In November of 2003, a group of medical students at the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine started a student-run evening at CommunityHealth, a free health clinic in Chicago. These students all shared a passion for helping the underserved and a desire to obtain early clinical contact during their first and second years of medical school. After much planning and organizing with the clinic’s staff and the 16 members of the steering committee, they were able to set up a clinic night at CommunityHealth that is entirely run by CCOM medical students with supervision from attending physicians. The clinic is located on Chicago’s West side and is available to anyone without health insurance. On a typical Thursday night at the clinic, students see 10-12 internal medicine patients and provide medical care, dispense free prescription medicine, and perform/order necessary laboratory studies. Last December, the student Steering Committee also started a very successful OMM specialty night that takes place twice a month.
Since the beginning of CCOM’s student-run night, a large majority of CCOM students have been to the clinic to see patients under the supervision of over 10 different physicians. The majority of the patients seen are coming to the clinic for health care maintenance visits, diabetes mellitus, and hypertension; though a wide range of internal medicine diagnoses have been made. The patient population is about 40% Latino, 40% Polish, and 20% other ethnicities.