Posted: November 20, 2024
Check out our conversation with researcher Kristina Brant and physician Michael McShane about how the LION Mobile Clinic provides health care in medically underserved areas, educates medical students, and incorporates community-engaged research to respond to community-identified needs and inform broader understandings of rural health.
Session Description
Established in 2022 by the Penn State College of Medicine, the LION Clinic is a mobile health clinic with a three-part mission of Service-Education-Research. The clinic aims to serve medically underserved communities by providing health care services, educate medical students through hands-on and student-led care provision, and facilitate community-engaged research on rural population health. In this talk, Michael and Kristina describe how the LION Mobile Clinic team has used a unique hybrid of research and service to build trust with underserved communities, explore community-identified needs and desires, and adapt the clinic model to respond to those needs and desires. They showcase how this hybrid approach has allowed the clinic to fill health care access gaps, spur deeper university-community partnerships, and produce research that informs broader understandings of rural population health.
Resources
- Penn State LION Mobile Clinic
- Article, "Participant Observation, Observant Participation, and Hybrid Ethnography" by Josh Seim
Storyteller Bios
- Michael McShane MD, EdM, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Director of LION Mobile Clinic: Dr. Michael McShane’s research has focused on patient and community advocacy, identifying health interventions designed with and for communities. His work includes utilizing community based participatory research methodologies to ensure the voice of the community is heard, as well as to help to decide which services and educational interventions would benefit those within the community.
- Kristina Brant PhD, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology: Dr. Kristina Brant is a sociologist who studies the social and structural determinants of health for rural populations. Much of her research focuses on elements of the rural risk environment that shape substance use harms and the intersections of substance use with the criminal legal and child welfare systems. She also holds an appointment with Penn State Extension.
About the Series
The focus of the “Stories from the Field” series is on the “why” and “how” of community engagement and applied research. For each session, we invite the speaker(s) to tell us about their work and share stories that illustrate why they approach their work the way they do and how it looks and feels on the ground. After speakers share stories to springboard conversation, we open a facilitated discussion with attendees about the challenges and opportunities of doing work with and for communities, businesses, non-profits, and the public sector. Stories from the Field is hosted by Penn State's Center for Economic and Community Development, an applied research center dedicated to strengthening local and regional development in Pennsylvania and beyond
