Center of Excellence in Diversity in Medical Education–

Clinical Opportunities

All quarters, Stanford medical students only

Family Medicine, a required core clerkship for all Stanford medical students, is a terrific opportunity for students to strengthen their cultural competence through direct patient experience. The clerkship contains a cross-cultural workshop module in which students learn about culturally influenced attitudes and beliefs, and how these impact patients’ health behaviors.

Topics include communication barriers, provider roles, alternative medicine, traditional healing, health promotion and disease prevention. The workshop contains a cross-cultural module.

During the clerkship's teaching activities, students develop specific skills to interact more effectively with patients and families whose health care beliefs and values may differ from their own. Workshop activities cover selected topics relevant to minority health and health concerns identified in Healthy People 2010, a national health promotion and disease-prevention initiative coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The workshop includes the use of standardized patient models to simulate clinic interactions.

For more information, please see:

Contact Information

Location/Mailing Address:
Arbor Free Clinic
251 Campus Drive, MSOB x3C43
Stanford, California 94305-5404

Sunday Clinic Location:
Menlo Park VA Facility
795 Willow Road
Menlo Park, California 94025

Weekday phone: (650) 724-1332
Sunday phone: (650) 493-5000 x22844
Fax: (650) 725-9852
Pager #: (650) 723-8222 x25305
E-mail: arborclinic@stanford.edu

Arbor Free Clinic

Each Sunday, Arbor Free Clinic provides quality free medical care to low-income and uninsured people, as well as a hands-on learning environment for Stanford students. Patients are accepted on a walk-in basis at the Menlo Park VA Hospital on Willow Road. Arbor also works to link people with community resources and ongoing health care from the network of low-cost health care providers in the area.

Arbor’s health screening team participates in local fairs and festivals, and provides screening tests for diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol. Arbor also sponsors health fairs for uninsured children, providing basic physicals, orthopedic exams, vision and hearing tests, anemia checks, urinalysis and immunizations.

Arbor Free Clinic was started and is still run by Stanford medical students dedicated to providing free medical care to those in need.

Contact Information

Physical Address:
Overfelt School Health Clinic
1835 Cunningham Avenue
San Jose, CA 95122
Phone (cell): (408) 705-0119
E-mail: pacific@med.stanford.edu

Office Contact Info (Weekdays):
Pacific Free Clinic
251 Campus Drive, MSOB x3C43
Stanford, CA 94305-5404
Fax: (650) 725-9852

Pacific Free Clinic

Pacific Free Clinic is a Stanford student-run clinic providing free health care services for people in the East San Jose area with low income, no insurance, and/or low English proficiency. Open on Saturdays at Overfelt High School to all regardless of immigration status, the clinic offers onsite medical interpretation services in Spanish, Vietnamese, and Mandarin Chinese to help patients overcome cultural and language barriers to health care access.

The clinic is staffed by volunteer Stanford and local community physicians, and Stanford undergraduates, medical students, and interpreters.

Clinic managers:

Ravenswood Family Health Center

The Ravenswood Family Health Center (RFHC) is a federally qualified health clinic in East Palo Alto.  The clinic serves one of the most medically underserved communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. The clinic has numerous opportunities for medical students to participate in health service activities for minority populations. A unique aspect of the clinic is it’s strong ties with the Division of General Pediatrics at the Stanford School of Medicine, which provides pediatricians for the clinic. One of these physicians, Dr. Elizabeth Baca, provides medical students with on-site mentoring and gives students access to the clinic and community leaders in East Palo Alto.  Dr. Baca also assists students in developing community-based projects in conjunction with the clinic and its community partners.

As a community health center, RFHC recognizes the importance of community engagement and working with community partner organizations. In addition, medical students are able to learn about these safety net services provided by partner organizations.   The clinic is a resource to the COE and Stanford medical students for their training in community health, health disparities, and cultural competency. For more information about the clinic please contact Denise Chan at dchan@RavenswoodFHC.org, or visit the Ravenswood website.

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