by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Donna Van Loock counts instruction in nutrition as one of her job duties, but she doesn’t lead by example.
“Here’s my lunch,” she says, grabbing a can of Diet Coke as she strides past the examination rooms at the Volunteers in Medicine clinic. Van Loock, the clinic director, spends most of her week examining, counseling and treating the working uninsured. It’s a growing population, estimated at more than 40,000 people in Duval County, that keeps the staff on their toes.
Since opening in September 2003, the clinic’s mission has been to treat uninsured workers, but also to present them with the same dignified experience they would receive in any doctor’s office.
“You have people working two jobs, trying to provide for their family, and when they go to a doctor’s office, they’re treated like second-class citizens without insurance,” said Van Loock. “It’s important to greet these people with a nice, pretty building, a clean waiting room, a play room for the kids.
“By the time they leave here I see some of them in tears. You can tell what it means to them to have someone listening to them and caring for them.”
This fall, Van Loock and the rest of the VIM staff will begin teaching a new generation of care givers how to treat the uninsured. The Church Street clinic will double as a classroom for students from University of North Florida’s College of Health.
Without insurance, treatment becomes a bit more pragmatic. Patients are counseled in nutrition and exercise, lifestyle changes being the most cost effective means to better health. Medical decisions must be weighed against economic realities, said Michele Bernardzyk, a nurse practitioner at the clinic and faculty member at UNF.
“We just had a patient with a thyroid condition and we needed to make several decisions. Do we want to send them by an ambulance to Shands, where they would incur the cost, or can they get a ride,” said Bernardzyk.
“We have to be aware of the extra stress and anxiety that comes along with our patients’ circumstances. We have to make decisions on what’s the most economic way to deal with their problems.”
Students working at the clinic learn to take into account all the circumstances surrounding a patient’s ailment, not just the physical cause.
“They leave here with a better sense of which resources are available and the most judicious way to treat their patients,” said Bernardzyk.
Students seeking to become a nurse practitioner like Van Loock and Bernardzyk need 750 hours working in a clinic to graduate from UNF’s master’s program, including 300 hours in their last semester alone. Students start out by observing the VIM staff, but by semesters four and five, they work independently with patients.
UNF will also work with the clinic to host a series of classes emphasizing good nutrition and exercise. Past classes have been sparsely attended, but Van Loock said the two institutions were working to find a schedule that caters to their patients’ schedules.
“We haven’t got as high a turnout as I would like, but you have to understand these people work,” said Van Loock.