Union Gospel Mission (UGM) Medical Clinic

The Yakima Union Gospel Mission (UGM) Medical Clinic is dedicated to providing free primary care and urgent care services to individuals and families experiencing hardships and difficulty accessing health care. COM students at PNWU have the unique opportunity to help the Union Gospel Mission achieve their goals by volunteering to work alongside a community, licensed health professional. This allows COM students to enhance their abilities to perform a physical exam, gather a medical history, perform osteopathic manipulation and physical therapy techniques, and practice giving case presentations. 

Through their efforts in the clinic, PNWU COM students are able to work towards increasing the health and wellness of the members of their community that need it the most as well as become more adept and aware of the complexities of working with a disadvantaged minority population that can only speak limited English. Students find spending time at the clinic also serves to recharge their batteries from the demanding rigors of health professional school studies and reminds them why they chose the path of health care in the first place. 

Contact: 

UGMStudentDirectors@pnwu.edu 

For 2023-2024 the Student Co-Directors are Katelyn Bonny, Minerva Lin, Cecilia Oaks, and Alex Perez.  

Important Information for PNWU Volunteers
BASICS: 

Please watch the UGM video before going into the clinic: here.  

IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER: 

  1. All clinics are located at the main UGM Medical Clinic 1300 N 1st Street, Yakima, WA  98901 The new clinic is now in the same building as the dental clinic to the right as you drive through the parking lot. Please Park in the volunteer spaces. 
  2. Due to COVID-19 students must be fully vaccinated against COVID and complete a two-week waiting period post vaccine prior to volunteering. Documents should be uploaded to E*Value in a timely manner. 

Signing Up to Volunteer at UGM:

  1. Complete the Moodle orientation module. There are videos that are short and can be completed in 30 minutes or less. This is required for ALL students wanting to participate at the UGM clinic. Videos and Quizzes at the end of the videos are REQUIRED. We check if videos and quizzes have been completed and if not and you will not be allowed to participate at the clinic. Moodle orientation: https://moodle.pnwu.edu/course/view.php?id=3397 
  1. Make an account on the YUGM volunteer website: Login | Yakima Union Gospel Mission (galaxydigital.com) using their PNWU domain email address. It is easier for staff that way to identify PNWU students. Fill out your profile info and sign the “YUGM Volunteer Guidelines and Waivers and Approval” background check form. This usually takes just a couple of days to get approved. Once it is approved the UGM volunteer coordinator will let us know when you are approved.
    1. https://yugm.galaxydigital.com 
    2. Please fill-out this application (USING YOUR PNWU EMAIL) PRIOR to volunteering. After you sign-up as a volunteer, you must complete and upload a background check form (found here), a volunteer agreement form (found here). 
  1. Submit the Jot Form to Student Affairs letting them know you would like to volunteer - Union Gospel Mission (UGM) (pnwu.edu)   
  1. Make sure your COVID-19 Vaccine Status is uploaded for PNWU. Once it is uploaded, PNWU staff will let us know that your vaccination status is cleared. (Currently, PNWU & UGM are not requiring students to have their booster, however, this is strongly encouraged).    
EXPECTATIONS:
  • Please remember because the clinic revolves around licensed health professionals volunteering their time, sometimes the schedule changes unexpectedly. We will do our best to notify you if a shift is canceled, but please be flexible and keep that in mind. 
  • Most of the patients are Spanish speaking, so if you have any Spanish speaking background, we could use your help with translating! 
  • HIPPA expectations should be always followed. 

Before Arriving at the Clinic: 

  • REQUIRED ATTIRE: For shadowing and Monday night clinics please wear business casual clothing or scrubs (as if you were on campus) with closed-toed shoes, your white coat, your ID badge, and please bring your laptop, your stethoscope, and diagnostic kit.  For all other volunteering shifts please wear business casual clothing or scrubs with closed-toed shoes and your ID badge. 
  • When signing up for a volunteer role that involves patient contact, make sure to indicate if you will need an interpreter. 
  • For your first shift please arrive 15 minutes early. 

While in Clinic: 

  • When you arrive at clinic, please log into your UGM Volunteer portal and mark that you are present for your shift using the iPad located at the front desk. 
  • The free clinic has limited staff and rely on your help and participation to serve the underserved of this community. During your volunteer time, you can further provide support by helping with restock and organizing. As a result, UGM asks that you spend 50% of your volunteer time helping to restock/organize in the clinic and 50% of your time as a student doctor or with intake. 
  • If your role is student health professional, make sure to ask the receptionist or provider you are working with if there is any restocking/cleaning that you can help with prior to completing your shift. 
  • When you come into the clinic, please ask the receptionist for a specific task to work on. You may be handed a list of things to work on or asked to reorganize/restock the clinic. After completing these tasks, you may serve in your role as a student health professional or help with intake
    • Intake involves helping patients fill out their intake forms and taking vitals. 
  • As a student health professional, your roles may vary depending on what tasks the providers and clinic staff could use to help. Your tasks may include assisting with procedures and physical exams, cleaning and sterilizing rooms and equipment, and helping the front desk. On OMT nights, osteopathic medical students can assist with diagnosing, treating, and scribing. 

After Leaving Clinic: 

  • Osteopathic Medical Students: please remember to log your volunteer TOUCH Hours here: https://www.trackitforward.com/site/pnwu-com. When logging TOUCH hours make sure to list Yakima as “Urban-Underserved.” Shadowing does not qualify as volunteer/TOUCH hours, so please do not log in to the iPad when arriving for your shift and do not submit them to Track it Forward. 
RULES: 

You will receive 1 strike if: 

  • You do not contact the UGM Co-Directors regarding any changes or cancelations within 48 hours of your shift. For Monday night clinic the expectation is that UGM Co-Directors will be notified the Thursday prior to your shift.  
  • You do not find a replacement for your shift. 
  • You show up late for your shift without communicating your tardiness. 
  • You attempt to sign up for volunteer shifts without following steps for approval. 
  • You are signed up as an On-Call provider and are unavailable.  

You are ineligible for any further UGM Signups after 2 strikes. All unprofessional behavior will be processed with student affairs.  

VOLUNTEERING ROLES: 

There are a variety of roles with UGM. Intake, Translator, Shelter Care, Scribing, and Student Doctor. Even though you sign up for one role, you can work with your fellow volunteers to rotate roles during a shift if you wish. 

Translator: Assist student provider by translating (Spanish – English). 

Student Provider (Monday Night Clinics): Takes patient history and performs physical exams they have been taught while supervised by a preceptor in the UGM Office. 

Student Provider (Shelter Care): Takes patient history, performs physical exams, and provides basic wound care while supervised by a preceptor for individuals experiencing homelessness living on the UGM campus or on the streets nearby.  These shifts are open to MAMS students. 

On Call Student or OMT Provider: On call to fill in for last-minute cancellations at the student clinic.  If you sign up for this role it is expected that you will be available so, please check your calendar.  No cancellations will be accepted except for extenuating circumstances (i.e., illness or family emergency). On-call providers are expected to be available to be called until 5 pm on the night of the clinic.  

Clinic Office Aide: Assists with whatever is needed that day in the clinic.  Tasks include assisting with intake; scribing for providers on busy days; helping organize and put away shipments and donations to the clinic; stocking some of the most-used supplies to the rooms; scanning documents into EMR; manually copy and pasting labs from VMM to practice fusion; helping homeless patients organize their meds into containers for the days of the week. 

Shadowing Shifts: Shadow one of the providers in the clinic. 

 
Monday Night Student Run Clinics 

Student-run clinics will be on Monday evenings. When signing up please indicate if you will need the services of a translator, and we ask that you not sign up for more than one student-run clinic in a month. We all want to learn as providers but please be respectful of your fellow students. Please do not sign up for two weeks in a row, even if it is in different months. There are additional opportunities to be in the clinic, the information is below. Three general clinician spots have been designated for DO students and there is also a spot for OMT. 

Sign-ups for the Monday night clinic should be by Thursday the week prior to allow staff adequate time to schedule an interpreter if one is needed. Cancellations for Monday night clinics must be made by the end of the business day, the Thursday before the shift, to allow adequate time for them to be filled. If there is an opening one week prior to a Monday clinic, you may sign up on a first come first serve basis, regardless of if you have volunteered at a student-run clinic previously that month. This allows you to sign up for additional shifts if they have not been filled prior to the clinic. (For example, if a student-run clinic on Monday the 10th has an open spot on Tuesday the 4th it’s available on a first come first serve basis.) We as student directors reserve the right to remove you from sign-up to allow other students to participate. If you would like more time in the clinic, we encourage you to sign up for other volunteer roles, including non-clinical. 

Other Information: 

Dr. Kristi Trickett (Medical Director) and Hannah Wilson, PA-C (Clinic Director) are the directors of the clinic. Sometimes they may have additional tasks you can complete for them, just ask. You can also keep in touch with them on the UGM Medical Clinic Facebook Page here for any non-urgent questions. 

As always, please feel free to contact the PNWU-UGM Co-Directors if you have any questions at ugmstudentdirectors@pnwu.edu