Catholic Charities of Pittsburgh Free Healthcare Clinic

The Catholic Charities of Pittsburgh Free Healthcare Clinic has been a wonderful and positive experience so far. The building, located directly downtown, has a great operating system run by mostly all volunteers. There is an eligibility office on the 6^th floor for members looking to join the services offered and then the dental and medical rooms are on the 3^rd floor. I continue to be amazed at the services that are provided by the Catholic Charities Clinic all free of cost to the patient. Specialties offered include ophthalmology, endocrinology, cardiology, dermatology, gynecology, urology, physical therapy, and much more. The volunteers here bend over backwards using these services to make sure these patients are cared for and taken care of free of charge. Labs such as blood draws are free through Quest laboratory. Even every effort is made to get free/cheap prescriptions from the Giant Eagle Pharmacy’s $4 and $10 dollar program. I have yet to work with the dental aspect but I know they offer cleanings, exams and x-rays, extractions, fillings, root canals, and some oral surgeries.  

            The clinic here is open roughly 9am to 4pm Monday through Friday. Every first and third Monday the clinic provides evening hours for the patients who work and cannot get time off from 5pm to 9pm. Tracy and I arrive to the clinic in between 8am and 830am to turn on lights and get organized for the day including printing off patient schedules for each doctor. When patients arrive the front office, again staffed of all volunteers, will mark the patients here in the computer and one of the RNs, Tracy, or myself will call the patient back to one of the 4 medical exam rooms we have. There we will get a height, weight, past medical history, and their chief complaint. We then will go to the pharmacy which is composed of a Duquesne clinical instructor and 3 students going through their 6 week rotation here at the clinic and tell them about the patient we just took back. Pharmacy then will go back and meet with the patient to reconcile their medication list and answer any questions they might have pertaining to their medication. While pharmacy is back with the patient the RN will then go report to the doctor who will see the patient once pharmacy is done.

Patient visits are scheduled for at least 30 minutes sometimes even an hour so a lot of teaching can be done. Our capstone project involves exactly that, teaching and implementing an intervention that RNs can easily use to improve knowledge of patients. The biggest problem that Tracy and I have seen at the clinic is obesity. BMIs are in the 30s and 40s. Patients are just uneducated on the correct diet and lifestyle changes that are needed to live a healthy life and get back down to a healthier weight. We plan that by using an intervention that is approved by RNs at the clinic we will increase patients’ knowledge of healthy lifestyle choices.  We will evaluate effectiveness of our teaching with a pre and post test.

To this point my experiences have been wonderful. I continue to learn from the doctors and RNs who volunteer their time and services to make sure the underserved population around Pittsburgh receives healthcare. The patients are so thankful to everyone who gives their time to the clinic. The patient population is great to work with because they are willing to listen and really listen to what you are telling them about their health. We at the clinic are these patients’ primary healthcare facility and I am proud to be part of it. Even after I graduate I hope to be able to donate some of my time to organizations like the Catholic Charities of Pittsburgh Free Healthcare Clinic.