Students for Healthcare Equity (SFHE) is a new, student-run charity organization at the University of Mississippi that brings awareness to healthcare access issues across the state.
Co-founded by Grace Ann Courtney, a sophomore biochemistry major from Wiggins, Miss., and Jase Gillespie, a junior from San Diego studying biology on an accelerated pre-med track, the organization’s mission is focused on three key themes: fundraising, advocacy and active volunteer work.
Courtney, the president of the organization, said the group plans to keep a localized focus promoting healthcare access across Mississippi.
“We organize volunteer opportunities for members to be able to give them a greater understanding of health equity around them, specifically in the Oxford community,” Courtney said. “We also fundraise for … free clinics, and we also have multiple speakers a semester coming to give presentations about Mississippi-specific healthcare equity.”
SFHE also volunteers at Tree of Life Free Clinic in Tupelo, Miss., which provides free basic medical care, which is open on the first Wednesday and third Saturday of each month. The organization hopes to expand to serve additional health clinics in the future.
“Volunteer work at Tree of Life Free Health Clinic really helped me have an understanding that patients’ lives do not end whenever they leave the office,” Courtney said. “They have their completely separate, own autonomy, and I think Tree of Life specifically gave me a lot of perspective on that, and so … hopefully, we can give other students that same perspective going into medicine.”
In addition to hosting speakers, the group organizes days of service around north Mississippi. Gillespie, who serves as the club’s vice president, emphasized the importance of service.
“(The) North Mississippi Regional Center is a great program that houses a lot of adults with different intellectual or physical disorders,” Gillespie said. “We went there on the fall workday (and) made the place more lively by washing the windows, planting flowers and even paint(ing) the walls.”
Courtney’s perspective on access to healthcare comes from her childhood in Wiggins, Miss., a rural community near the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
“In Wiggins, almost a quarter of the residents live below the federal poverty line, so I witnessed from a very young age people having unequal opportunities because of the circumstance to which they were born,” Courtney said. “That inspired me … to want to be able to fix that through being a doctor.”
Gillespie, a California native, said it is important for the club to give that same local insight to other students.
“Another huge part of this is to raise awareness among the students,” Gillespie said. “I’m not from around here, so I think something like Students for Healthcare Equity would have really sparked my interest a lot earlier than it already had.”
The healthcare field, Gillespie said, is primarily about helping others.
“It’s very important to recognize that people come from all different areas, all different backgrounds, all different financial states and, at the end of the day, you’re there for them, and being able to understand the kind of wide variety of people that you’ll be interacting with will help you become a better physician,” Gillespie said.
SFHE plans to host speakers from the Tupelo Free Health Clinic at 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 10 to continue educating UM students about healthcare. In the spring semester, the club hopes to throw a benefit concert.
“Progress can only move forward with numbers, which we would love to see,” Courtney said.
Editor’s note: Grace Ann Courtney currently serves as an illustrator on The Daily Mississippian’s design team.
