Good Samaritan Free Health Center

Parth Patel, Summer 2019

Working at the Good Samaritan Free Health Center involves doing a lot of activities, usually in terms of front desk tasks but also ranging from helping on a few physical exams, scribing for physicians, and even bagging vegetables with the nutritionist. I got an eclectic serving of what all the employees do at the GSFHC, and I really am happy I got to work there. The staff are immensely helpful, and they make you feel at home. They are very knowledgeable on all sorts of clinical applications and just how a clinic operates, and I'm not sure I'll see another clinic as well operated as this one. I even had a mental health project, from which important information was elicited to find out more about the mental health patients of GSFHC (and some of the data will be used when applying for grants). We found that our entire patient pool had a smaller proportion of psychiatric ER visits (out of total ER visits) compared to the national average. We also found that GSFHC patients who see a mental health professional at the clinic have a lower ER visit rate per 100 persons compared to the national patient pool (includes those who do not see a mental health professional). Finally, Spanish-speaking mental health patients of GSFHC have a higher proportion of PTSD compared to the national prevalence of PTSD. Another large task I had was having over 2,000 encounters with patients (in the form of letters and to a lesser degree phone calls/voicemail messages), and these letters were to inform them to either call and schedule an appointment with a new PCP as the old one graduated or to just come in and be seen since they have not been in the office in a long time. Working in this clinic also made me realize how inaccessible healthcare is with just how expensive it all is. I'm not sure how or why it has come to this point, but it seems like sooner or later nobody will be able to afford healthcare. It's up to us to lobby for more affordable healthcare because nobody should be barred from receiving the care that they need. I could not imagine having an illness and thinking that I will have to live with that for the rest of my life. I'm privileged enough to where I can access healthcare, but it seems like the common citizen does not have access. It should be a right, and I'm grateful I got to work in an environment that believes the in the same idea.

Download Parth's poster (.pptx)