Second First Day

Today was my first day at my second attempt at a practice experience. In my quest to find a GPP practice experience, I have encountered many setbacks, so it's been a very long process and I'm extremely happy I finally was able to start. I'll be working in La Clínica North Vallejo, a health clinic that serves low-income families. La Clínica North Vallejo is just one of over thirty La Clínica locations in the Solano, Alameda and Contra Costa counties.  

The mission statement is "to improve the quality of life of the diverse communities by providing culturally appropriate, high quality, and accessible health care for all". I was a bit confused when I was first given a tour of the clinic today. I thought that the North Vallejo location was just a primary health center, so I was overwhelmed when I learned of the many services just this one location offered. What surprised me is that they offer as many services, or even more than my first PE's at St. Anthony's. They have social workers and staff that work with families to find resources for all of their health needs. They also do help the homeless and very low-income in navigating through the health care system, not just giving them an appointment, but signing them up for health insurance, and then making sure they have the transportation to get to the appointment. 

As the volunteer coordinator was explaining all of the different services, I asked her if the clinic gets overwhelmed and she said, “we always are”! I don’t know how they organize and coordinate so many projects for this clinic. The volunteer coordinator herself is also the lead pharmacy tech and works with each individual to find low cost/no cost prescriptions; she also does so many other general tasks around the office.

My fist day was overwhelming because I was introduced to so many people who had many different job titles, I don't even think I remember one. Also, the whole clinic is a one story office-like building, some offices are attached and others aren't. So even though the clinic is small, it felt like a maze and I had difficulty finding my way around. Fortunately, there was another volunteer there who, if I needed to get to one place or another, would walk me there. 

 For today, I just did miscellaneous work within the administrative office. I’m not sure yet on the specifics of what my tasks will be, but honestly I’m just happy to finally begin my practice.