While other college students spend their summers relaxing and taking a break from school, Carsen Shumaker spent time working as an intern at a mobile clinic. Shumaker is a first-year Master of Public Health student at Brown University studying maternal and child health. Her work on the mobile clinic which deepened her understanding and awareness of the importance of community health led her to pursue a career in public health.
Mobil clinics are part of a new wave of healthcare accessibility. Public health specialists found a large issue with access to public health was the barrier to getting to a healthcare facility. The idea behind mobile clinics is that these vans can be parked in a central location that is easy for residents to access. Here in Rhode Island CCAP has a (few) mobile health clinics that are parked locally. Here at Wheelhouse, we love working with the mobile clinics as they align with our mission of helping people afford and access their healthcare.
When asking Shumaker about her job at the Mobile clinic she explained that she worked as both a care and administrative assistant. She spent time doing paperwork in checking patients in, but also administered Health screenings, cholesterol and blood sugar tests, took blood pressure, and administered MOCHA tests. This allowed her to see the varied perspectives in healthcare. In the summer of 2022, Shumaker attended a Mobile Clinic Conference in Pittsburgh where people from all sects of Mobil attended. This included administrations, nurses, and even those who created the cabs exemplifying the collective effort that is involved in running a Mobile clinic. Shumaker explained how the conversations at this conference widened her understanding of the importance of this intervention for health equity expansion.
Mobile clinics are set up to serve whoever needs care in the community. “The primary target was anybody walking by,” Shumaker explained, “There were everyday people, police officers, and even hospital employees.” Mobile clinics are so successful because they cater to anybody who is in need of care at the time. Shumaker explained that the most impactful patient they had was a student in residency at the hospital. She expressed “It opened my eyes to how the healthcare system functions if somebody who worked at the hospital came here for care. In a place where there is such a lack of access to healthcare, a mobile clinic is life-changing.”
Mobile clinics, as explained by Carsen Shumaker, help to tackle the issue of physical barriers to getting to healthcare. She illustrated how they hold the same value in the dichotomous urban and rural settings where the barriers to access may be different, but still present. Shumaker shared how the delivery of healthcare in mobile clinics also breaks down a barrier. “It can be more comfortable for people to receive healthcare from those who they interact with every day” she explains, “mobile clinics allow health to be the community run by those who are central to and understand the community personally”. This in itself is such a huge positive to mobile clinics because it allows people to feel comfortable and trust their healthcare.
Carsen shared that she would like to one day work in an administrative role in healthcare-something her work with the mobile clinic has helped prepare her for this. She is passionate about improving healthcare access and hopes to work in a space where she can do this. Carsen'
s work with the mobile clinic and as a student at BSPH is greatly appreciated by the community!
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