Free CARE Clinic

Today I volunteered at a free clinic in Atlanta. We had 1100 volunteers ranging from non medical all the way through doctors. 1700 patients scheduled to be seen and walk ins welcome. I was so excited to be able to be a part of such amazing day and was thanked numerous times from patients. The patients were seen for free and we wrote scripts off the $4 dollar list and free antibiotics from Publix. (thats right some ABX are free). As a student I was not expecting to do a whole lot as I am not a licensed professional YET. BUT insert Director of Mercer University and that means PA students see patients and report. I was with Mr. Schwarz (director) along with my classmate Mali. We were equally excited to be spending the day with the intimidating schwarz. We saw the first patient together. We walked in to this overweight man whose chief complaint was out of BP meds, swelling in legs and hernia. The man lifted up his shirt to reveal a basketball size hernia on his stomach with a lemon size umbilical hernia on top. He informed us that no one would fix it for him. I have never seen anything like this and obviously we could not fix the problem. He also had horrible swelling from his toes to his knees. And an irregular heart rate and after the EKG that was irregular we became concerned. He needed to be on coumadin and followed up with a cardiologists. I just hope he does as he is at risk of kicking clots to his brain.
Patient 2 I took on alone and she just had allergies with asthma exacerbation. My 3rd patient presented with chest pain and leg swelling. I was happy to find out she was 28 and her chest pain was actual epigastric pain. I treated her on my own and decided to treat her for the ulcer based on her symptoms as a scope was not feasible. Her mom was really happy I was helping her daughter and she made my day. Our last patient had high blood pressure and needed some medications. Another girl in the class saw and HIV positive patient on no medications presenting with a weird rash. It was Karposi sarcoma which I have never seen.

This is the first of many free clinics I plan to attend. I feel like God gave me this gift and I will use it to help those who need it.