The Sojourner Health Clinic is recognized as a free health clinic and student organization at the University of Missouri – Kansas City and treats over 300 uninsured and underserved patients annually from the Kansas City population with more than 800 individual patient visits, accomplished through 2,500+ student volunteer hours.
Mission Statement
“To provide quality medical care at no cost to the medically indigent in downtown Kansas City and to create an environment where medical students have the opportunity to interact with, understand, and care for the medically indigent.”
Who We Are
The Sojourner Health Clinic was founded by a group of students at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine (UMKC SOM). Inspired by the free clinic model developed by Dr. Ellen Beck (professor at the University of California-San Diego, a group of 10 UMKC-SOM students designed a free clinic of their own. The founding students began by having magazine and bake sales to raise money. Planning the clinic which included building exam rooms and acquiring liability insurance took approximately one year. Finally, on October 10, 2004, the clinic opened its doors for the first time.
Students have organized this program as a service learning project: students learn about working with vulnerable populations outside of the hospital setting and how to create and sustain a free health clinic, while providing a needed service to the Kansas City community. Run by students on Hospital Hill at the University of Missouri – Kansas City, Sojourner Health Clinic is a collaborative initiative, with students from UMKC’s medical, pharmacy, physician assistant, and dental/dental hygiene programs, along with students from Rockhurst College’s occupational therapy program, coming together as a not-for-profit healthcare resource for Kansas City’s homeless and underprivileged population living in the downtown area.
What We Do
On Saturdays at midday, UMKC medical students, with faculty supervision, provide acute and chronic medical care to an underserved population at the clinic’s partner Linwood United Church. The Sojourner Health Clinic provides its patients with health education, disease management, immunizations, health screenings, and medications free of charge. Our point of care laboratory has capabilities to run lipid panels, basic metabolic panels, hemoglobin a1c, ELISA HIV, urine analysis, and glucose.
The clinic has been serving an ever-growing, under-insured patient population. The students operate this program as an interprofessional service learning project where hundreds of health science students each year can learn about working with vulnerable populations outside of the hospital setting while creating and sustaining a free health clinic that provides a needed service to the Kansas City community.
Service Partners
TMC Family Medicine Department