Pilot program in Manassas Park: Free clinic helps community and trains future nurses

A free Community Health Clinic offered once a week in Manassas Park is serving a dual purpose in the community.

First, it is benefiting local residents who do not have health insurance coverage, and secondly, it is serving as a hands-on training experience for future nurses.

The clinics, a pilot project, are sponsored by the George Mason University’s School of Nursing and are available on a first-come, first-serve basis each Tuesday from 8 a.m. to noon in the Manassas Park Community Center at 99 Adams Street.

The clinic can handle up to 20 families in four make-shift examining rooms.

Carol Urban, Ph D., acting director of the School of Nursing in the College of Health and Human Services, said the clinic is a partnership between George Mason University’s School of Nursing, the Prince William Health District, the Manassas Park schools and the Manassas Park Community Center.

“It is an excellent example of how academic-community partnerships can help to meet the health needs of the community,” she said.

Urban added that nursing students from the Fairfax and Prince William campuses benefit as well as the community

“The GMU’s School of Nursing’s Nurse Practitioner program is located at the university’s Prince William Campus. This clinic provides hands-on experience for nurse practitioner students who will soon become primary care providers as well as for undergraduate nursing students to learn about community and population health,” she said.

Rebecca Sutter, health clinic director and acting assistant dean in the School of Nursing, said the clinic began as a pilot program last November. Eleven people were helped. Now sometimes 15 are turned away but Sutter hopes the clinic can be expanded to handle more families.

The services offered include school and youth athletic physicals, general health physicals, acute illness care and screenings for asthma, hypertension and diabetes.

“The clinics also helps patients to find needed continued medical care as well as planned education for the patients on how to best care for themselves to stay healthy,” Sutter said.

The grass root clinic does not provide for pre-employment physicals requiring drug testing; long term treatments for complicated illness, obstetrics care, or well-baby checkups that require immunization.

Aigul Schultz, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing student, said the training she is receiving at the clinics “has been very helpful to me” and I love meeting up with all kinds and ages of patients ranging from children to teens to adults.”

The clinic started with one nurse practitioner, Sutter, but now upwards of 25 personnel staff the clinic each week with the aim of keeping Manassas Park residents healthy and at the same time learning some vital things on how to become better nurses.
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