(L-R): Amy Cantor, fourth-year medical student; Julie Wisdom-Wild, CEO of Alpha Home; Dr. Richard Usatine, faculty mentor and professor of family and community medicine
Printer Friendly Format

Two years ago this month, a dedicated group of medical students at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio made something wonderful happen. Under faculty supervision, they began a weekly clinic for women at the Alpha Home, a private, non-profit chemical dependency treatment center on Mulberry Avenue (with another location on Camden Street) that provides services geared to the unique needs of women recovering from substance abuse.

Today, women who might have ended up in hospital emergency rooms have received compassionate care from Health Science Center volunteers, an intervention that has played a key role in keeping women in the Alpha Home residential program and has even contributed to 38 babies being born drug-free. Recently, Alpha Home took time to honor all the volunteers, including the clinic founders, faculty mentor Richard Usatine, M.D., professor of family and community medicine at the Health Science Center, and Amy Cantor, a fourth-year medical student who has a Master of Public Health degree.

“The clinic’s impact has been amazing,” says Julie Wisdom-Wild, Alpha Home chief executive officer. “Most of our clients in residential treatment do not qualify for any kind of insurance. Their primary care had been at the University Hospital emergency room. For them to be in a room with volunteer physicians and medical students who listen to them, care, ask questions and follow up is an amazing experience. The first client who went into the clinic two years ago came out of the room crying. I asked what was wrong. She said, ‘I’ve never had a doctor listen to me before.’ For a woman who is trying to change her life, to be listened to and treated with respect gives her such a better chance of success in our treatment program and ultimate recovery.”

The Alpha Home residential program for women is 90 days. During that time, the women receive on-site compassionate and free health care every Monday evening. Under faculty supervision, the students provide a wide variety of primary care services, including diagnosis and treatment of infections, headaches, back pain, diabetes, hypertension and depression. Preventive care is provided to help women quit smoking and to get their much-needed Pap smears.

“Many of our clients come to us during pregnancy,” Wisdom-Wild says. “When we can have one baby born drug free, that saves the county and the state millions, and last year, we had 38 drug-free babies born. And the money is a small issue compared to the human suffering that is prevented.” Most of those pregnant ladies were seen in the student-run clinic, and many of them had ultrasound examinations performed by Dr. Usatine and the students. “All the pregnant women and students love to see the baby moving and the heart beating on the ultrasound,” Dr. Usatine says. “It is very rewarding to show the women their babies for the first time and help them connect to the new life growing within them. We believe that this experience in our clinic adds to their motivation to stay drug-free for the health of their unborn child.”

Wisdom-Wild calls Dr. Usatine, Cantor and all the dedicated volunteers “the biggest blessing Alpha Home has had in our 40-year history. We are the envy of every non-profit in San Antonio.”

Ripple effects
Health Science Center students and faculty, building on the success of the Alpha Home experience, have duplicated the student-run clinic model at the San Antonio Metropolitan (SAMM) Ministries Transitional Living and Learning Center for 40 homeless families. The many faculty members who have volunteered to supervise students in these clinics include Abraham Verghese, M.D., professor and director of the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics at the Health Science Center, and Jim Legler, M.D., professor of family and community medicine.

Cantor and Dr. Usatine have worked closely to start and run the clinics and the academic programs associated with the clinics. This year, they started a Humanism in Medicine longitudinal fourth-year elective in the School of Medicine to support and nourish the inherent altruism of students. This elective brings together students and faculty who have a passion for caring for the medically underserved.

Twenty-two students have taken a leadership role in directing the student-run clinics and developing new services for the patients being served. This is the third year that they have sponsored a noontime lecture-workshop series for first-year medical students interested
in volunteering in the clinics. Each session is typically attended by more than 100 students, even while competing with many other noontime activities.

“The partnership is a win-win-win situation,” Wisdom-Wild says. “Our clients win because they receive quality health care, the Alpha Home wins because we can keep the ladies in treatment longer, and the Health Science Center wins because the students are exposed to people who need them, and this exposure is on a different level than students get doing rounds in a hospital.”

How it all began
In 2003, Dr. Usatine spoke to a student meeting and began to inquire about students interested in starting a free clinic. Amy Cantor, then a second-year student, quickly emerged as a motivated and experienced leader, and the two got to work. In January 2005, the Alpha Home clinic began seeing patients every Saturday, giving women without access to health care a chance to be seen by a committed and concerned team and giving students the opportunity to begin seeing patients and learning skills as early as their first year in the School of Medicine.

A classmate of Cantor’s wrote, “The chance to meet patients ‘on their own turf’ has afforded me, as a second-year medical student, an amazing opportunity to recognize cultural, religious and socioeconomic issues that will not just make me a better doctor someday, but are making me a better person today. The physician-patient relationship is bolstered by the trust these women place in the students and doctors. Women who have been shunned for years by the health care system are finally receiving the attention and treatment they deserve, and students are encouraged by the inviting, appreciative and cooperative responses we receive. What Amy and Dr. Usatine have done for the lives of both the students and the patients at the Alpha Home will stay with us for a lifetime, but what has begun here will impact the relationship between the health care system and the uninsured forever.”

Contact: Will Sansom
Phone: (210) 567-2579
E-mail: Sansom@uthscsa.edu