Missouri medical student Sarah Lovinger listens to the heartbeat of 5-year-old Carlos Bravo Friday at Spring Valley Learning Center. The students volunteered to perform well-child exams for Head Start. Photo by Gary Thompson.
Hefziba Narvaez, 3, gets her ears checked by medical student Andrea McFall on Friday. Medical students from across the country, in town for a conference, volunteered to provide health screenings to children in the Head Start program.
Dozens of young medical students in scrubs faced an early real-world challenge Friday morning: trying to examine a bunch of squirmy, sometimes terrified children, infants through 5-year-olds.
The students, in town from across the country for an American Medical Association policymaking conference, volunteered to perform the mandatory well-child exams for kids who attend Head Start, a federally-funded early childhood development program for low-income children.
Advertisement
Loma Linda University medical student Daniel Torres had an advantage -- he speaks Spanish.
He spoke soothing words to a sobbing Julian Zaragoza, 4, who was clinging to his mother. Torres finally persuaded the boy to undergo a blood pressure check only by first performing the procedure on the boy's 12-year-old brother.
The exams, which included vision and hearing tests, took place at Spring Valley Learning Center.
They were conducted as part of the AMA medical student section's national service project called Covering the Uninsured and Protecting Access to Care.
"Increasing access to care is our top priority," said medical student Chris DeRienzo, 25. The North Carolinian also serves as the lone student member of the AMA's board of trustees.
"Everybody deserves to have access to quality care. We want to push that to the top of the national agenda."
DeRienzo wouldn't say whether he thought the outcome of the recent national elections would improve the chances that the AMA's goal would be successful.
"The AMA is bipartisan. We work with both sides of the aisle."
The United States has an estimated 8 million uninsured children. In Nevada, at least 101,000 children under age 18 are without health coverage.
About 1,800 local children participate in Head Start.
Early this year, federal authorities criticized the local program for not completing mandatory hearing and vision screenings for many children.
The $12.6 million Head Start program used to be administered by the now nearly-defunct Economic Opportunity Board. The program was taken over in February by Denver's Community Development Institute after ongoing financial and other problems forced the EOB to relinquish its federal grant.
Rose Collins, manager of family services for Head Start, said the required well-child exams are now being completed.
"All the kids are being serviced," she said. "It's smooth-sailing."
