In previous entries in this series on the Hoosier Public Health Corps, we looked at how participants gained increased knowledge of public health and underserved populations, as well as the camaraderie they felt with fellow IU School of Medicine students in this AmeriCorps-affiliated summer program.
We’ll conclude by looking at how students—who participate in their program in the summer between their first and second years of medical school—helped lift Indiana nonprofits through their contributions. For many of these resource-challenged organizations, capacity is a very real issue, one that HPHC members were able to remedy.
Abby Wantz, a nurse practitioner with HealthNet’s Homeless Initiative Program in Bloomington, said Tommy McEvilly, a current MS2, was a welcome addition to their efforts.
“Tommy was great to have around,” she said. “He really embraced the work that we’re doing.”
Felecia Helvey, a case manager with HealthNet, agrees. “He came in with a really open perspective,” she said. “He jumped right in and did his thing, and he was just really wonderful.”
As part of his work with HealthNet, McEvilly assisted in ‘street medicine’—bringing necessary care to the unhoused. “A lot of the patients that we see have had maybe past trauma or just have not been treated well by traditional medicine,” Wantz said. “They’re not comfortable going into what you would think of as a traditional clinic, so we go to the patients and see them in their comfort zones.”
The need for capacity goes beyond work in the field. “One thing that is always a struggle is the constant need for completing program assessments and collecting and analyzing data so they can give it for grant reports and for future funders or grant applications,” Niki Messmore, MSEd, director of medical service learning and the HPHC program lead, said. “At the end of the day, you [the nonprofits] are just trying to keep the lights on.”
McEvilly conducted research on the street medicine program and its impact on the unhoused community. “It was great to have him take some of the work we’re doing, do research on it, and put it into a format that’s able to show the impact we’re making on the community,” Wantz said.
Casey Woods, now in her second year at IU School of Medicine in Bloomington, worked this past summer at Beacon, which helps those in extreme poverty with needs like food and housing.
“Casey was able to cover shifts when we had volunteers come in—there were some shifts for the entire summer where she was the only one working,” said Tory Crowe, volunteer coordinator for Beacon. “It was a huge asset to our organization.”
Woods appreciated doing work where she could see the positive effect right away. “Lab-based work can sometimes take years to come to its fruition,” she said. “I wanted to do something that could help the community I was in and have an effect [now.]”
Crowe offers no hesitation when asked if other medical students should consider the HPHC program. “If you’re thinking about this program, do it,” she said. “By becoming a member of this program, you’ll have a foot in the door automatically. You’ll have a sense of community that you wouldn’t have had before.”
Class of 2028: there’s still some time. Submit your application by January 15 to the 2025 Hoosier Public Health Corps.
