A STEADFAST MISSION To provide and facilitate access to free, compassionate, quality
health care for children and adults who are otherwise unable to obtain such services As the health care industry is changing around us, we want to assure you that the Free Clinic’s mission will not change. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will not offer insurance for everyone in our community. In 2013, there were 62,000 uninsured individuals in Clark County. Uninsured/underinsured projections for our community in 2014 are approximately 30,000-32,000. The Free Clinic’s volunteers will continue to serve the uninsured and underinsured who need access to free, compassionate quality health care. We will also maintain our substantial and long-term relationships with the safety-net health care clinics and the major health care systems in Clark County.
PAGE 1 Recognizing Volunteers
PAGE 2 Update from the Executive Director and Board President Welcome, Susan Nieman
PAGE 3 Our Volunteer Program Directors PAGE 4 The Dr. Beall Stewardship Society
Volunteers in 2013 worked 29,730 hours at the Free Clinic! Charitable Giving as part of your estate plan offers tax benefits, and preserves economic security for you and your loved ones. Your generosity could make a difference for generations to come. Please consider the Free Clinic of Southwest Washington when planning your estate. Call us. 360.313.1388
We are very fortunate to have 600 volunteers who are dedicated to give the very best care and service for everyone who walks through the front door of the Free Clinic (there were 11,000 visits in 2013). In addition, there are over 250 specialists and dentists in the community who provide specialized care in their offices for Free Clinic patients. Some of the services currently provided at the Free Clinic may be modified to better meet the needs of the uninsured, but our core functions of urgent medical and dental care, medication assistance, vision and immunizations, short-term diabetes care, and specialty and oral health services coordination in the community, will continue to be a priority. Again, these services for people in need are made possible by our generous and loyal volunteers. Please help us honor this extraordinary group of committed individuals at 5:30 on April 18 at the Free Clinic, for a Volunteer Open House celebration.
Barbe West Executive Director
Todd Horenstein President, Board of Directors
SUSAN NIEMAN JOINS THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS The Free Clinic of Southwest Washington is pleased to welcome Susan Nieman, MN/BSN/RN, to its board of directors. Nieman is an instructor in the medical-surgical and psychiatric nursing programs at Clark College. She is also a registered nurse and training officer in the United States Army Reserve. She was deployed 2009-2010 and all of 2012 to Afghanistan, providing primary mental health care management to soldiers. Nieman is a graduate of the Clark College nursing program. Her Master of Nursing and Nurse Educator Certificate were achieved at Washington State University.
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VOLUNTEERS STEER MEDICAL AND DENTAL PROGRAMS
Susan Davis, MD, Volunteer Medical Director
It was 1990, and Dr. Susan Davis was just beginning her practice with the Family Physician’s Group, when she met the Free Clinic’s first Clinic Director, Marcia Howery. “Marcia always knew how to make people want to support the Free Clinic,” Susan says. She began volunteering a few evenings a month at the Free Clinic during its first years. She also worked at Larch Corrections Center during that time. “Both low income people and inmates have a lot of barriers to health,” said Susan. “I realized early on that I really like charity medicine. This was what I was meant to do.” She soon became more and more involved with the Free Clinic, joining its Board of Directors in 1999. Susan became the Free Clinic’s Medical Director in 2001. By 2008, she was thinking about ways she could work exclusively with people who experience barriers to health, and in 2011, circumstances allowed her to quit her “day” job, and spend lots more time at the Free Clinic. She’s present almost every day during urgent care clinics. Last year, she logged 500 volunteer hours. She also volunteers at New Heights Clinic. Susan reviews charts, analyzing lab and x-ray results, and coordinates referrals to specialists in the community. The thing she loves most is being in the clinic, providing care to patients and working with other volunteer providers. “I’m so impressed with all the people who come together to make sure people receive good care. The doctors get all the credit, but there are so many people who give their time and skills to get the job done.” Over the past 20+ years, Susan has seen the patient population at the Free Clinic shift according to the economy, and other factors. Susan firmly believes “the need for free, quality, compassionate care may lessen or it may change, but it will always be here.”
Peter Lubisich IV, DMD, MS Volunteer Dental Director “Determine that the thing can be done and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.” Abraham Lincoln Dr. Peter Lubisich lives by these words of our 16th President, reinforced by a determined optimism and a commitment to helping people in need. Peter’s involvement with the Free Clinic began in 2005. He had been practicing pediatric dentistry in Vancouver for two years, when an anonymous donor presented the Free Clinic with the funds to purchase the mobile dental van, with the request that the van be used primarily to help children. Peter was the first dentist to volunteer on the van. He still works in it at least once a month.
The Lubisich Family - Jakob, Peter IV, Brooklynn, Peter V, and Michelle
Peter has served on the Free Clinic Board of Directors since 2007. Three years ago, he became the Free Clinic’s Dental Director. In this capacity, he not only gives direct care to kids in the dental van, he makes referral decisions about patient care, is involved in hiring of dental program staff, helps coordinate a team of dental volunteers, chairs the Dental Program Advisory Committee, and advises the dental program manager when needed. “We have a wonderful team,” Peter says, of the 80+ volunteers who serve in the dental program. “Everyone at the Free Clinic is motivated by a desire to help people in need, over material or personal gain. That’s what makes it such a great place.” Peter credits his faith and his family for providing guidance and support in his commitment to give back to his community. To describe why he devotes himself to the patients at the Free Clinic, Peter paraphrases a quote from The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, by David McCullough: “Men and women of talent were ambitious to excel. Not to become famous or rich or powerful. But to excel and be the best they could possibly be.”
Community support helps build a healthy community. Donate online anytime at freeclinics.org! 3