Why I advocate for patients at the UF Equal Access Clinic and strive to break down barriers in healthcare
It’s a Tuesday night and the UF Equal Access Clinic is as busy as ever. Before knocking on the exam room door, I check for my essentials: my stethoscope, my notebook and my pen. I find a woman sitting inside the room. Her eyes are a little swollen and pink, and I make a mental note; it looks like she’s been crying.
I take a seat across from her and introduce myself by name: “I’m a first-year medical student at UF. It’s nice to meet you! What brings you in today?”
“To be honest…,” she takes a shaky breath, “I haven’t been doing well lately.”
I find out that my patient is in between jobs and without health insurance, making it challenging to get prescription refills for her mental illness.
“I was doing so much better on my medications; I felt like myself,” she says. “Without them, everything’s starting to slip again.”
When she begins to cry, I offer her a tissue and a hug.
With the help of my attending physician, we are ultimately able to get her a prescription during that visit, and we put in a referral for additional services. After we schedule a follow-up appointment, I walk her to the door, and she grabs my hand.
“This is the first time I’ve felt so hopeful in a while,” she says. “Thank you for listening to me.”
Interactions like these are why you can find me at the UF College of Medicine’s Equal Access Clinic almost every week. Our network of completely free healthcare clinics, run by students under the supervision of licensed medical faculty, provides a way for underinsured and uninsured patients in our community to receive comprehensive care when they otherwise might not have the ability to.
I saw this patient during my first year of medical school, when I was still getting used to medical jargon, learning about new diseases every day in class and just starting to figure out what medications to use when.
I’m in my third year now, and what sticks with me the most about this encounter isn’t exactly the criteria for diagnosing the condition or the mechanisms of action for each medication that we prescribed (though these are all undeniably very important). I remembered this because I was simply a person sitting in front of another person, having been bestowed the privilege of hearing her story and sharing in her vulnerability.
My desire to understand how the world works traces back to my childhood in Tallahassee. As the daughter of immigrants, I noticed my parents avoided medical care unless they were severely ill. Witnessing their experiences helped me see the invisible, cultural barriers that keep people from seeking help early, sparking my desire to bridge science with empathetic care.
That curiosity eventually led me to MIT to study biological engineering, and then the UF College of Medicine. This journey has been deeply supported by receiving the Dr. R. Dean and Elizabeth F. Hautamaki Endowed Medical Scholarship, which is a merit-based award given to UF medical students to further their education and invest in their potential as future physicians.
It is often said that medicine is both an art and a science, and that is what makes it so special. I get to meticulously learn about the intricacies of each organ system, from the brain to the heart to the kidneys. I also get to hold a patient’s shaking hand before her very first C-section on one of the most significant days of her life.
Through the Equal Access Clinic and my clinical education at UF, I’ve realized that all the medical knowledge we possess means very little without the human connection we foster with our patients. That is why I am so excited to become a physician and to dedicate my career to helping my patients live happier, healthier lives.
I hope I never forget this encounter from my first year of medical school. I hope it guides me going forward. I hope it continually reminds me of the kind of physician I want to become — one who listens intentionally, advocates persistently and never loses sight of the humanity at the heart of medicine.
Jennifer Wen is a third-year medical student in the UF College of Medicine (Class of 2028) and a recipient of the Dr. R. Dean and Elizabeth F. Hautamaki Endowed Medical Scholarship. A graduate of MIT, she combines clinical research in procedural outcomes with community advocacy, serving as a senior officer for UF's student-run Equal Access Clinic at Eastside.