Greetings,
2025 has been an exciting year for MOC, with many updates to share from all facets of the program. Our rural outreach continues to grow to meet an increasing demand for services. We opened up a new site in Dixie County that has quickly established itself as a busy location. Levy and Gilchrist counties continue to be active, with most clinics full and even scheduled out into the future. We are actively looking for funding sources to hire additional providers so that we can staff more clinics and expand into other neighboring rural counties who have reached out to us in need. While it’s good to be busy, we are always mindful of the fact that high utilization of free clinics usually relates to broader societal forces that are presenting significant challenges to our community.
Alachua County continues to be our core outreach and is always filled to the brim with new patients and those we have been serving for years. We are so fortunate to have strong partnerships with our clinic sites, especially Gainesville Community Ministry which has become a focal point for our clinical services as it is a very accessible and welcoming location for a broad number of our patients. Our undergraduate care coordinators, medical students, PA students
and primary care residents work with our staff at virtually every clinic to help us see more patients while also learning the critical lessons of flexible, low barrier primary care.
The OBGYN mobile unit has been a huge success in providing care to pregnant women who otherwise have difficulty accessing care. It took very little time for the clinic to gain traction in East Gainesville as well as in Levy, Gilchrist and Columbia counties. Not only does the OBGYN mobile provide free prenatal and postpartum care, they also provide lactation support and offer regular support groups like the Parent Pals Program, which was founded by OBGYN mobile nurse, LaToya Hunt.
Our street medicine program will be highlighted further along in the annual report, but it has been incredibly productive this year, partnering with UF Hepatology to land a large SAMHSA grant aimed at curing large numbers of unhoused and high risk patients with Hepatitis C both on the street and through our mobile units. I can’t wait to share with you next year how this program has modeled innovative and effective public health interventions.
Finally, I want to express gratitude to the UF College of Medicine Dean’s Office for stepping up and supporting our program this year to a degree that I have not seen in my prior 8 years as Medical Director. Dean Hunt has personally invested in our program and has even put us on the UF state budget request for next year to try and raise funds for a new primary mobile unit as well as a larger rural unit that will help us better meet those demands.