Newsflash

2007 Family Physician of the Year Serves the Underserved

FP Trains Residents, Medical Students at Clinic

By  Jane Stoever    AAFP Assembly, Washington, D.C.
9/29/2006

Steven Levin, M.D., medical director and sole physician at St. John's Health Center in New Brunswick, N.J., won acclaim as the 2007 Family Physician of the Year during the AAFP Scientific Assembly's opening ceremony on Sept. 28.

“From the moment I wanted to be a physician, I wanted to help people who didn't have access to care. I don't know where that came from,” said Levin in an interview before Assembly.

St. John's, a clinic Catholic Charities created, gave Levin his first job 18 years ago. Still at St. John's, Levin works with a patient base of uninsured and low-income patients daily. In fact, 70 percent to 80 percent of Levin's patients meet those criteria.

Cultural Challenges, Solutions “My most common patient is an uninsured, Spanish-speaking patient with uncontrolled diabetes and end-organ complications of the disease,” said Levin. “Right now I'm working with a patient who came to me on the verge of needing dialysis. She has problems with her eyes, her feet are numb from the diabetes, and I'm working with her every week to try to adjust her medications and get her diabetes under control. It's a struggle.”

Steven Levin, M.D., checks the heartbeat of Paul Palma at St. John's Health Center in New Brunswick, N.J., during a before-school physical this past summer.

Some of these students have been inspired by Levin's example and have wanted to further help the underserved. Two projects have evolved. In the early 1990s, Levin helped students form UMDNJ's Homeless and Indigent Population Health Outreach Project, or HIPHOP. In that program, students see Levin's patients at St. John's one night a week.

Levin recently worked with another group of “incredibly motivated” students to start The Promise Clinic, “which uses a better format,” said Levin: Each patient is assigned to a team of students during his or her first visit to St. John's, and he or she can return to team members for later care.

Faculty, including Levin and his physician assistant, take turns supervising Promise Clinic students one night a week. “Ten of the 13 volunteer faculty members are family docs,” said Levin. “That's the way family docs are.” “So many doctors in the community here won't see my patients for problems beyond the scope of family medicine; they won't do any volunteer work — it's a shame,” said Levin. “I want every student I come into contact with to see the tremendous needs these patients have and realize they could do a little volunteer work.”