 |
| At a ceremony in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday (May 1), U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (right) congratulates organizers of the Fleur de Vie clinic, left to right, medical students Ben Rieff and Meaghan Combs; Eboni Price, medical director; and medical students John Gonsoulin and Sara King. (Photo by Juan Carlos Briceno) |
|
The Fleur de Vie clinic, Tulane University School of Medicine's first free community healthcare clinic founded, organized and operated by students, has been recognized nationally. Operating jointly with the Tulane University Community Health Center at Covenant House, the free clinic delivers primary and preventive medical care to uninsured and underserved adults in New Orleans.
The Fleur de Vie clinic received a Johnson & Johnson Community Health Care Leadership Award for Hurricane Katrina disaster recovery efforts in New Orleans at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday (May 1).
At the Fleur de Vie clinic in downtown New Orleans, medical, public health and social work students work with attending and resident doctors to provide primary care, social work, mental health, diabetes counseling and Spanish translation at no cost to underserved patients.
Through a combination of grant funding and support resources, the Johnson & Johnson Community Health Care Program aids outstanding community-based organizations that assist medically underserved populations.
The creation of the Fleur de Vie clinic is a response to the decrease of available, affordable health care in the region due to Katrina. Several Tulane medical students, who were relocated to Houston for the academic year after the hurricane, decided they wanted to find additional ways to service the healthcare needs of the New Orleans community, says Ben Rieff, co-coordinator of the clinic with Sara King.
They began structuring a program that offered a mutually beneficial relationship between the underserved population in New Orleans and Tulane medical students. Rieff says the medical students came up with the name Fleur de Vie -- a play on fleur de lis, the eternal symbol of New Orleans -- while in Houston. Vie means "life" in French.
The core group of about a dozen medical students partner with another post-Katrina-created clinic, Tulane University Community Health Center at Covenant House, to offer free medical care to those in need. The Covenant House clinic provides its facilities and supplies for the Fleur de Vie clinic, which is open on the first Saturday of every month.
"Fleur de Vie presents an opportunity for our students to expand their skills, while simultaneously fostering cooperation between future healthcare professionals," says Eboni G. Price, assistant professor of medicine and medical director. "Many of the medical students who work at the Fleur de Vie clinic were displaced from their homes after Hurricane Katrina ravished New Orleans. Some lost their homes and belongings and had to continue their studies at another medical school. Despite this, they wanted to give to the community and work toward rebuilding a better health system."
Physicians on the Tulane faculty volunteer as preceptors for the student-run clinic. Tulane medical students receive required service-hour credits for their "Foundations in Medicine" course, fulfilling the clinic's dual mission of patient care and medical education. Student teams, with third- and fourth-year students mentoring students in the first two years of medical school, are involved with all aspects of clinic operations.
Fleur de Vie also provides services onboard a mobile health unit in collaboration with St. Anna's Episcopal Church.
In partnership with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Community Health Care Program -- which is fully underwritten by Johnson & Johnson -- has awarded funding to nearly 150 pioneering organizations in 34 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico throughout its 20-year history. These organizations are recognized for their distinctive programs, offering innovative solutions to complicated healthcare challenges.
