Swilley, the unflappable interim practice
manager who discovered a broken water main
just in time to keep it from washing out the
open house, has helped launch clinics at the
University of Florida and elsewhere. She says
she’s never seen this big a response.
“As soon as those two phone lines were turned
on here, calls were coming in one after another,”
she said. “The outpouring of people really
wanting to be seen here was overwhelming.”
Things got so busy that two second-year
medical students were hired to help out this
summer. Austin Clark was mostly at the front
desk, getting a new perspective on health
insurance, medical record transfers and the
desperation of people unable to obtain health
care. Fellow student Shelby De Cardenas did
Tracey Hellgren, M.D., checks medical information in The Island.
whatever was needed, from loading medications
onto the emergency-resuscitation “crash cart”
Community Partnership School – with the prime mover behind this project. He has done to assembling the teaching skeleton model that
College of Medicine as a key partner. everything from knocking on neighborhood now inhabits The Island.
“We are very excited about the opportunity to
doors, to meeting regularly with community
The faculty decided to wait until the fall
have our parents, students, grandparents, aunts, reps, to choosing who would wield the jumbo semester, after the dust had settled, before plugging
uncles, everyone in this community have direct scissors at the ribbon-cutting. Now he’s seeing M.D. and PA students into a clinical role.
access to health care,” Sabal Palm Principal patients there, too.
Anicia Robinson said at the groundbreaking.
“And it’s in their own backyard.”
The center takes all major insurance. It’s not
a free clinic, although it does have a sliding
fee scale based on income. And it’s not an
Even though Providence, Mabry Manor,
“As FSU PrimaryHealth evolves, physician
assistant students will have the opportunity to
Seminole Manor and The Meadows are its further their education by seeing patients under
target communities, FSU PrimaryHealth the supervision of the staff,” said John Bastin,
welcomes patients from all over. clinical education director in the college’s
“People in Jefferson County and Wakulla
School of Physician Assistant Practice. “This
emergency room. Its creators want patients to County say, ‘I need a primary-care doc. I’ve will give them a head start on working side by
think of it as a “medical home” that can handle got XYZ insurance, and the docs nearby don’t side with the medical students. In addition,
80 to 90 percent of their medical needs. For the take it,’” Van Durme said. “West of here, out they will have the opportunity to emulate the
rest, it will connect patients with other specialists Highway 20, it’s 35 miles before you find the college’s mission by delivering much-needed
and then coordinate care with that office. next physician. We’ve reached out to people in health care to the residents of Tallahassee.”
The 10,000-square-foot building has 17
Fort Braden as well.”
exam rooms, two procedure rooms, a children’s
waiting room and even a community room
complete with a kitchenette – which can
accommodate neighborhood meetings, healthy-
cooking classes and much more. That room
symbolizes the center’s concern with the whole
community.
“The health of people is driven more by what
happens between the doctor’s visits than at the
doctor’s visits,” said Daniel Van Durme, medical
director at FSU PrimaryHealth, senior associate
dean for clinical and community affairs, and a
Daniel Van Durme, M.D., in a College of Medicine classroom
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