The Case for the Safe Re-Opening of SRFCs during COVID-19

Abstract

At the end of February 2020, the Mollie R. Wheat Memorial Clinic (MWMC), an SRFC in Terre Haute, IN, closed its doors to protect its volunteers and patients from the acute threat of the novel coronavirus. Faced with an uncontrolled contagion and the threat of clinics as a nidus of infection, medical school administrators implemented a short term solution: they shut down all SRFC operations. In October 2020, MWMC, employing student-written infection control protocols, re-opened without students in patient-facing roles as a compromise with medical school administration, who were concerned for the safety of their students, in order to again provide necessary care to its community. This essay, written and submitted during one of the peaks of the pandemic, makes an argument in four parts for opening SRFCs sooner rather than later during a public health crisis, using COVID-19 as its example. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to be waning in America, though the threat of variants loom, and whether or not this is the big pandemic of our lives, over time, there will be other pandemics. The authors hope this essay will provide some future guidance to SRFCs and their medical school administrators for how best to work together to continue serving their communities during a pandemic.