Saturday, 1/12: Walton Family Health Center

On Saturday January 12, 2013, the 1st year Scholars traveled up into the Bronx to participate in a healthy eating and diabetes seminar lead by Mariam Wood at the Walton Family Health Center, a federally qualified health center (FQHC).  The center is an expansion of the Institute for Family Health located in the Bronx, NY.  The center focuses on informing and caring for this community through primary care, behavioral health, dental, and diabetes care.  Mariam Wood led the discussion on healthy eating education for diabetic patients.  We practiced some AWESOME role-playing activities using real life scenarios!  Bianca Williams and Asha Clarke practiced a particularly interesting scenario depicting a woman who felt that if her obese daughter were to eat more healthy foods, then people would think that her family wasn't feeding her appropriately.  Asha Clarke (the mock physician) did an excellent job of convincing Bianca (the parent) to allow her daughter to join the volleyball team by utilizing her On Doctoring skills! Superb work, Asha!  Discussions on the effectiveness of educational programs in churches, barber shops, and nail salons catering to the needs of the community's population opened our eyes to the different strategies that can be employed in reaching out to a community. We were informed of the replacement of the old "food pyramid" guidelines with the "food plate" guidelines.  We were particularly impressed by the healthy Mexican plate ideas.  Delicioso!!!


The Walton Family Health Center facilitates this low-income minority community with insurance enrollment and social services.  Free clinics are also available for the uninsured on Saturdays.  This Saturday clinic is operated entirely by the medical students of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, with the help of two attendings, under their Einstein Community Health Outreach Program.  The clinic sees about 30 patients every Saturday and offers a sliding-scale fee payment plan for patients that qualify.  During our visit, we had the opportunity to shadow third year medical students and attending physicians at the clinic for a few patient visits. We were able to experience first-hand the economic, medical, and technological management efficiency that enables a successful clinic to operate smoothly.  Interacting with the students of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine was a lot of fun.  They were AWESOME, very much like our Geisel classmates!