One stop shop – Student pharmacists establish pharmacy services for La Clínica Latina
During typical business hours, the Rardin Family Center provides comprehensive family care. But when the clock strikes five, the daytime staff trade places with a team of health science students and volunteer health care providers, and the unassuming brick building transforms into a free community care hub.
For more than 30 years, the center has served as the home base for student-run free clinics. From the familiar Columbus Free Clinic to Noor Community Clinic, student-run services are all intended to expand health care access to vulnerable community members in Columbus.
One of these clinics, La Clínica Latina, is in the midst of a pharmacy transformation thanks to the hard work of Pharmacy Buckeyes.
La Clínica Latina was founded in 2017 to serve the city’s Spanish-speaking residents. Medical professionals provide care ranging from check-ups to medical tests, all with the ability to provide clear information in a language that their patients are familiar and comfortable with.
For years, the medical students running the clinic have been hoping to get pharmacy services introduced to the location. The Latino population in Franklin County served by the clinic is disproportionately medically underserved, with individuals often unable to afford necessary medications.
“Due to low levels of health literacy or a simple language barrier, our patients don’t always know how to navigate the system to advocate for themselves or find ways to lower the cost of their care,” said Medical Student Director Rebekah Walker. “Our goal for establishing the pharmacy, like other aspects of Clínica Latina, is to provide prescriptions to those that need them with instructions, educational materials and support in Spanish.”
Julie Kennerly-Shah, PharmD, MS ’14, associate director of pharmacy at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC—James) spearheaded the project during the 2023-2024 academic year.
Dr. Kennerly-Shah was uniquely positioned to provide a holistic perspective on pharmacy administration and La Clínica’s operations. Since 2010, she has worked as a pharmacy volunteer for the Rardin free clinics and has served on the board of the Columbus Free Clinic (also located at Rardin) since 2014.
"I met my husband while volunteering with the Columbus Free Clinic, and since our start with the organization, we’ve become more involved on the directorial side of things,” Dr. Kennerly-Shah said. “In recent years, as my involvement with La Clínica has grown, he and I started to wonder, ‘Can we replicate the pharmacy practice that we have at Columbus Free Clinic at La Clínica?’”
Much like the Columbus Free Clinic, La Clínica provides needed prescriptions along with instructions and educational materials in Spanish.
Current medical student directors of La Clínica, Rebekah Walker and Jared Bradshaw, supported the launch of pharmacy services by passing on preparatory materials gathered by their predecessors. With the materials provided about the patient population and available community partners, Dr. Kennerly-Shah was supported as she began to build her team.
Much to her delight, Dr. Kennerly-Shah was assisted by a group of extremely motivated pharmacy students: Madeline Ferguson (P3), Madeline Owen (P2) and Amy Wu (P3).
“I cannot emphasize enough that the pharmacy services would not have launched without their leadership and initiative,” Dr. Kennerly-Shah said of the student administrators. “The other professionals on staff and myself lent our support, but they were truly the heart and soul of the operation.”
What goes into building pharmacy services?
Ferguson, Owen and Wu took on the role of student coordinators hoping to build their pharmacy administration experience. Having to start the pharmacy services from scratch, the group’s small venture into pharmacy administration quickly became an in-depth expedition.
Alongside Dr. Kennerly-Shah, the student coordinators established a formulary and inventory of medication, developed working relationships with vendors, created standard operating procedures and training, and recruited student and professional volunteers to keep things running.
“This was a unique opportunity to not only serve as coordinators, but build the foundation for future, everyday admin work,” Owen said. “We organized aspects that we often take for granted when working in an established pharmacy space, like the computer programing, labelling system and formulary. Developing those basics was much more than I would expect to do in a typical administrative internship.”
As they built out these pharmacy elements, the student coordinators focused on understanding how their choices would serve the clinic’s unique patient base.
Take for instance, the clinic’s current formulary. Though composed of only five medications, each one that is included was determined to have the highest impact on their patient demographic.
“Through our discussion and research of the clinic’s work, we found that the highest impact medications are those attached to primary care,” Dr. Kennerly-Shah said. “Think blood glucose, diabetes or hypertension. Those kind of chronic disease states are what our volunteer physicians are most frequently addressing in their prescriptions.”
While the current five medications are serving a large portion of patients’ needs, the pharmacy coordinators hope to expand the formulary as the clinic’s pharmacy staff stabilizes.
It’s thanks to volunteers that free clinics like La Clínica can operate as cornerstones of accessible health care, but establishing a new pharmacy service staff is perhaps the greatest challenge, due to the volunteer-based nature of the clinic.
“Finding working pharmacists with the ability to volunteer their time is a definite challenge,” Ferguson said. “To keep the space running, we’re constantly searching for available volunteers through local pharmacy connections and advertising. We’re hoping to eventually establish residency partnerships as Columbus Free Clinic has, to help with consistent staffing.”
Rotating pharmacists are a necessity for pharmacy services to run, but an added benefit is the mentorship offered between those pharmacists and student volunteers.
Since its creation, La Clínica has primarily been staffed with students from the Ohio State College of Medicine. With the introduction of pharmacy services, students from the College of Pharmacy can now offer their support as well.
Free clinics are a popular space for College of Pharmacy students to meet their Community Health Service (CHS) requirements. The Asian Health Initiative and Columbus Free Clinic are already popular choices among the student body.
“We’re hoping to involve some of the incoming P1 students at La Clínica,” Owen said. “Hopefully, that will help us build a staff of returning student volunteers as they continue their PharmD. Also, giving them a real space to practice will build their confidence as professionals early in their career. They’ll experience counseling, medication reconciliation, filling prescriptions and other things that they can’t replicate in the classroom.”
After months of work, the power administrative team of Ferguson, Dr. Kennerly-Shah, Owen and Wu have successfully established La Clínica’s pharmacy services, offering patients long-term, low-cost solutions to obtaining their prescriptions. Yet, the team is gearing up for further growth.
The clinic was awarded the EquityRX: Bridging Gaps in Medication Access Grant via the National Association of Free & Charitable Clinics (NAFC) and funded by the Cardinal Health Foundation. The $45,000 grant funded initial supplies for pharmacy services and will hopefully sustain and support the services for years to come.
The three students will continue their work as student coordinators and look toward a future of an expanded formulary, established student volunteers and improvements in patient care.
La Clínica Latina is currently open every other Tuesday from 5:30-8:30 p.m. at the Rardin Family Clinic. For those interested in volunteering their time, find volunteer information and sign-ups at clinicalatina.com, or contact the clinic at clinica@clinicalatina.com.