Department: Family and Community Medicine
Title: Indigent Health Care - MFCM983I
Faculty: Department of Family Practice and Internal Medicine
Reporting Location: Martha's Health Clinic, 601 S. 7th St., Temple, Texas
Duration: 20 weeks--required 4 hours per week (2 weeks course credit)
or 10 weeks and receive one week course credit
Number of students: Up to Eighteen
When Offered: All year-continuous
  This elective only available to TAMU students.


Goals - The faculty will strive to:

    1. Expose senior medical student to the scope of health issues of the homeless and indigent. Students will gain insight to the mechanics and complexities of operating and organizing a primary care clinic. They will also interact with a variety of medical services inlcuding the Department of Health, Child/Adult Protective Services, and Mental Health and Mental Retardation.

Objectives - Upon completion of the rotation, the student is expected to:

  1. Demonstrate and cultivate interview and examination skills.
  2. Develop a differential diagnosis and treatment strategies for common problems of the homeless.
  3. Learn to work with limited resources and construct creative ways to overcome limitations.
  4. Develop follow up plans in a transient population.
  5. Create appropriate letters of notification for reportable diseases.
  6. Recognize social issues that demand quick attention.
  7. Maintain a professional and respectful relationship with the patients.
  8. Learn how to set up, organize, and manage an outpatient medical clinic.
  9. Identify educational health prevention topics and strategies for the homeless.

Learning Activities:

  1. Work a total of 80 hours (4 hours per week) at Martha's Health Clinic for a total of at least 20 weeks or work a total of 40 hours (4 hours per week) for a total of at least 10 weeks. The weeks do not need to be consecutive.
  2. Attend Student Board or Executive meetings.
  3. Create a written report about your educational experience at Martha's Health Clinic.
  4. Participate in the daily mechanics of running the clinic.
  5. Interaction with area health agencies.
  6. Provide patient education.
  7. Students will read about illnesses encountered.
  8. Make an education display/poster for the patients of Martha Health Clinic directed toward preventive medicine and specific health concerns for the homeless.
  9. Provide information to patients about social services available to them.
  10. Perform necessary laboratory work.

Learning Resources:

  1. Richard D. Haines Medical Library at Scott & White
  2. Social Work Services/P.A.L.A.D.I.N. at Scott & White
  3. Local health agencies
  4. Attending physicians
  5. Clinic academic files

Student evaluation:

  1. Students will be evaluated based on a record of attendance, the written/oral report, and standard evaluation forms from the attending physicians overseeing the clinic.


Course Evaluation:

    1. Students will evaluate the overall uility and usefulness of the course, using the standard form. Copies of the evaluations will be forwarded to the course coordinator and the executive officers of the clinic.

Elective Administrator:
Robert A. Henry, Jr, D.O./John Manning, M.D.
Department of Family and Community Medicine
Santa Fe Clinic
Temple, Texas 76504

(254)771-8411

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