Student sees health care need, finds way to fill it

HELPING HAND: Brown pre-med student Garret Johnson, left, speaks with a nurse at Rhode Island Hospital, where he is volunteering in the hospital's intake center. / PBN PHOTO/FRANK MULLIN
HELPING HAND: Brown pre-med student Garret Johnson, left, speaks with a nurse at Rhode Island Hospital, where he is volunteering in the hospital's intake center. / PBN PHOTO/FRANK MULLIN

When 19-year-old Brown University pre-med student Garret Johnson was scrubbing greasy floors at a restaurant in Massachusetts last summer, he realized two things.
He discovered that despite his initial reluctance to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor, it had to be better than scrubbing floors.
With that decision set, Johnson began to notice that most of his co-workers, who were predominately recent immigrants, were uneducated about some health issues and lacked access to health providers.
“I would talk to them sometimes, and a lot of them didn’t understand what blood pressure was,” Johnson said.
After perusing the computer and looking at stats on how prevalent diabetes and high blood pressure are in the Hispanic community, Johnson decided to take action.
Johnson is leading an effort to get undergraduates, mainly pre-med students, out in the field to get hands-on training doing health screening, while providing a badly needed service to an underserved demographic in Providence. And he wants his program to grow and expand to other universities.
Johnson put out a call for applicants and 132 Brown undergraduates responded. Thirty were initially chosen but now that number has dropped to 28. Then Johnson reached out to see how his group of volunteers could legally help the community.
That’s when he came across Clinica Esperanza/Hope Clinic, a free clinic co-founded by Dr. Anne De Groot, at 60 Valley St., Olneyville. The clinic provides basic health care screenings for things such as high blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol, as well as doctor referrals if necessary.
The clinic has 32 health care professionals, including physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, pharmacists and medical/nursing students. It was founded in August 2007 by a group of medical volunteers based in Providence who initially performed their services for the Rhode Island Free Clinic in South Providence.
In November 2009, a temporary clinic opened at the AIDS Care Ocean State office, 557 Broad St., Providence. In May 2010, Clinica Esperanza opened its permanent facility on Valley Street. Today, Clinica Esperanza is thriving, scheduling appointments two to three weeks out, serving 1,200 patients and filling a need that largely had been unmet, De Groot said. Co-director for the Institute for Immunology & Informatics at University of Rhode Island, as well as the co-founder and CEO of Epivax Inc., De Groot said she was thrilled when approached by Johnson and his group.
“He is extending the reach by having more people available,” De Groot said. “We’re always happy to have an expanding reach, and we’re always happy to have volunteers.” In the past, the clinic had had medical students offering their time, but no undergraduates.
The Brown University undergraduates will operate semi-autonomously, working primarily at another location, Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, 15 Hayes St., in downtown Providence. Clinica Esperanza will supply medical supervision, along with training for the students.
They will provide the same types of basic health care screenings that the clinic does, but translating the test results will be left up to the doctors at the clinic or other health officials there, De Groot said.
“What [they are] going to be doing is what kids who are undergraduates are perfectly suited to do,” she said.
For Johnson, whose father is the medical director of a Massachusetts senior living center and whose mother is a nurse practitioner, his entrepreneurial health care path is a natural.
“I initially rebelled like in 10th or 11th grade,” he said. But now comfortable as a pre-med student, Johnson volunteers at Rhode Island Hospital, where he walks patients around or gets blankets.
There are student groups throughout the country that provide hospitals with volunteers, but most are already in medical school, he said. Johnson said his hope would be that his program for undergrads – still unnamed – catches on to other universities across the country.
This won’t be Johnson’s last venture in health care services. After all, he said, “it’s in my blood.” &#8226

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