The number of individuals coming to the United States seeking asylum continues to grow. As of August 2019, more than one million immigration cases were waiting to be processed. The expansion in medical student-run clinics has assisted in reducing this case backlog, but there are opportunities that persist for these clinics.
In “Evaluating the Impact of Student-Run Asylum Clinics in the US from 2016–2018,” co-first author Yale School of Medicine (YSM) medical student Madison Sharp and her team conducted surveys to look at the functionality, capacity, caseloads, challenges, and benefits of these clinics.
With the increasing number of asylum seekers, 19 student-run nationwide clinics are assisting with necessary forensic and medical evaluations at a significant rate and are filling a critical gap.
The team was advised by senior author Katherine McKenzie, MD, FACP, assistant professor of medicine (general internal medicine) and director of the Yale Center for Asylum Medicine.
Learn more about the project in “Evaluating the Impact of Student-Run Asylum Clinics in the US from 2016–2018,” which was published in November in Health and Human Rights Journal.
The Section of General Internal Medicine is one of the eleven academic sections within YSM’s Department of Internal Medicine. To learn more about their work, visit General Internal Medicine.