Community Involvement and Outreach
Tar War’s Program
Each year, WWAMI students visit local elementary schools to promote Tar Wars, a tobacco-free education program for fourth- and fifth-grade students. The program is designed to teach children about the short-term health effects and image-based consequences of tobacco use, and about being tobacco free by providing them tools to make positive decisions regarding their health and promote personal responsibility for their well being. More information on Tar Wars can be found through the AAFP website.
WWAMI’s contribution to Free Clinics on the Palouse and Clearwater
The WWAMI students have played a big part of the founding and start-up of the Palouse Free Clinic (PFC). The PFC is an approved outreach site for Idaho WWAMI medical students due to the hard work of a few dedicated first year students on the Palouse! Idaho WWAMI medical students provide much needed support for the PFC and gain a valuable learning experience caring for patients who visit.
The Palouse Free Clinic has been providing free, high-quality healthcare to community members since April 2014, with an emphasis on reducing barriers to care, treating patients with dignity and empowering patients to improve all aspects of their health and wellness — because they believe that everyone's wellness matters.
As a nonprofit organization working under the umbrella of the Community Action Center, their dedicated volunteers are working hard to recapture the heart of practicing medicine. They believe in doing all they can to help their patients and look forward to expanding their community partnerships in order to better connect patients to other valuable community resources and social services.
PFC is run by a completely volunteer staff which includes local providers, physicians, mid-levels, nurses, social services, psychology and physical therapy. In fulfilling a part of their mission to include education, a majority of the volunteers are WWAMI medical students, nursing and many from pre-health sciences majors.
