Our earlier post had suggested the NYU College of Dentistry Clinic and similar clinics at other dental schools. We also mentioned New York City Department of Health dental clinics for people up to age 21. (Our patient was 23).

The nagging memory of a 2006 social medicine rounds (12/19/2006) led us to the Mayor’s Office of Citywide Health Insurance Access, a part of the city government which tries to make health insurance available to as many New Yorkers as possible.   Their website has an extensive listing of Health Resources for the Uninsured.  This page provides links to low cost dental services, mainly in hospitals.  The site also has links to  community health centers, as well as information on medications, mental health resources, and vision services.

If you have no insurance, this is a useful site to visit.  It provides a screening tool (it shows up as a sidebar on each page) to help you determine if you might be eligible for any public or private insurance plans.

Finally, – in terms of free non-dental services – this week we learned the NYC DOH offers free condoms and lubricants to organizations that will distribute them for free. Click on this link.

Brush your teeth and floss after each meal, stay away from sweetened drinks and have fun (safely).

Posted by Matt Anderson, MD

A classic film in community health…

Shot in the fall of 1969 and the winter of 1970, “Out in the Rural: A Health Center in Mississippi” highlights one of the very first Community Health Centers in the United States: the Tufts-Delta Health Center of North Bolivar County, Mississippi. The film captures the broad vision of a community health center involved in far more than traditional medical diagnosis and treatment. For more information on this film, please see an article published in Social Medicine by Dr. Carolyn Chu. This film is posted with the kind permission of Dr. Geiger.

When Merle Cunningham MD came to visit the School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona (SOMA) the other day, the topic got around to the merger of two fine family lines. Merle has been active in Community Health Centers, NACHC, the National Health Service Corps, and health care access in NYC. He has been instrumental working through NACHC and Gary Cloud to help make SOMA a reality.

Forrest Lang MD was the second family line. He took his Social Medicine training to NHSC, Appalachia, East Tennesee State, and the Appalachian Preceptorship. I have the honor of being his adopted mentee. He brought me to TN and helped me to develop the ETSU Rural Fellowship, the Minifellowship, the Rural High School Career Fair, and the initial work toward the Mountain City rural site. One of the Rural Minifellows, faculty that were developing rural programs, was Tom McWilliams DO. His rural program for the Minifellowship was the revision of the Kirksville family practice preceptorship. Much “Social Medicine” type collaboration was involved in the Rural Minifellowship.

Tom McWilliams moved on to develop the first osteopathic school in Arizona at AZCOM and then the new ATSU SOMA, working back with the Kirksville folks. The preferential admissions process used was borrowed from my work which was borrowed from the various interactions with the Rural Minifellows. Tom hired me, Forrest Lang’s mentee, to come to Arizona to help develop this new school. Tom also shares NHSC background and helped recruit Barb Doty who helped found the Alaska FP training program that has top rates of underserved graduates in CHC And Native Consortia practice locations (about 43%). The Minifellowship, like the School of Social Medicine, helped keep ideals and ideas alive to translate them into action.

The School of Osteopathic Medicine of Arizona works with CHCs to funnel in applicants familiar with work with the underserved. SOMA admits medical students with a top priority on service orientation. The top priority is a match to the mission of returning them to CHC locations as long term primary care physicians. After one year at Mesa AZ, the medical students depart Mesa for sites from Hawaii to Brooklyn. The first class will begin in Brooklyn at Sunset Park in a few months. One of the faculty hired here at the same time was a lab tech at Sunset Park, Noel Carrasco, MD. who later did research, U Autonoma De Guadalajara, Neonatology, and Complementary and Alternative work with Andrew Weil.

Just wanted you to know that some epidemics are worth spreading and the School of Social Medicine is one of the best vectors.

When the new medical students arrive at Sunset Park, might just be worth “completing” their training where it began.

Robert C. Bowman, M.D.
rcbowman@atsu.edu