Giving back: Local church hosts health fair
Published 11:30 am Tuesday, March 1, 2022
This past Sunday, Mt. Moriah Baptist Church hosted a free glucose and blood pressure clinic. Sixteen LMU-DCOM students volunteered their Sunday afternoon to help the Middlesboro Community.
Elizabeth Douglas, assistant professor at LMU-DCOM, was the physician supervisor for the clinic hosted by Mt. Moriah. This type of clinic allows the medical students to get hands-on experience that will help them throughout their professional medical journey.
“It’s good for them from a practical standpoint of putting what their learning into practice, and of course, it’s a great service for the people of the community who may or may not have primary healthcare physicians,” Douglas said.
While the majority of the students that attended are not from the local community, the students wanted to volunteer to help the Middlesboro community.
“I’m proud of my students for wanting to do volunteer activities and really do some outreach into our little community,” Douglas added.
The students are taking classroom experience and turning it into real-world experience. Within the first hour of the clinic,
Douglas said they saw roughly a dozen community members.
Samuel Coleman Jr. was the host of the event, and he is also the treasurer at Mt. Moriah.
Coleman was proud to be able to help the community and allow this free service with the help of LMU-DCOM.
“We’re going to try to do this about once a quarter, and it’s my intention to get it out in the community,” he said. He also wants anyone from the community to feel welcome to come to these events, and he hopes that in the future there will be another event to go along with the free clinic.
With medical care not available to some due to income, he hopes the events will offer help to those in need.
For those that were unable to attend this event, Mt. Moriah plans to host more in the future.