1. Zachary Thorgrimson
Volunteer at Rotocare clinic
Clinic Manager: Loretta Edwards: loretta.edwards@comcast.com

5.5 hours

2. Rotocare Clinic in Lake City provides free healthcare to those without health insurance. This clinic supports many of the underprivileged and homeless populations who cannot afford the bills of a primary care office. At the free clinic, some medicines are given away as available, or are prescribed at a substantially lower cost than otherwise available.

  

3. I volunteer as a registrar. I am the first person that the patients see at the clinic, so I check them in and prepare the patients record for the nursing staff and doctors. Then after the visit, I record the patient reason for visit and file the record into the cabinet.

4. Medicine is the epitome of socialized science. In this field, the application of science is felt directly on the person. The study of the human body and the psycho-social aspects of the human mind are intermingled so that biology really becomes interdisciplinary.

I work in an emergency room. Most often this means that I can deal with the crucial and life-threatening situations that strike with little to no warning. However, there are a few times these situations do not make up the primary populations of the ER. Sometimes people do use the emergency department as a modified urgent care, and expect the emergency department to work as a quick fix for a chronic problem. Volunteering at this free clinic gave me a new insight to the people who want to be seen by a medical professional and are willing to try and make a change in their lives. By volunteering maybe even just once it can give you a view into someone else’s live that you had not experienced before. I would like to keep this interaction in my memory at work, and realize that some people aren’t just looking for a quick fix and are actively trying to make a change in their circumstances, but don’t have the resources to do that just yet.

In this clinic, it was very important to understand medical terminology and anatomy. Some of the patients need x-rays read by a primary care physician and transposing those physician’s notes to a clinical program meant that I needed to understand what the results and physician’s interpretations were. When the doctor states in their record that a patient exhibits increased pain with supination or with plantar flexion, it is critical to understand what that means and to make the necessary remarks in the patient’s chart.

5. With the recent changes in health care coverage (ACA) will there still be a place for volunteer clinics that give healthcare coverage to the uninsured?

Even with the ACA in place, are people still forced to visit these free clinics because they cannot afford even the lowest healthcare costs?

In my career path as a PA-C how will I be able to apply my skills as a medical practitioner volunteering?

How will this volunteer opportunity affect my preferred career going into primary care?