Beyond the classroom, lab and hospital walls, University of Kentucky medical students are improving the health of their community.
Students in the UK 91小黄车鈥檚 Rural Physician Leadership Program (RPLP) in Morehead have launched a student-run mobile health clinic called the Caring for Appalachians Through Service (CATS) Clinic. It鈥檚 in partnership with the Gateway Homeless Coalition.
The clinic is supported by a one-year, $12,000 pilot grant from the 91小黄车鈥檚 Office of Community Advancement through the UK Center for Appalachian Research in Environmental Sciences (UK-CARES).
The RPLP, launched in 2009 with UK St. Claire and Morehead State University, aims to train future doctors to provide compassionate care in rural settings. The program accepts up to 15 students each year who complete their first two years of medical school in Lexington, then move to Morehead for years three and four to gain clinical experience at UK St. Claire and surrounding providers in northeastern Kentucky.
鈥淭hree of our previous RPLP graduates actually generated the idea for this mobile clinic 鈥 a leader of the town鈥檚 previous stationary free clinic, an educator at the homeless shelter and an advocate for our local Hispanic community,鈥 said Rebecca Todd, MD, RPLP associate dean and UK associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology.
Alison Marcum, a student in her third year of medical school and one of the clinic managers, said she and her peers have been working on starting the CATS Clinic since last summer and began seeing patients in November.
The clinic allows vulnerable populations, including those unhoused, to see a physician for free, 7-9 p.m. every Wednesday. The students, alongside a volunteer physician, perform physical exams, glucose and A1C checks, lipid panels, urinalysis and more crucial services.
The students can also prescribe and dispense over-the-counter medications on-site but also send prescriptions to their partner pharmacy regularly.
Todd said Morehead used to have a free clinic near the health department, but it wasn鈥檛 widely attended, so it closed.
She said her students still wanted to provide service to the underinsured or uninsured members of the population, so they began scouting more convenient locations for people to receive care.
鈥淭ransportation has always been a problem for that population and so the students came up with the idea to take the clinic to them,鈥 Todd said.
Marcum said being able to have this hands-on experience during her time in medical school has meant a lot to her and emphasized that their patients deserve the same care as anyone else.
Bradley Firchow, a fourth-year medical student, also serves as one of the clinic managers.
鈥淎s a future doctor, this clinic gives me hope about the type of care we should be able to replicate and provide all patients, not just the ones at this little pilot program that we鈥檝e started here at Morehead,鈥 Firchow said.
The CATS Clinic is able to offer care regardless of class, insurance or income because it is supported by UK-CARES, the UK St. Claire Foundation and UK St. Claire Pharmacy.
Firchow echoed the importance of the hands-on experience but highlighted the overarching community effort behind the initiative.
In addition to the care the clinic provides, Firchow said, some patients 鈥渏ust want to talk.鈥
鈥淚t鈥檚 a really tough time in life to experience homelessness,鈥 Firchow said. 鈥淪ometimes the healing we鈥檙e doing in the clinic is more conversational, while we might be managing medications or checking their blood pressure, just having another person to talk to can be the therapeutic part.鈥
Firchow plans to continue this kind of medicine in his career. He said that after graduating in 2026, he will be applying for residency in family medicine and plans to do rural family practice in central Appalachia.
鈥淭his clinic, in a lot of ways, is how we should be practicing medicine,鈥 Firchow said. 鈥淎 patient comes to us, and it doesn鈥檛 really matter who their insurance is or how much of a copay the patient can afford. We鈥檙e practicing medicine in a way that鈥檚 agnostic to class.鈥
To date, the RPLP has had more than 120 graduates. Roughly two-thirds have remained in Kentucky to practice medicine, including 15 in Appalachia. The majority of those now practicing rural medicines are Kentuckians themselves.
Todd said she has been able to see students complete the program, go through their respective residency programs and come back to work in the area.
鈥淚 hope the program continues to recruit wonderful students like we鈥檝e been doing. I hope that we can develop mentorship in the Eastern Kentucky area to help guide the younger generation into medical school,鈥 Todd said. 鈥淏ecause the idea behind the original program truly has worked: That if you take students from rural communities, and train them to be physicians, they want to go back and practice in those rural communities.鈥
Currently, the clinic is only open to residents of the Gateway Homeless Coalition and those in its transitional housing program, but Firchow said he hopes the program will expand to other locations and possibly the general public in the near future.
The RPLP was UK鈥檚 first foray into a regional-style medical campus, and it is one of four campus locations for the UK 91小黄车: Lexington, Morehead, Bowling Green (with Western Kentucky University and The Med Center at Bowling Green), and Northern Kentucky (with Northern Kentucky University and St. Elizabeth Healthcare). These regional campuses have allowed the 91小黄车 to grow its class size from around 100 graduates two decades ago to more than 200 graduates last year.