Third year pharmacy student Robert Beaudoin, a Louisiana native, poses under the bridge in Tyler during January's Clinic Under the Bridge.

On a cold Saturday morning in January, students came together to check patients’ blood pressure, answer their questions and prescribe medication if needed during Clinic Under the Bridge.

Around 2018, Clinic Under the Bridge started as a service project Dr. Takova Wallace-Gay did with her pharmaceutical students at the University of Texas at Tyler. They went periodically to conduct blood glucose and blood pressure checks. The goal is to provide free health services to people who have low incomes or are experiencing homelessness.

After realizing the clients they saw needed more services than the pharmacy students could provide, Wallace-Gay created the interprofessional education committee for the university in 2019.

“Each of the times we were out there, there will be a patient, one or two people, that had such a complication that went beyond the realm of pharmacy management,” Wallace-Gay said. “We really needed either some nurses or physicians there to help assist in the care of that patient or we would have to send them to the emergency department.”

It became an integrated structure, bringing in the school of nursing and more recently the UT Tyler School of Medicine to help with Clinic Under the Bridge. In the past they have had psychology students and even Tyler Junior College Dental Hygiene Clinic students come help.

They usually have 4 to 5 UT Tyler pharmacy students, 3 to 4 UT Tyler nursing students, four TJC Dental Hygiene students, a UT Tyler psychology faculty member and student volunteer. In the past occupational therapy and social work from TJC along with community health workers from NETHealth have helped as well.

Oftentimes, people who spend time under the Valentine Street bridge in Tyler face barriers to health, like transportation, access to medication, or lack of ID when they get referred to local health organizations. When community health workers came, they were able to help them with that. For patients seen at UT Tyler Health Science Center or UT Health East Texas, they are able to pull up their chart and patient history.

“They learn how to navigate some of the complexities of populations that are unhoused, or low income,” Wallace-Gay said. “The students learn to shoot for the stars when they are in class, like, ‘oh, this patient has this condition, we should prescribe these two medications.’ Well, we can’t get labs out here. So you can’t prescribe that medication. If you don’t know how their kidneys are working, you need to give them something that doesn’t depend on their kidney function.”

Students learn to ask the right questions. If a patient has high blood pressure, they look into the number instead asking targeted questions to get to the why of that number. In addition the students get experience communicating because they have to transfer the patient to the physician.

Third-year pharmacy student Robert Beaudoin has learned how to communicate with physicians through volunteering.

“You need to be great communicators because we need to be able to bridge the gap between health care professionals [and] the pharma patients,” Beaudoin said. “This is what I find myself doing a lot with them, dealing with patients being able to take the details and make it understandable for them. I’ve developed those skills so far.”

Wallace-Gay appointed a point person for the school of medicine to get more people involved. In the past they used students in the family residency program. The January Clinic Under the Bridge was only the second time UT Tyler med school students have come out.

First-year medical student Alan Lambert, originally from Texarkana, appointed as the point person by Wallace-Gay, came to volunteer for the first time during the January Clinic Under the Bridge.

“I hope they continue to come back but actually interacting helps you continue to be a compassionate physician,” Lambert said. “Sometimes you can get stuck studying in a book all day and you forget that you’re going to be talking to people all the time. So being out here and actually interacting with patients helps you grow that personal part of being a physician because that is a part of every physician.”

Third-year pharmacy student Dashayla Gage wants to start her own mobile clinic after volunteering with Clinic Under the Bridge. She learned about the program through the Student National Pharmaceutical Association from the then former president.

“I have family in underserved populations who need the help and they can’t afford it,” Gage said. “They don’t have as much accessibility… I just want to use it to be able to give back.”

The clinic is held the third Saturday of each month.

To help, UT Health personnel are welcome to volunteer. Contact Elizabeth Wingfield at Elizabeth.Wingfield@uttyler.edu for information. Community members can also donate over-the-counter medication to help with Clinic Under the Bridge. Contact Wallace-Gay at twallacegay@uttyler.edu.