Community Learning

As a community whose mission is to improve health care, we never forget that medicine is about serving those in need. Our curriculums for both MD and academic health students include a focus on treating underserved patients including the elderly, disabled, economically disadvantaged, and immigrants and refugees.

Putting People First

Sarah Clark and Sam Broida founded the Georgia Human Rights Clinic when they were medical students. The clinic serves immigrants in Atlanta who are seeking legal asylum, and benefit from medical and psychological evaluations. The clinic was passed down to another set of medical students when Sarah and Sam graduated in 2021.

Making Good

Vaccinating Georgians

Moving beyond the bounds of traditional medical education, for the benefit of students and society, Emory M4s from the medical education elective taught their colleagues, supervised by Emory Infectious Disease fellows, at the COVID-19 vaccine site at Mercedes Benz Stadium in downtown Atlanta. Medical students and faculty donated their time assisting vaccination efforts at Emory Healthcare Northlake Vaccine Center and the Georgia International Convention Center.

Where We Serve

Here are just a few of the projects our students, faculty, and staff take part in to benefit our community.

Emory University's Urban Health Initiative

Education and advocacy about health disparities in underserved communities in Metro Atlanta

Heel to Heal 5K

Raising money for numerous charities that provide medical care to the underserved

Art for a Cause

Auctioning art to help sponsor our student-run medical clinics and projects

Emory Farmworker Project

Providing free care to over 1,500 farmworkers and their families in pop-up clinics

Student-run Clinics

Emory has a number of student-run clinics that serve the greater Atlanta community. These clinics provide an excellent opportunity for students to care for their underserved neighbors. Students who volunteer in these clinics gain hands-on experience delivering quality medical care to and advocating for patients without access to healthcare. Students learn innovative strategies to deliver culturally-sensitive, patient-centered care in low-resource settings. The clinics connect students with passionate physicians employed by Emory, the CDC, and other health care groups, who demonstrate the values of physician leadership, community involvement, and philanthropy.

Stories of Service

Hispanic Health Care in Resource Limited Environments Elective

This elective is offered in collaboration with faculty in the Department of Family & Preventice Medicine, Gynecology/Obstetrics, Pediatrics and the SOM Physician Assistant (PA) program. The purpose of this elective is to expose SOM and PA students to the challenges of providing health care to Hispanic patients, especially in a resource-poor environment.

Reshaping Health Care: Physician Assistants to the Forefront

With intense, hands-on student training and a distinctive emphasis on providing culturally sensitive care to medically underserved communities, Emory is at the forefront of preparing PA students for an increasingly demanding and complex world.

Preventive Care for Atlantans in Need

Fed up with treating advanced conditions that could have been caught earlier, Dr. Charles Moore decided to bring preventive care straight to the people who need it most. He packed his car with supplies and drove to bus stops, homeless shelters, and church groups in the neediest West Atlanta neighborhoods to bridge a critical gap in medical care.

Five Years After Graduating, Lucia Rodriguez Still a Staple on Emory Service Learning Trips

She could have gone anywhere for physical therapy school. But when she learned that Emory’s Doctor of Physical Therapy program offered students the opportunity to do international service learning projects, her choice was easy.

Poetic Service: Taking Medicine to the Fields of South Georgia

About an hour's drive south of Moultrie, GA, the program led by the Physician Assistant Program in the School of Medicine provides free health care to migrant workers at outdoor clinics on farms in and around Valdosta and Bainbridge.

Answering the Call When Disaster Strikes

Federal officials often call on Emory faculty physicians and researchers to volunteer during public health crises and in the aftermath of natural disasters. In 2017, faculty members recently provided emergency medical evaluations and assistance to patients evacuated from Caribbean nations after a hurricane devastated the islands.

Emory Healthcare equipment finds new life at Clarkston Community Health Center

"This has made such a difference in the level of care we're able to provide patients as well as the education we're able to offer the students," said optometrist Fulya Anderson after receiving new equipment that allowed the Clarkston Center to preform better eye exams for the community.

A Tale of Two Clinics

Emory MD students get hands-on experience with licensed professionals while also serving citizens of Atlanta. "The ongoing commitment of many medical students and faculty to community engagement led to the creation and success of this curriculum," says course director Mary Jo Lechowicz, professor of hematology and medical oncology, who adds that they are moving away from terms like "volunteerism" and "service," which suggest a one-way street. "The clinic experience, like many others for students, is bi-directional."