It’s about 5:30 p.m. on a Thursday, and 26-year-old Emma Barrett is at the front end of a shift that won’t end for another six hours.

Her volunteer work at the Columbus Free Clinic comes atop her other responsibilities as a second-year student in the Ohio State University College of Medicine and the 10 to 15 hours a week she spends as a member of the clinic’s steering committee.

It’s a lot. But there’s not a moment when it doesn’t feel worth it, she said.

“This is where you get to do the thing you dreamed of when you applied to medical school," Barrett said. "You get to see patients and help people and think critically and think like a doctor," she said.

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Barrett, of Philadelphia, is among the many students from Ohio State and Ohio Dominican universities who run and staff the Thursday evening clinic overseen by volunteer health care professionals from Ohio State, OhioHealth, Mount Carmel Health and elsewhere.

The clinic, with a history of more than 40 years, is a partnership with Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center. Volunteers see about 25 to 35 patients each week in the Northwood-High Building on OSU's North Campus. Patients, most of whom are uninsured or under-insured, receive free medical, pharmacy, lab and social work services. The clinic also offers periodic women's health, psychiatry, occupational therapy and physical therapy services. Plans are to add urology and, possibly, ultrasound services.

In the 12 months ending June 2018, the clinic served 1,088 patients in 1,459 visits. The value of services provided is estimated by the clinic at about $431,000 and costs at about $18,000, largely funded through grants and fundraisers.

In the exam room the first person a patient sees is a student, who completes an initial assessment based on his or her abilities and education level — from taking a pulse and blood pressure to completing an interview and examination. The student then checks in with a physician, physician assistant or nurse practitioner, who subsequently visits the patient alongside the student.

On a recent Thursday, 51-year-old Tolis Katsantonis, a food-truck operator from the North Side, was seen by fourth-year Ohio State medical student Andrew Detty. They discussed pain in his finger and shoulder, his blood pressure and cholesterol, and his efforts to quit smoking.

Katsantonis, a native of Greece who speaks limited English, had his wife, Soula Panagiotopoulos, act as translator as Detty listened to his heart and lungs and examined his hernia and swelling in his lower legs.

Panagiotopoulos said her husband is uninsured and has been coming to the clinic for about two years. She believes he receives care comparable to what he'd receive at a traditional physician's office.

"He likes the doctors," she said, translating for her husband. "Everybody is nice and good, very pleasant. They listen to you. They actually take what you say into consideration. They do listen and they do help out and try to find answers."

Detty's examination was followed up by Dr. Robert Cooper, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Ohio State who began volunteering in 2011 when he was in post-medical school training.

"I wanted a chance to spend time with patients who are really glad to get care," he said. "And honestly, I loved working with the students and working in a place where I'm not grading them, I'm not evaluating them and I'm just here to teach."

His hope is to see the clinic publish research showing that patient outcomes regularly meet national standards for blood pressure, preferred diabetes medications, screenings and other markers.

Many patients, he said, go on to get insurance but stay with the clinic because of the care — and time — they receive from the students and professionals, he said. Students learn to consider not just medical conditions, but things including food security, stress and transportation issues that traditional primary care offices my not have time to address.

Barrett said the clinic is a "curriculum outside a curriculum" and a teaching site for the medical school.

“It’s an undeniably incredible educational experience and opportunity,” Barrett said. “These are the skills that are going to make us good providers."

jviviano@dispatch.com

@JoAnneViviano