Community Spotlight
Medical student links indigent patients to social services
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Second-year medical student Prasanna Ananth is too modest to take credit for launching the new Stanford Hospital help desk for underserved patients. The campus organization began as "just a group of people who were concerned," said the 25-year-old Ananth. More than 40 students came to the group's first meeting.
But it was Ananth who a year ago began to research and plan the program—inspired by conversations with her mentor Ewan Wang, MD, associate director of pediatric emergency medicine. And together Ananth and Wang organized that first meeting.
Out of this effort came the Family Resource Desk, a help desk in the hospital's emergency department, launched in November. Open five days a week from 7 to 10 p.m., the service provides patients access to community resources such as free legal aid, health insurance, housing, adult education programs, child care and food stamps.
Three coordinators and 20 undergraduates staff the desk, which so far has helped more than 20 families.
The idea was born when Wang told Ananth she was frustrated by her inability to help patients with non-critical but nonetheless crucial medical needs. As a busy doctor working on the "front lines," she had time to attend to only the immediate care of patients, not their other socio-environmental needs. But she felt a weight on her shoulders to do something more. She knew there was great need because many emergency room patients have "no doctors, no insurance and nowhere to go."
"When Dr. Wang was telling me this, I felt there must be something we can do about it," said Ananth, who now oversees the help desk with Wang and fellow medical student Apa Sohoni.
Minority patients residing in East Palo Alto—many of who are living in poverty—have made up the majority of the help desk's patients.
The volunteers assist the families as they wade through complex resource material. And as part of the service, they make sure to follow up with patients to ensure that the information provided was useful.
"We are trying through this group to help complement medical care with care of the socio-environmental determinants of health," said Ananth. "By helping to provide information and assistance with social services, we hope to better address the comprehensive needs of our patients."
As a model for the Family Resource Desk, Ananth used Harvard's Family Help Desk, a service desk staffed by undergraduates who provide social service information to Boston Medical Center patients.
Wang oversees all medical information produced by the Stanford group but three undergraduate coordinators—sophomores Jessica Li, Sherveen Salek and Mari Suzuki—now take care of the day-to-day management of the project.
And Wang stresses that it is the students who are running the show.
"That's the only way it's sustainable," Wang said. "My experience with students is they're incredible. They have the skills, they have initiative."
Posted 3/16/05
