Volunteers provide wider access to healthcare

Physicians offer free medical services to the community

The Department of Medicine supports access to healthcare for everyone, regardless of their life situation. To help make this a reality, physicians in the department volunteer their time at two community health clinics, offering free services to people who might not otherwise get the medical care they need.

“Healthcare is really expensive, and people have a right to quality healthcare no matter their economic circumstances,” says Kelly Kieffer, MD, RES ’00, MS ’11, the department’s vice chair for education and one of many volunteer physicians at the Good Neighbor Health Clinic (GNHC) in White River Junction, Vermont. “I feel like this is a way I can contribute to the community.”

The GNHC opened in 1992 to serve patients who don’t have health insurance or are underinsured. In her six years of volunteering at the clinic, Kieffer says she has created trusting, longitudinal physician-patient relationships with her core group of patients whom she sees regularly. She says this trust helps her patients stay engaged with their own healthcare.

She also values what she has learned as a healthcare provider through her volunteer work, including how to help uninsured patients afford their medications.

“I’ve learned a lot about how to consider the cost of medications and how to choose which ones to prescribe,” Kieffer says. “Maybe the medication is not my first choice, but it’s a good option for this person and it’s financially feasible.”

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