal usually relies on his oncologist and neurologist to manage his medications. But in this case, he needed a prescription filled in a pinch.

“Normally, I don’t have to come to do that, but since my doctor’s appointment is beyond my medication date, I had to come in and get it bridged,” he said.

When patients like Chen and Senegal first enter the clinic, a student volunteer begins their appointment by collecting a patient history and conducting an initial physical or mental assessment. That volunteer might be a Dell Med student like Prabhu, a pre-med undergraduate from UT Austin or a psychiatric nurse practitioner student at UT. They will present a proposed treatment plan to the doctor on duty, a licensed physician who has the final say on any treatment decisions.

Dr. Matthew Hubley, an assistant professor in Dell Med’s Department of Internal Medicine, is the faculty adviser for the CD Doyle Clinic. He also sometimes serves as the attending physician.

“When you give medical – particularly motivated and altruistic – medical students and undergraduate students the opportunity, the time and the resources to give back, they can really do that,” he said.

The clinic staff’s goal is not just to treat the acute complaints patients bring to the clinic, but in many cases also to connect them to long-term, consistent health care. Sometimes this means referring patients to CommUnityCare, a local chain of health clinics that serves low-income residents and brings a mobile clinic to the Esperanza Community every other Monday. Case managers from The Other Ones Foundation – the organization behind the Esperanza Community – help facilitate this transition for patients.

Prabhu said doing this kind of cross-clinic coordination and collaborating with students of pharmacy, nursing and other disciplines has made her better prepared to continue her medical career after graduating from Dell Med. She plans to pursue a residency in psychiatry after graduation.

“I think that’s what keeps me coming back to the clinic,” she said, “learning a bit more about how our clinic fits into the larger realm of services caring for people experiencing homelessness.”

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