Support for this program is provided by the Weldon F Osborne Foundation.

The Schillhahn-Huskey Foundation.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.

On today's show will feature two non-profits focused on important health care challenges in our community.

One provides pediatric health and behavioral care to low income families.

The other is a clinic modeled after Global Mission Hospitals.

We've got a lot to talk about.

Stay with us.

Welcome to Chattanooga Stronger Together.

Im Barbara Marter.

Joining us today is Dr. Michele Pickett, executive director of LifeSpring Community Health Center.

The clinic services help to heal both the mind and the body.

Welcome, Dr. Pickett.

I'm so happy that you're here with us today.

I want you to tell me how LifeSpring got started and that your energy, your love for the community.

Wow.

That's taking us back quite a ways.

Life Springs started actually, as the children's clinic at St Andrew's Center.

wow.

In 2006.

And that all came about because the the St Andrew's Center and they were working in the schools and noticed that within in, with the increasing numbers of Latino kids coming in that they had no health care.

And so Mike Feeley, who was then the director, asked if I would start a pediatric clinic in the St Andrew's Center.

And he gave us free space.

So that's how we started.

It was a small, very small afterschool clinic for kids.

And I'm a pediatrician and so it wasn't just urgent care.

We did full pediatric physicals, but it was very part time.

In that time, we had about 200 patients for the whole year.

wow.

That has grown.

That has grown.

And but we were very interested in the community and did sports physicals and educational things.

And and, Dr. Minnie Vance had heard about some of our work.

And as she was retiring at the wonderful age of 88, she allowed us to use her office building.

And so as we transitioned, that was in 2010, as we transition from the St Andrew's Center to her office on McCallie Avenue, we also incorporated and became a nonprofit Life Spring Community Health, and began to not just see uninsured kids, but also kids with Medicaid.

And we wanted to create a practice where all kids were welcome and that we would focus on kids who had poor access to health care and.

And so it's grown since then.

So we outgrew the McCallie office right before the pandemic.

And moved in April of the pandemic into our into offices owned by Cempa on third and Central, right across from the hospital, right from Erlanger.

And in two years later, we moved upstairs in that building because we just continued to get more patients of need.

So now from 200 a year, we're over 6000 visits a year.

services now include more than just the pediatrics, right?

It does.

And it's interesting because we named ourselves Life Spring Community Health way back in 2010, because it's always been our vision to not just serve the kids, but to serve the families theyre in, the community that surrounds them.

And so as LifeSprings grown, we have added things that address the family and the community.

And so for that reason, we've added community health workers to help our patients navigate social needs.

And we've just recently added behavioral health thanks to a grant through the city.

The need really came to us because our our providers, our nurse practitioners and our pediatricians were identifying a lot of mental health needs in those in families and having a really difficult time finding appropriate counseling for them because of language barriers and cultural barriers.

And so everything that we've added has really come from that vision to serve the whole family, embrace the child, and make not just their bodies healthy, but begin to address the other determinants of health that would affect a child.

Well.

And so what are the age groups birth to 21 to 21.

But I like what you were talking about, the you're really looking at the whole family issue and not just that one particular patient.

The whole family then becomes a patient.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

And and so we are that's where our community health workers come in, because they if a family identifies a need such as that, they will sit down or at least they will offer it to the family.

And some families have resources and they are not needing our community health workers to work with them.

But if they do, then the community health workers are able to sit down with them and they have resources, lists of resources throughout the community.

And we have many partners and many other organizations doing incredible things.

And so we're able to connect.

We we can't do it all.

We don't intend to do it all.

And so for adult medical care, we particularly for the Latino community, we refer to Clinica Médicos and and Cempa, and we also use we also partner with La Paz and the Health Department.

And so we really feel like the collaboration that like spring plays a role.

We are not trying to be all for everyone, but for the families that come to us.

We try to connect them to support systems throughout the community.

And I love the fact that you are actually bringing other nonprofits and other social welfare and health care organizations to the table to say, if this is a service that your family needs and you don't have a way to get those, here are some of the services that are available to you and do those referrals.

do the the the health care, the community, health care workers do they do all of their patients come into the office or do any of them go to their homes and do like a self assessment there?

So the community health workers have done a variety of things over the years.

And a lot of it depends on the needs of the community as well as grant funding.

And but yes, they do go out into the community.

They both go they have in the past been involved with a newcomer program at Howard High School.

And just in terms of visiting with with those students and helping to be a resource, they've also been a part of a grant lately called Food as Medicine, and we are able to provide food boxes to families.

So we ask.

It's called The Hunger Vital Signs.

There are two questions that we asked during a physical about whether a family is I had to miss meals or has had difficulty with keeping food available.

And if they do check one of the those questions, then we're able to help them and to to meet with the family.

And so that's going out in the community with that grant.

But some of the other grants have been around gardening now where we help families actually put raised raised beds in their in their yards and grow vegetables.

I love that I'm a gardener, so I love that.

Yeah.

And then that developed into a partnership with Crabtree.

Crabtree Farms.

Yeah.

So they, they are meant to be extenders of our health message out into the community.

And so if it takes them into visiting families at home, that's what they do.

Is there a success story that you like to share?

I'm we talk we talked a little bit about the behavioral health.

And so that made me think of a young lady who was struggling and was cutting herself.

And her family did not know.

And it was during a pediatric visit for a well visit with a nurse practitioner that that became a that the nurse practitioner became aware and began working with that with this patient.

And then the family found was brought into it, and then they were able to address it as a family and to refer to services and to have that relationship of trust with with that provider.

And now that we have behavioral health, that that those kind of patients can now be referred in-house, maybe even on the same day, we could the nurse practitioner could walk over and ask one of our therapists to come in and talk with a patient who's struggling.

And over the pandemic, we have seen quite a number of young, young children and teenagers struggling, particularly with depression, anxiety and some suicidal ideation because of the isolation, isolation, stress, just family dynamics and past traumas that finally kind of bubble up and everything.

I know.

So as we're getting ready to close out, are there opportunities for volunteers?

So we have a variety of volunteers, and because we are a fully a full pediatric practice, it our volunteers tend to, if they're medical, we need them to train on all of our systems.

And and so we do have volunteers, but we do ask them to commit to being there regularly.

And several of our volunteers are now on staff.

cool.

And that, that that's wonderful because that tells me that they not only liked what we did, but they want to be a part of it if they want to be a part of yeah, it's a big family.

Yeah, that so.

But some of our volunteers are also non-medical and almost one of our most recent volunteers is actually helping us with the administration and the practice management side because she comes with, she's retired and comes with a lot of experience in those areas.

And so I would encourage volunteers to just reach out to us and find out if there's a place that they can.

You've got a very robust website and there's a lot of information there.

So I encourage our viewers to go check it out and learn more about you.

Dr. Pickett, thank you so much for coming in today.

It has been a true pleasure.

Thank you, Barbara.

It's been a privilege.

Up next, we'll have Dr. Kelly Rodney Arnold of Clinica Medicos Stay with us.

serve your community.

Send us photos or videos of you or your family volunteering, and we may feature it on a future episode.

Email stronger at WTCITV dot org or use the hashtag stronger WTCI on social media.

welcome back Dr. Kelly.

Rodney Arnold is with us.

She is the medical director and founder of Clinica Medicos and the founder of the nonprofit Medicos Mission Fund.

The clinic is modeled after Global Mission Hospitals with Chattanooga as their urban mission ground.

They strive to solve the challenges of health care, especially for the Latino community in our city.

thank you so much for coming in.

Dr. Arnold.

I am excited to learn more about Clinica Medicos.

That's a new one for me, so I'm excited for you to start to share the story.

How did this get started?

Whose vision was it and what services you provide?

Well, thank you for having me, and I'm excited to answer any question that you have.

There's a lot to talk about in this segment because the operation and the clinic and the mission of what we do is pretty expansive in its origins, its philosophy, and in its measured growth right now.

So I'll start with saying that we are clinic that opened in 2015 to specifically address the underserved, uninsured Latino community of Chattanooga.

Okay.

I grew up in Southern California.

I was surrounded by Spanish.

I am the product of immigration in that my grandfather came from Italy, grew up with the history of his learning to be American, learning to acculturate.

Similarly, my parents are health care providers.

My father is a physician.

I'm actually a fourth generation physician.

And so I grew up with this mentality of independent practice, family, medicine, the model of service in my veins, such that after going through medical school, studying abroad, a lot, and really genuinely connecting with a passion, which was to combine my love of science, my pursuit of medicine, my interest in humanity.

With Spanish speaking.

It was a natural fit that I would go down this pathway.

Fast forward to 2015 and do something that was unique and challenging inside of what I thought was a necessary calling to address some of the health care needs inside of Chattanooga.

that still remain.

that's wonderful.

So you saw a need and you knew you had the skill sets to do it.

What brought you to Chattanooga?

I met and then married my med school sweetheart.

So my husband, Doctor Justin Arnold, who's an orthopedist.

We met in Memphis in medical school.

And very early on, he said this relationship is going really well, but I want you to know that I really want to live in Chattanooga with my family.

And after visiting Chattanooga one time I was sold, I thought it was one of the most beautiful places I'd ever been.

And we don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon.

And we won't let you go because you're doing something that's really needed.

I appreciate that.

So let's talk about Clinica Medicos What does it do?

What are the services that you provide?

Well, when we're talking about being a fourth generation family physician, Philosophically, I'm very fundamentally tied to how medicine used to be, especially in the specialty of family medicine, which is you took care of the entire family, you delivered the babies, you were there for the needs of the patient.

You tried to do as much as you could under one roof.

And in its origins, specialization and referral were the smallest part of the daily equation.

As we apply that to underserved communities, that model makes the most sense and that cohesiveness inside of medical care increases the probability that the services will be delivered.

yes, we are going to see children.

Yes, we are going to do women's health.

We are going to provide acute emergent care.

We are going to address chronic care.

And the the real complexity in all of it is that we are also going to be a part of delivery services and provide obstetrical care to women, which in our community the necessity of provide ers and a base of physicians willing to culturally meet women who are uninsured and possibly advanced in their pregnancies to deliver healthy outcomes for both the women and for the children is dire.

So we do a host of services.

About 25% of our patients are pediatric.

The rest of them range really on a majority inside of the spectrum of young families.

But we do take care of the entire family and sometimes that looks like the entire family.

One room where somebody is getting routine bloodwork, somebody is having an infection addressed, somebody is getting vaccinations for school preparedness, and then somebody is talking about how an ankle hurts from falling on a jobsite.

And we're taking care of and addressing all those needs while in one visit.

And I think that that is absolutely critical in defragmenting a very complicated and expensive system.

Recently, we added another layer to what we do inside of our daily practice, and that would be that we're an official comprehensive care model, which means we have a behavioral health outfit inside of our clinic.

So that I think as family physicians and as physicians who are taking care of uninsured communities, the bio psychosocial model of health care is really what we're looking for in addressing overall wellness.

What is your biology?

What is your sociology and what is your psychology?

So the psychological arm of addressing the needs of our patients is where we're now connecting patients on a daily basis without an appointment through warm handoffs to licensed clinical therapists who are there and available to build that bridge.

And that's been tremendously success ful and really rewarding to see happen.

Wow.

Well, the thing of it is, you're not just a little bit let somebody else take care of that.

You're saying this is a need that we see and how do we address it?

And, you know, and there are other organizations or services out there that we could refer them over to to get whatever treatments or services or whatever they need.

So really holistically, you are looking at the whole family.

So I want to talk to you about you have an obstetrics fellowship.

Yes.

So what is that?

Well, in my affiliation academically with the Department of Family Medicine, so in my heart of hearts, I'm a teacher.

I've been a professor in the department Family medicine.

I'm an associate professor.

And in starting the clinic, I had been working in the community hospital in Erlanger full time and with residents.

The clinic was another angle to amplify the educational opportunities for residents inside of their family medicine residency.

And so I just actually left from the meeting with faculty from UT family Practice, in which we are constantly navigating these waters together in delivering the best educational opportunities we can to the residents, because these are a future physicians who are going to take care of our community.

And we believe that to be academically prepared is really important, but also be community prepared is really important.

And what are the trends and needs of patients and how do we as physicians, be patient led instead of system led?

wow.

So the extension of that and being somebody who taught inside of a residency for years and years is that in independent practice you have the opportunity, which is not a small undertaking, but to develop a fellowship in which you take physicians who've graduated from the residency, they're independently licensed, they're able to go out and practice on their own, but provide them two years of additional tutelage, additional shepherding in teaching them the skills necessary to do a lot of the work inside of your specialty.

So for us, that means a resident who graduates from a family medicine program might not have all the obstetrical training that he or she needs.

We deliver that to the end of their being able to have the qualifications to do caesarean sections.

It also means we are showing them how we do in-office procedures.

It means we are showing them how to do in office ultrasound based with the maternity health care that we deliver.

So in essence, it's creating a discipleship of physician learners who want to graduate, certified and able to take care of underserved and rural communities and the patients most in need.

Wow, that's amazing.

And we're in our fifth year now.

wow.

Okay.

How many patients would you say in a year that you see coming through in a year?

This is this is growing.

But we see on average 25 to 30000 patients visits a year.

We have approximately 45,000 registered patients, which that's growing from zero.

When I opened the clinic, I modeled it after a lot of the mission sites where I had worked, where how do we put everything under one roof?

What does that look like?

It was an empty butler building that I took out loans to have half of it built out at the time.

But it's interesting and it's fascinating at the same time that when a need and a demand is met with the right formula, how quickly something can grow and for me, success wasn't measured by how big we were going to be or how many patients we were going to be.

It's been measured more by if you're to survey all those patients who are registered, most of them are there because they've heard through word of mouth that it's a nice place to be, it's a safe place and it's a safe place to be and it's a caring place.

And people answer the phone.

And if we don't have an answer, we'll try to help you.

And in addition to that, it's not just about who you are medically.

It's about who you are in the context of your family.

It's about your social surroundings.

It's about the barriers you're facing.

It's about the needs you have beyond those doors.

Well, and you're exactly right.

I think a lot of physicians have moved away from that because a lot of times you don't feel like the doctor is really listening and hearing what you're saying.

And the fact that you are doing that and listening to them and taking what they're saying seriously, but not only just that as a patient, but how does this affect the whole family and what was going on with family?

I think that's amazing.

The one last thing I want to talk about is your telehealth.

Did that start out of COVID and you've just continued or have you always had the telehealth it start out of COVID?

But truthfully, and this is where the cultural competency comes into an understanding, the interaction and engagement of your patient population with the health care system.

Telehealth has not been something that has had a large impact inside of our practice.

We offer it, but the majority, overwhelming majority of our patients prefer to be in person in a room with a physician.

So it's an offering.

It's, for me, probably one of the least engaged with tools that we have at the clinic There is going to be.

And so through the expansion of our practice at 1148, across from the Montague Sculpture Fields, where we're building a new mental health facility, it's under construction right now and a pediatric dental suite which pediatric dental is going to be.

Clinica Sonrisas, which is Clinica Smiles.

The mental health suite is Clinica Renuevo and that's a renewal.

We are going to still maintain telehealth capability in these new facilities.

I'm open to the possibility that in our new format and inside of mental health, with more mental health providers, there might be a deeper connection through that outlet with our community to be discovered.

We'll see.

Wow, I love your vision.

I love your heart for Chattanooga.

Thank you for coming.

Thank your husband for bringing us here.

But I've learned so much and I think you just have a great jewel in our community.

So thank you so much for coming in today.

We really do appreciate it.

So thank you for letting me tell our story.

Yeah.

Okay.

it.

And thank you for joining us today.

For viewers like you who want to make a difference in our community, we hope that Chattanooga Stronger Together offers a fresh perspective.

So let us know what you think.

Email us at Stronger at WTA TV dot org or use the hashtag Stronger WTA on Social Media.

I'm Barbara Marter and we'll see you next time.

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Download it today.

Support for this program is provided by the Weldon F Osborne Foundation.

The Schillhahn-Huskey Foundation.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.