Once a month, Marshall Medical Outreach brings healthcare beyond the clinic walls, taking doctors, medical students and essential care directly to those in need at the Huntington City Mission, one fourth-year medical student said.
Will Snider, one of four student leaders of MMO, said regardless of the location, the care provided is top notch and consistently evolving.
“We turn an empty alleyway into a fully functioning clinic,” Snider said. “It’s almost like an assembly line where patients can go down and receive different types of care.”
Snider said the patient process begins at the intake tent, followed by blood pressure and glucose screenings and a medical history review to give healthcare workers a full picture of each patient.
Collaborations with the Marshall Physical Therapy School and the Marshall Psy.D. program have allowed psychology and PT services to be offered to patients as well, he said.
“We are constantly trying to grow and build on what we offer,” Snider said. “We collaborate with other organizations, like Ebenezer Medical Outreach, who donates supplies to underserved people.”
Another service recently added is sign-ups preventative screenings for breast and lung cancers with the Edward’s Comprehensive Cancer Center. Likewise, patients may also receive care at the oral health and optical health tents.
“With our oral health tents, we connect patients with local dentists to help them receive any needed care,” Snider said. “We also offer free fluoride varnish to help protect teeth from cavities.”
While MMO continues to evolve, Dr. Kate Steele, Marshall Health provider and MMO faculty supervisor, said MMO began in 2011 with just three medical students and a riverfront location.
“The goal has always been linking patients to primary care,” Steele said. “It’s evolved with more partners to be a hub for partnership to reach that shared goal.”
Additional partnerships include the Robert C. Byrd Center for Rural Health, the Marshall University School of Pharmacy, Harmony House, the Cabell-Huntington Health Department and the Bright Clinic, Steele said.
While Steele said she oversees the organization as a faculty member, the program is primarily student-led.
“The students take charge and lead each Saturday,” Steele said. “They also put in all the work leading up to Saturday to grow and diversify the medical care provided.”
In addition to Snider, MMO is led by fourth-year medical students Claire Soucier, Jake Peterson and Kara Piechowski.
“Our goal is to grow the program by adding additional options, more collaborations and any needed funding,” Snider said. “This year’s core team really wanted to push preventative care to take care of these health issues before they even happen.”
Along with offering preventative care, Snider said the group revamped its social media and marketing efforts to spread the word that free medical services are available to anyone in need.
“What we’ve learned is that even those experiencing homelessness will have access to Facebook or Instagram at some point,” Snider said, “so prioritizing social media in a way that people can learn how to receive the care they deserve has been a main focus.”
The MMO core team said they are also working to prepare third and second-year medical students to eventually lead the program themselves.
Smara Sigdel, second-year medical student, said her involvement with MMO has served as a reminder for the bigger picture of studying medicine.
“When you’re in lectures all day, it’s easy to forget that going into medicine is not for you,” Sigdel said. “It’s supposed to be a largely selfless field, and MMO puts that into practice.”
Primarily serving at the intake tent, Sigdel works with patients to fill out their basic information and primary concerns to be evaluated.
“MMO has allowed me to get some preemptive insight into how to communicate with people and be truly empathetic towards people of all walks of life,” she said.
In terms of retrospective on medicine, MMO provided Sigdel with a closer look at addressing patient care appropriately as well as specialties, like public health or family medicine.
“I think it’s easy to go into things with a general bias, but MMO shows how treating one individual may go hand in hand with treating issues that are affecting an entire community as a whole,” Sigdel said. “Disease does not discriminate, so we really just have to be as kind to one another as much as we can.”
For medical students involved, MMO creates a sense of community within their field of study and the chance to gain experience caring for diverse patients in a particularly hands-on fashion, she said.
“We get to help people that might otherwise be underserved in medicine,” Sigdel said. “It encourages people to avoid losing empathy for other people and to have respect for people that are often not receiving that.”
On average, MMO may treat up to 80 patients on a single Saturday throughout their 9 to 11:30 a.m. time slot, Snider said.
“Our patients are so grateful,” he said. “It’s important to us to be able to provide a high level of care to those who may not always receive it.”
Kaitlyn Fleming can be contacted at [email protected].
