UConn students are preparing to volunteer and provide free medical, dental, and vision care to approximately 300 people on March 2 and 3.
The Medical Clinic Club is partnering with Remote Area Medical (RAM), a registered non-profit organization, to host two clinic days at Windham Middle School.
This plan was proposed by junior physiology and neurobiology major Brooke Divasto. Divasto is the Community Host Group Lead for this project and came up with the idea through a personal experience within her family.
While in high school, “I [Brooke] had a family member who had a medical concern and got dismissed for five years until they ended up requiring an emergency hospital visit in which they were left with an absurd bill which truly exposed me to the issues within our healthcare system,” said Divasto. “After meeting with two of the clinic coordinators they were willing to come host a clinic in CT as long as we attended one ourselves, so myself and the three other UConn students helping to plan this event, went to a clinic in Pennsylvania in April of 2023 and started planning it.”
Students Sarah Courtney, Stephan Desir, and Caelyn Hoffman joined Divasto and organized this program, starting with securing their location, Windham Middle School.
The club purposely secured their location in Windham because, “Community Outreach has many community partners there that we are able to connect with and in talking with the superintendent about the idea they thought that the community would really benefit from the event,” said Divasto. “There was a clinic in the area that offered medical and dental care in the past that had a good turnout and received positive feedback from attendees, and we wanted to be able to build off of that by adding in vision care, help with follow up care and resource connections.”
They also connected with Access Agency, another non-profit organization, to serve as their fiduciary for this event. Additionally, the club has been recruiting multiple healthcare providers for the event, general support providers, local restaurants for food donations, transportation arrangements for UConn student volunteers and full funding for the clinic.
Divasto is hopeful to create a memorable experience and expose student volunteers to the barriers people face when attempting to gain access to healthcare. She wants these students to leave this experience with an understanding that having access to healthcare isn’t universal but there are resources, such as RAM, to combat this.
With the clinic days rapidly arriving, the clinic has been asking for student volunteers. There are many positions that The Medical Clinic Club are looking for to allow this event to run smoothly. If you are interested you can connect with them at: uconnmedicalclinicclub@gmail.com.