Creighton Medical Students Receive National "Caring for Community" Grant

Students in Creighton University Medical Center’s School of Medicine have received a grant to establish the Magis Medical Clinic for homeless men, women and children in the Omaha area. The grant is part of the “Caring for Community” program from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), in collaboration with the Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative. The program provides funding for community health projects initiated, developed and run by medical students. Creighton’s School of Medicine is one of only eight medical schools in the country to receive the award.

Creighton medical students proposed the Magis Medical Clinic in response to the community’s need for medical services for homeless families. Working with the Omaha Area Continuum of Care for the Homeless (OACCH), the students identified that there are few outpatient health care options available to the homeless on Saturdays. Medical students will provide free drop-in health services Saturday afternoons and evenings at the Siena-Francis House, located near the Creighton campus. The clinic will offer acute care services and referrals to existing community services. Medical students and volunteer physicians will organize and staff the clinic. The clinic will receive start-up funding, and is eligible to receive funding for the second, third and fourth years of the program. The clinic is scheduled to open this September.

“Magis” is Latin for more, in the sense of striving to do more to make things better. According to Zulma Barrios, a fourth-year Creighton medical student and one of the project organizers, the students saw a need in the community and sought a way to fill that need. “Creighton’s School of Medicine has a tradition of service to community. We developed the Magis Medical Clinic concept because we were actively looking for ways to contribute our expertise and caring in a way that would truly help our community,” said Barrios.

Last year, Creighton University Medical Center was recognized for outstanding efforts in meeting the medical needs of people not served by traditional health-care systems. The School of Medicine, along with the University of Nebraska Medical Center, received the prestigious Outstanding Community Service Award for 2003 from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Creighton University Medical Center’s community programs serve more than 460,000 patients annually, providing more than $26 million in free or unreimbursed health care to the underserved.