I WAS IN the final year of my pulmonary critical care training as the pandemic kicked up. We would see whole families admitted to the ICU at the same time and most of those families would be from historically marginalized groups. The disparities weighed really heavily on a lot of us. And there was so much loss with the pandemic. I remember it put me in such a bad headspace and I was lamenting to my husband at the time. I was like, “I just can't get out of this funk.” And he said to me, "Yeah, but what are you doing about it?" Once I got out of my feelings, I was like, it’s probably not a bad question to ask.
I reached out to CommunityHealth, the largest volunteer-run free clinic in the country. It's been in existence since the ‘90s, and I volunteered there as a medical student. I remembered thinking how impressed I was by the way that they maintained dignity in a free clinic space and how they really centered on the patient. Their whole goal was to have patients see the same provider each time whenever possible. And then what they try to do as well is bring specialty care to the patients to whatever extent possible.
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