Establishing a Women’s Health Clinic: Increasing Healthcare Access, Empowerment, and Hope

Abstract

The Indiana University Student Outreach Clinic is an interprofessional clinic that has served medically uninsured and underinsured communities in Indianapolis, Indiana since 2009. Recently, under the guidance of the newly elected Women’s Health Chair, services offered have expanded. A women’s health clinics was created to ensure that our female patients have improved access to cancer screening tests and screening and treatment of sexually transmitted infections. Here we review factors that lead to the creation of a women’s health clinic within a large, multidisciplinary free clinic and the process of providing breast cancer screening and appropriate follow up services at a non-hospital facility as well as a summary of the impact our women’s health clinic has had in our community.