HOYA Clinic Presence Grows at Society of Student Run Free Clinics Conference

Posted in GUMC Stories

March 18, 2016 — The first time HOYA Clinic student volunteers presented at the Society of Student Run Free Clinics (SSRFC) Conference in 2013, they presented one poster. At the most recent conference, six students presented posters. 

Second year School of Medicine students and past HOYA Clinic coordinators Cassandra Baker, Amanda Cain, George E. Koch, Elizabeth Moroni, John Penner and Annie Schied all gave poster presentations at the SSRFC Conference in Phoenix last month. The presentation topics ranged from students’ motivations for volunteering at the clinic to a program that increased the number of patients that completed all three installments of the HPV vaccination.

SSRFC was born out of a Society of Teachers of Family Medicine conference in 2009, when a group of University of Nebraska students held a meeting for the leaders of student run free clinics. Founded in 2010, the SSRFC aims to increase communication to foster the sharing of ideas, to collaborate on research, to provide funding resources and to expand the existing scope of student run free clinics, as well as cultivate the growth of new ones.

“It was a really great experience for us as HOYA coordinators to go and see what’s out there in medical schools, but also in an interdisciplinary sense. There were pharmacy schools, there were dental schools and there were physical therapy schools,” Schied said.

At the conference, students from other institutions presented several innovative ideas that inspired the Georgetown delegation. Schied cited a clinic that created a mobile app for physician referrals, so that both the clinic and patients could track the process more easily. Another clinic developed a smoking cessation program and those coordinators encouraged current HOYA leaders to replicate it. One clinic had even figured out how to get all their lab results run for free.

Schied felt that the HOYA Clinic leadership taught as much as they learned at the conference.

“There was this resounding sentiment that, wow, HOYA is really impressive and we are really lucky to have the infrastructure that we do and have such an established clinic,” she said. “In my heart, what I took away is that we need to share more with this conference, so next year I hope the HOYA coordinators will apply for an oral presentation.”

In addition to the presentations on the HPV vaccination program and volunteer motivations, the team presented on Big HOYA Little Saxa (a volunteer mentoring program associated with the clinic), a maternal health program, student research at the clinic and transitional student leadership.

“The conference made us really proud of our clinic,” said Koch.

“The Health Outreach to Youth and Adults (HOYA) Clinic embodies the Georgetown value of Cura Personalis,” said Eileen Moore, MD, medical director of the HOYA Clinic. “Our medical students work countless hours to ensure that the residents of the DC General homeless shelter have access to top quality medical care. We are very proud of their work and are delighted that they have taken their work to the next level by sharing their best practices at the national level.”

Leigh Ann Renzulli
GUMC Communications