Nearly a dozen RPLP students helped found the mobile CATS clinic, which comes to Gateway Homeless Coalition once a week to provide services to the area’s unhoused population. The clinic took years of planning.
Bradley Firchow, a fourth-year medical student who helped create the program, said the students were inspired by the Salvation Army clinic in Lexington and by the ideas of a peer, but they conducted their own research and community outreach to ensure the clinic was meeting a need in Morehead.
“It really looked like doing a literature scan of what are the needs here in Morehead. But what are the needs, more broadly, of unhoused populations nationally and in Appalachia, and then also what are the needs of the Appalachian population,” said Firchow.
During nursing student Gracie Meade’s time working as a case manager at Gateway, she noticed a need for healthcare within the unhoused population.
“I had mentioned it a couple times. It should be easier for people to have access to healthcare, especially ones that need it, and there’s a very big need here at the shelter and in the surrounding areas. So, I had mentioned it a couple times, and then I think they reached out to us,” said Meade.
Meade spoke to Paul Semisch, Assistant Director of Gateway, about this need. When the RPLP students suggested bringing a free mobile clinic to the shelter, Semisch was quick to agree.
“The issue of homelessness is more complex than just not having a roof over your head. All the parts of your life that are difficult to get in order when you don’t have a roof over your head. Keeping a job, accessing medical care. Things like that that become challenging when you don’t have a place to call home. To have those services brought here on site seemed to me like something we’d been wanting for years,” said Semisch.
Those who choose to attend the clinic are triaged in the lobby of the shelter. They are then sent to the exam room--which is really an office where the students set up their portable exam bed--to wait.
After a brief discussion and any necessary research, a medical student enters the exam room to speak with the patient. This is the important part - students, patients, and physician mentors alike agree that the emotional support the clinic provides can be as valuable as medication.
Madison Meister, an aspiring pediatrician, said the relaxed environment of the clinic makes patients, especially children, feel more comfortable, and even allows them to have fun.
“Maybe their experiences with doctors in the past haven’t been the best, and this is a pretty low-stakes and low-stress environment, so I feel like they’re more open to talking with us, and like, letting them play with our stethoscope. We have the time and the resources to be able to do that here that other providers might not be able to. So, that’s really fun because you get to soak up the fun and the joy that sometimes gets lost in other places,” said Meister.
When patients present with issues the students cannot address, the clinic can refer them to a specialist. Gateway provides transportation to appointments made outside of the shelter.
Dr. Rebecca Todd, one of the clinic’s physician mentors, said patients receive prescription medication for free thanks to the Sisters of Notre Dame Foundation.
“Medications are obviously one of the more expensive things that patients will need, but the Sisters of Notre Dame have their foundation. So, if any of our patients need prescription medications we can fill them through the UK St. Claire pharmacy, and it’s covered by money the foundation puts up,” said Todd.
One of the program’s patients said having access to the mobile CATS clinic has helped her regulate her sleep schedule and gotten her young son up to date on his vaccinations.
“I don’t have the means to get to a doctor like normal people, you know what I mean? So, with them coming here, it takes one of the stressors out of it, which I think is amazing. So, I was excited when they said that there was a doctor here. I was like okay, I’ll take full advantage of that,” said the patient.
Putting in the face time with patients benefits the students as well. Marcum said her experiences at the clinic have been extremely rewarding, and knowing what it feels like to make a difference will be a major factor in the type of doctor she becomes.
“That makes a difference for them, too, just feeling like a physician is listening to them and listening to the problems that they’re having, but it makes a difference for us because, you know, we’re getting that experience, we’re getting to listen to them and make a difference, and all of that is going to play into the doctor that I want to be once I graduate,” said Marcum.
The program runs from seven to nine p.m. every Wednesday at Gateway.