We highly encourage all applicants to attend our info nights this week on 4/17 and 4/18! Shifa Clinic is a non-profit, student-run medical facility dedicated to serving the diverse, medically uninsured population of the greater Sacramento area. Every Sunday, the clinic provides basic as well as specialized medical services free of charge to patients of many ethnicities and backgrounds. In addition
, as a teaching center for medical students and undergraduate volunteers, Shifa Clinic takes an active role in shaping the physicians of the future. Clinic operation is a collaborative effort between undergraduates performing administrative duties, medical students interviewing patients and performing physical exams, and volunteer physicians recommending appropriate treatments regimens and teaching students basic clinical skills. The concept of a volunteer, free clinic for the uninsured originated in 1994 when two dedicated physicians organized a small clinic in an apartment building donated by the V Street Mosque. They operated this free clinic for many years with minimal facilities. Due to the increasing popularity and demand for this kind of clinic we felt the need of a more organized and regular health service project. In the year 2000, the current Medical Director, Shagufta Yasmeen, M.D., and two medical students, Nasser Abdo and Mahmoud Traina from the University of California, Davis, and the community members (Bashir Choudary, and Dr. Najme Minhaj) launched a new clinic by name of “Shifa Community Clinic”. The clinic was officially affiliated with UC Davis School of Medicine on June 15, 2005. A three party agreement between Shifa Community Clinic, UC Davis School of Medicine, and the Muslim Mosque Association was finalized. Our Goals:
Shifa Clinic provides basic health care services with special attention to patients with language difficulties. This includes patients speaking Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Arabic, Bengali, Fijian, Farsi, Bosnian, and Russian. The services include but not are limited to basic health care, health screening, and health education and patient advocacy. These services are delivered in an atmosphere appropriate to the needs of the community in a multilingual and multicultural setting. While we realize that provision of these basic services is not a long-term solution to the health care problems of our community, we feel it is a proper first step towards improving the current health care delivery system. A second goal of the clinic is to provide the public with role models of this community as present health care professionals. The historical recycling of upper middle class Anglo-American in the medical field has lead to many of the health care problems in our community even to those members who can provide some health care coverage for themselves. We feel an important psychological step will be taken when our patients realize that there are such things like health care workers from their community and health care can be for them too. In particular this can be of particular importance to the promotion of higher education for the youth in this community. Students from UC Davis and community volunteers are given an opportunity to maintain contact with the underserved community in Sacramento while receiving their training. The clinic serves as an environment in which we can develop sensitivity towards the needs of these people, by encouraging students to return to serve these communities. Thus, we are taking steps for the present and the future needs of the communities.
