Will Steiner and Emily Hull are first year medical students from the University of Utah and helped put together the Spring into Wellness event at Sunnyvale Park. 

“We worked with the community health workers that work in our student-led clinics to give people more opportunity to learn about healthcare and about the different services available to them,” Hull said.

 “We have information about the student-led clinics that we as students run. We invited Eyecare for Kids, the Huntsman Cancer Screening Bus and Utah Department of Public Safety here for this event,” Steiner said.

Student-led clinics are throughout our community that have attending physicians and medical students working with patients. This gives the students hands-on experience while providing access to healthcare for underserved people in the community. They offer free vaccines and vouchers for mammograms and EKGs for example. 

The Wellness Bus was at Sunnyvale Park. “The wellness bus goes to more low income communities and we check people’s blood cholesterol, blood pressure and we can keep up with them over time and see if they are improving. We have a nutritionist onboard and she helps out with all of the dietary parts of it,” Zoe said, who works with the Wellness Bus.

Pamela Silva, with Alliance Community Services was at the event. “We provide help with immigration assistance, medical insurance no matter the status of the person. We help with cancer prevention programs at a very low cost. We also have the Triunfadoras, which is the only Latino cancer survivor group,” Silva said.

Free shoes were given out to children. “We are with University of Utah Health Plans and we offer health insurance, medicaid plans, marketplace plans and more,” said Paloma.

U of Utah Health Plans partnered with Operation Warm and gave out shoes to kids and spoke to parents about medicaid and health insurance options. (Jolene Croasmun/City Journals)

 “We know that health insurance is kind of boring so we incentivize people to come talk to us by giving the kids shoes and once we catch the attention of the parents, we will talk to them about whether they qualify for medicaid or if they don’t have it how to get connected to those resources. We partner with Operation Warm and in the summertime we give away shoes and in the winter, we give away coats for ages 3k to 6th grade.”

The University of Utah’s School of Dentistry handed out dental care hygiene bags. Nadia, a first year dental student said, “At The school of dentistry, we work a lot with medicaid patients and we are here today to inform them of what services we can offer at the school. Second and third year students can provide screenings on people's teeth and can refer the person to the dental school.”

A family planning table was set up to assist individuals with birth control. “We have information on family planning, pregnancy prevention, loads of information on contraception methods. We have info on the first over the counter birth control pill that is called Opill and on the no cost emergency contraception like the morning after pill,” said Erica Torres, with the ASCENT Center for Reproductive Health.

Erica Torres provided information on family planning from the ASCENT Center for Reproductive Health. (Jolene Croasmun/City Journals)

There were demo kits for folks that are curious about the vaginal ring and IUD. “People like to see where it would lie in your uterus and how the Nexplanon is put into your arm and slowly excretes hormones into your body,” Torres added. 

Free condoms and pregnancy tests were provided for those who wanted them.

The student-led clinics are Fourth Street Clinic, Midvale CBC Clinic, Rose Park Primary Care Clinic and South Main Clinic. Many of these clinics do not accept insurance and provide free services, may offer sliding fee scales, some have financial assistance or a discount for those who qualify.

The next event will be called The Wellness Without Borders Fall Health Fair and will be in early October. The location and dates are still being determined.