Barbara Vinograde and Dr. Cecilia Norris from the Iowa City Free Medical and Dental Clinic join Eric and Anya for a great conversation about the clinic and its role in supporting the community and public health.

You can read more about the Iowa City Free Medical and Dental Clinic at freemedicalclinic.org/

Find our previous episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud.

Eric Ramos:

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to From the Front Row, brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. My name is Eric Ramos, joined today by Anya Morozov, and if this is your first time with us, welcome. We’re a student-run podcast that talks about major issues in public health and how they’re relevant to anyone, both in and outside of the field of public health. Today, we have two inspiring people on the call, Dr. Cecilia Norris and Barbara Vinograde, both oversee the Iowa City Free Medical and Dental Clinic. Barbara Vinograde as the executive director and Dr. Norris as a medical director. This amazing clinic has provided free medical and dental services since 1971, and is still going strong. Today, we will learn more about the clinic services, ways to get involved and more. Welcome to the show, Barbara and Dr. Norris. Can we just start by introducing yourselves? How and why did you start working at the free medical dental clinic?

Barbara Vinograde:

Well, first of all, thank you both so much for inviting us to talk with you today and for the opportunity for us to share some information with you and your audience about the Iowa City Free Medical and Dental Clinic. To reintroduce myself, my name is Barbara Vinograde and I started working with the Iowa City Free Clinic in 1989. I worked as the Director of Patient Services for 20 years and then moved into my current position as the Executive Director. I moved to Iowa City in 1986 and at that time, the clinic was located on north Dubuque street, in the basement of the Wesley Foundation. I learned about the clinic, because I walked by it every day on my way to work downtown, to catch the bus. I wanted to work with the clinic, because of my awareness of how hard it was for some people to afford needed healthcare.

Barbara Vinograde:

While I grew up in Ames, I moved to New York City right after college and at New York City, I started working at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Over the years, I started to witness more and more, how really difficult it was for so many people to afford the care they needed. So when I found myself in Iowa City and learned about the free clinic, it felt like a good fit for me. And that’s why I’m here today.

Cecilia Norris:

My story kind of mirrors Barbara, in that when I lived in Iowa City and various different times I went to undergrad here. So I knew about the clinic, but when we decided to settle in Iowa City and raise our family, I was fortunately able to start volunteering at the clinic. As we decided kind of what role I was going to take, shortly after I started volunteering, the Medical Director role opened up.

Cecilia Norris:

So I am a family physician, I went into medicine because I truly believe that benefit medicine, as well as taking care of health issues that come up, are intrinsic to our character as a society. And as I was out in the world, I’ve been in private offices, federally qualified health centers, rural practice, I’ve just seen the variety of healthcare facilities that are out there. And the free medical clinic with its mission statement, its desire to truly provide healthcare, not just caring for people, that’s why I’m happy to have this opportunity. And I started volunteering in the end of 2005 as well.

Anya Morozov:

Well, we’re very happy to have both you on the call and you have some very inspiring stories and ways that you got to the free medical clinic. Next, can we get into some of the services that the clinic offers? And can you tell us about the range of services and the scope that the clinic offers?

Barbara Vinograde:

Yes, yes. Before I tell you the services that we provide today, I want to give you just a little bit of background. The clinic was established in 1971 and for the first two decades, our patients received treatment, primarily, for acute health conditions. Such as job and school physicals, STI screenings, immunizations treatment for respiratory infections and muscular injuries. And today we continue to see patients for these conditions, but we’ve been through a lot of changes in our 51 years and today we offer more of a comprehensive range of services. One of the things I am most proud of about the free clinic, is that it’s very clear that over the years, our staff members have worked hard and successfully to do their best to meet the needs of our patients, the changing healthcare needs of our patients. Today, our staff and volunteers see patients for acute as well as chronic conditions.

Barbara Vinograde:

However, today, over 60% of our patients are diagnosed with at least one chronic health condition, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or asthma. At the clinic today, these patients are enrolled in what we call our case management program. They receive comprehensive services and continuity of care throughout the care, such as quarterly visits, medications, laboratory testing, education, and radiology procedures. We also monitor health outcome measures, such as glucose control and blood pressure management. In addition to treatment for acute and chronic conditions, we also provide limited specialty care services at the clinic. One of these is our dental clinic. We hold from six to 10 dental clinics per month, where patients receive exams and X-rays, fillings, some extractions and hygiene. We also hold monthly dermatology clinics, gynecology, physical therapy and ophthalmology. We offer rheumatology clinics, as well as prenatal and postpartum care. We have an onsite medication dispensary and we have an onsite laboratory.

Barbara Vinograde:

Other onsite services include HIV counseling and testing and we provide our patients with vouchers to purchase eyeglasses and to have eye exam. Offsite, our patients also receive radiology procedures, including mammography, ultrasounds and orthopedic X-rays. One last service that’s important that we provided the clinic, like many free clinics, we serve as what I like to call a gateway to health insurance coverage. Every day, our staff work with people who call or walk in, to talk to them about insurance coverage options and how they can get information and assistance to determine their eligibility.

Eric Ramos:

That’s incredible, just listening to you talk about all the scope of services, the constant mediated care, as you guys provide across the entire continuum. I’m a Master Health Administration student, so just listening to you talk about that, that’s exactly what health care’s supposed to be and what a lot of clinics and what a lot of health systems fail to do. So just hearing you to talk about that, how your free medical clinic is providing that care across the entire continuum, constantly checking on the patients to make sure they’re good across the whole year, not just when they show up to the appointment is honestly incredible. And I’m really happy to hear that you guys are here and doing the work that you guys are doing. Is there anything on your wish list that you would like to offer within the clinic someday?

Barbara Vinograde:

Cecilia, would you like to start with that answer?

Cecilia Norris:

Yes and I think I would like to preface this question with the statement that, I really wish that the free medical clinic was not necessary. We do a lot, but one thing I have noticed over the years, is how we have had to work to do more, to serve our patients. Because you can imagine, it’s not just a health issue, it’s a food access issue, it’s a shelter issue, it is the personal safety issue, and I have to say, I am totally amazed at what the free clinic does. Two of our newest partnerships I think are with KCAP and Table to Table, to and provide what we can, we can’t provide everything as far as food for patients. And so seeing these great needs, of course we’d have a long wishlist, but I think my biggest wishlist is to be able to get mental health services, because that’s a huge need, and it’s just growing.

Cecilia Norris:

And along with that, a social worker, because all of the staff honestly are doing some social work without training. It’s the way that it goes, so those are my two big wishes.

Barbara Vinograde:

Yes, I would agree with what Cecilia just said. My main wish, would be that we live in a country where needed healthcare is affordable to everyone and that we could close our doors. I also agree with Cecilia about access to mental health. Another thing on my wishlist is more funding, all nonprofits are in need of funding, more funding. We’re very, very fortunate that we receive very strong, local support, but if we had more funding, we could hire more staff and we would be able to increase the number of services that we provide.

Eric Ramos:

How much volunteers do you guys get usually, as far as staffing goes?

Barbara Vinograde:

We have a small staff, it’s about at this time, it’s about seven full-time equivalents. And prior to the pandemic, we worked with over 200 volunteers, but when the pandemic hit, to protect our patients and our staff and our volunteers, we had to limit the number of volunteers, including volunteer providers who came into the clinic. And Dr. Norris, Celia did a fabulous job of setting up protocols and policies, so that we’ve been able to offer more and more services over the past two years. But as we all know, the pandemic is still here and we still are being very cautious in what we’re doing. As far as the number of volunteers we’re utilizing now, I believe we’re up to about 125 and they rotate through the clinic as their schedules allow.

Eric Ramos:

Cool.

Anya Morozov:

So backtracking a little bit, you did mention a lot of different services at your clinic. What would you say is the most utilized service and what have you noticed is the biggest need in the Iowa City community?

Barbara Vinograde:

I would say that right now, our most utilized service is our case management program. I mentioned earlier that we have numbers of patients presenting with multiple chronic health conditions. We always have a waiting list for new patients, diagnosed with chronic conditions, to established care with us. Another very highly used service, is our medication dispensary. We are filling hundreds of prescriptions every week and obviously this speaks to the very high cost of medication, so we’re definitely using our medication dispensary a lot. I’d like Cecilia to talk about the biggest need in Johnson County, in Iowa City and I think she already did in part with the mental health access, because I would totally agree with that. I’d add that, I think there’s a need for everything, I would love to offer more dental care at the free clinic. Our dental services are limited right now, because we need more dentists, but I’m proud of what we do.

Barbara Vinograde:

We’d like to offer more of that. I also would love to expand our specialty care, we offer a lot, but we could always expand it. And women’s healthcare services, I think something we’d like to expand. I know Dr. Norris, Cecilia is very passionate about women’s healthcare and maybe she’d like to add something to that.

Cecilia Norris:

Yeah, well over time as Barbara said, we have tried to meet the needs of the community. And it’s heartbreaking to me that we have gone backwards in meeting some of these needs through these systems that were in place five or six years ago. The two things that happened in Iowa that really have impacted how, women in particular with uteruses could obtain care, was the defunding of Planned Parenthood and the privatization of Medicaid. And again, I want people to know that what that did when they defunded Planned Parenthood, there was no true plan in place to replace those services of contraception, healthcare and STI screening.

Cecilia Norris:

They devastated all of those services in their hope to decrease abortion, however it backfired and abortion actually increased by over 30% from 2019 to 2021. We saw an over 30% increase in our requests for services for pap smears, mammograms, STI screening, birth control pills and we had to really scramble to fill that void. Again, our volunteers stepped up and our gynecologist was able to do more. We fortunately had more family practice doctors who did more pap smears, volunteering at the clinic. And so we were able to do something to meet those services. As far as the privatization of Medicaid, they changed how they reimbursed doctors for prenatal care and what that did is they unbundled services. The doctors before could be reimbursed for the care throughout the pregnancy, including the delivery. And so patients who qualified for emergency Medicaid, the doctors could get reimbursed for the care that they’ve provided.

Cecilia Norris:

Privatization of Medicaid said, “We’re going to make those two separate some reimbursements.” And so women can still, who qualify for our presumptive or emergency Medicaid, can still get the delivery covered. But doctors are not being reimbursed for the prenatal, the 30 weeks ahead of time, when women need services that will help their babies be healthier and decrease the chance of maternal mortality and injury and illness during pregnancy. So a lot of physicians had to stop providing those prenatal services, when patients did not have Medicaid or insurance to cover it. Again, having a baby average cost is about $30,000, so that’s out of the rate of people, especially those people caught in the middle between not having Medicaid, and not having insurance.

Cecilia Norris:

And so fortunately working with the family medicine program at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, we were able to set up a clinic that provides that prenatal care to bridge the gap. It’s little complicated, how everything has to work in order to get as many tests covered as possible, but again, just to shout out to our staff, works with the clinic, our volunteers, and our community partners who try to make this happen. And so I anticipate unfortunately, seeing more demand for services, with the continued attack on women’s health access and bodily autonomy. I don’t know what that’s going be yet, but we are aware of that very real probability and will work to adapt as best we can.

Eric Ramos:

Yeah, I think you made a very many good points about, how government can easily just make huge impacts throughout healthcare, without really thinking about the consequences. Really analyzing everything, they defunded Planned Parenthood for abortions, but didn’t really think about everything else that was really that Planned Parenthood services are providing. Privatizing Medicaid would be maybe a good idea in sense, but honestly it was not in the long run. And I guess just seeing how government can just impact healthcare so much and impact hundreds of thousands of people, it honestly is sad. And it’s frustrating and that’s why we always tell people to always advocate for yourself, always advocate for others, make sure you go out and vote and get involved in your own healthcare.

Eric Ramos:

One thing that always frustrated me, especially in undergrad and even now my masters, is people who just don’t really get into politics at all. And it’s just, frustrating because, our whole career is politics. Everything that politics does, impacts what we do in our careers and how we serve our patients and how we serve our communities, which is very frustrating as people don’t take that seriously. For everything that you said, it impacts real people every day and you guys are seeing that. Other than voting, what are some ways that our community can get involved with the free medical clinic and help you guys out?

Barbara Vinograde:

Good question, Eric. Financial support is always appreciated at the clinic, we welcome private donations of any amount. I always encourage people to do small fundraisers and I always say no fundraiser is too small. A dollar goes a long way at the free clinic, because of our many partnerships, we’re able to provide over $5 worth of care for every $1 donated. Volunteering, is also a way that people can get involved. That being said, as I mentioned earlier, the need for volunteer varies and due to the pandemic, our volunteer needs have shifted somewhat. Today, what we really need, is volunteer interpreters. We see many, many patients whose primary language is Spanish, we also see many patients who speak French. So volunteer interpreters who speak Spanish and French are welcome. People can go to our website, freemedicalclinic.org and look under our volunteer section, there’s a place to fill out an application online.

Barbara Vinograde:

I encourage people to do that, again volunteers are always needed at the clinic. We also are in need of pharmacists and pharmacy tech, to help us in our dispensary. We could also use volunteer lab technicians or phlebotomists to help us with our onsite laboratory. And I just want to make one more shout out for dentists. I would ask everyone who’s listening to us today, if you are a dentist, or if you know of a dentist who might like to get involved, please reach out to us. Again, I know that everyone is very busy these days, but we don’t ask for people to come in more than they can, more than their schedule allows. Some of our dentists come in once every two months, some once a month and it would make a big difference, if we were able to have a few more dentist volunteer, we would be able to provide more services.

Eric Ramos:

What are your hours of operation or that timeframe where you need volunteers?

Barbara Vinograde:

Well, our clinics run throughout the week, Eric. We have clinics during the day and some in the evenings, to meet people’s needs what their schedules are. So I think the best thing to do would be for people to call our business line and find out when we offer clinics for what they need. I did want to mention one other way people can help, just learn about the free clinic and learn about access to healthcare, about the realities of access to healthcare in this country. Spread the word about the free clinic and our work. If you belong to a service organization or a church, and would like someone to come talk to the clinic about our services, reach out to our staff we’d happy to do that. We’ve been here over 50 years, a lot of know about the free clinic, but quite a few people don’t know about us. So that’s one thing everyone can do, is proudly announce that the Iowa City free clinic is the second longest running free clinic in the United States. We welcome support of any kind.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah, well that was quite a comprehensive list. So if any of our listeners heard something in there that you think you can get on board with, we’ll go ahead and post some links in the description, so go ahead and get to it next. We’re going to talk a little bit about administration. So Dr. Norris, you said you’ve worked in a lot of different settings over the years. What are some differences and similarities between the administration of a free medical clinic, compared to say, private practice?

Cecilia Norris:

Okay. First of all, the similarities are that most of us in the healthcare profession, truly do want to provide high quality standard of care, healthcare services to our patients. That has been my experience from working in managed care out on the east coast, has been my experience working in an inner city clinic St. Louis, the doctors, nurses, pharmacists, medical assistants, across the board, want the best for the patient. I think that one of the things that I’ve learned over the years is, the biggest thing that impacts the difference between private practice and free clinic, is the way our healthcare system is structured. Unfortunately, in the United States, we have a healthcare for profit system, instead of a healthcare for health system. And that does impact how things are done. I think people would be surprised though, to hear how things actually work in private practice. When dealing with insurance companies, as far as when you’re contracted and you take lower cost reimbursement, service provided, how you have to document use certain criteria, a lot of bureaucratic steps that are involved in dealing with insurance companies in order to get that reimbursement.

Cecilia Norris:

I used to say, when I first started at the free clinic, that my biggest joy working in the free clinic, was to not having to deal with insurance companies. Over time as I’m farther away from that, my biggest joy is dealing with the patients. That is something that I have the freedom to do in the clinic, some of my patients I do spend an hour with them. The patients that we tend to see at the free clinic at the chronic care program, frequently have not only the medical issues, but the other access issues that I talked about. And I can spend time with the patients saying, “Hey, your blood pressure’s up.” Usually that happens. If you’re not taking medication, if you’re sick, if you’re off your diet and it goes through what might be going on in their lives, that is impacting their medical problem. And then we can work towards support a solution. If they aren’t able to afford their medicine, it’s not going to do me any good to prescribe yet another blood pressure medicine, that they’re not going to afford.

Cecilia Norris:

And so that is something that our volunteer providers also do and learn to do. Again with the free clinic, I think we as providers, handle a wider scope of things than what the average family physician does, because we can’t get specialty care or we can’t get as regular access to specialty care. In the past few years, we’ve got discharges from hospitals out of town, to take care of patients with their heart failure, liver failure, kidney failure, infections, heart conditions, just a lot rheumatologic diseases. Which again, we do have rheumatologists come in every three months, we’re grateful for that number of autoimmune and rheumatologic diseases that work on. And as part of that, the other difference between the free clinic and private practice, is that we don’t have the easy access to a lot of specialties. So we do what we can and I think we provide very good primary care, problem solving, patient management, but we can’t get patients to get their screening colonoscopy, just because those are prohibitively expensive. At least they can get their screening mammograms and their screening pap smears, but that’s one of the big things that’s different.

Eric Ramos:

The beginning part definitely resonated with me, we were talking about insurance and you were talking about things like that. Because I don’t come from a finance background at all and right now I’m doing my internship with UI Healthcare in the finance department. And just learning about how insurance works in private practice and just learning how all that works and how medical coding works. And contractual allowances is honestly insane, I don’t know why we ever decided to over complicate healthcare like this, because healthcare is failing in America. We all know that, just because like you said, it’s for profit and not for health. And I see that every day and that’s something I’m getting more passionate about, is learning more about how the healthcare finance portion works. So we can work on that transparency with patients, help them access healthcare in a way that they understand.

Eric Ramos:

Because right now it’s so overcomplicated that, if I can’t even understand it, how can other people understand it if I have health administration background at this point? So that’s something I’ve become passionate about this and it’s interesting to hear you say to that. Moving on to our next question, you’ve already talked about this a little bit, I don’t know if there’s something you want to add to this one, but what is something you wish the community knew about your clinic or for those of us who aren’t local, what do you wish people knew about free clinics in general? I know we talked about how you wished that they didn’t exist, because we shouldn’t have the need for that. But is there anything else you’d like to add to that?

Barbara Vinograde:

Well, I want to just emphasize, and I know a lot of people are listening today, probably already know this, but the free clinic provides such a needed service in our community. And we witness that every day, because our patients are so appreciative and so grateful. For example, every time we’re able to provide them with a medication that they need, that they don’t have to pay for and they can’t afford to pay for. I’d like to emphasize that Cecilia and I and the staff and the board, are so grateful for our strong community support. We’re really, really grateful that we live in a community where people understand the important of affordable access to healthcare. I also want to just emphasize again, that there are today, about 1400 free clinics in the United States. 33 of those are in Iowa and we are one of them and as I mentioned earlier, with the second longest running free clinic in the United States. That speaks so highly of our community and our community’s awareness of our mission.

Barbara Vinograde:

And we’re just really lucky, we wouldn’t be here today if we didn’t live in this community, as far as I’m concerned. I also wanted to mention that despite progress under the Affordable Care act, millions of people still remain uninsured. And last year it’s estimated that, over 2 million people receive services at a free clinic in the United States. Free clinics, as Cecilia has mentioned, just plays such an important role in the overall population health of every community. And I’d like to encourage everyone to, if they don’t already, to consider supporting a free clinic. The need for free clinics is only going to increase, I believe until we get a system in our country that is more accessible. The more…

Anya Morozov:

Yeah, I really hope that someday in the future, hopefully in our lifetimes, we do get to that goal of making healthcare affordable for everyone in the country. But until then, like you said, you’re doing a really important, amazing work in this community. So thank you very much. Next we’re going to move on to a bigger question and this theme has kind of been interspersed throughout the episode about healthcare as a human right. In the free medical clinic’s mission statement, it says, “We believe that access to affordable healthcare is a basic human necessity.” And we would love to know each of your takes on what this means and essentially, why the idea of healthcare as a human right, is so important.

Cecilia Norris:

So if yeah, you could probably tell from my earlier comment, that has been my belief since I began my journey in healthcare. At a med school interview 30 years ago, had a discussion about how I thought we needed universal healthcare, I was advocating at that time for socialized medicine. And I thought for sure, we would have something better than what we have now. That belief is based on the fact that United States is an incredibly wealthy country, with a lot of resources. It is also based on the belief that each individual person is unique, valued, and equal, and these are my beliefs and why my beliefs I think, fit in well with the clinic. But if we accept those general tenants, then we should want to do what we can, to provide the necessities for individuals. And in doing so, it’s going to benefit the community, healthier individuals make for a healthier community.

Cecilia Norris:

I don’t know how to get that point across to people who don’t want to, who say, “Oh, well, it’s their fault they can afford insurance. It’s their fault that they’re working at a job that doesn’t provide insurance.” And my whole thought is that, we as a country, if we are truly going to say that we are a great, free country, we need to be able to show that by the health and wellbeing of all of our citizens, immigrants, everybody residing. And I know that’s a really broad statement, but healthcare is just such an important part of that. I rank it right at food, shelter, healthcare, education.

Barbara Vinograde:

I’d like to echo everything that Cecilia just said, everyone who works at the free clinic, all our volunteers and our staff and our supporters, I know join me when I say, I truly believe access to healthcare is a basic human right. Cecilia emphasized this earlier and I just want to repeat, that in this country, we really don’t have a healthcare system, we have a health insurance system and it’s just not the same thing. I think that with time, people would find out and discover that if insurance was affordable to everyone, it would lower the cost of healthcare. Because it would lower administrative costs that we have right now and it would reduce the incredibly high prescription drug costs that we witness right now. I think that what it comes down to is that, affordable access to healthcare is just the right thing to do, if you think about it.

Eric Ramos:

Yeah, it definitely is the right thing to do. I think in America right now, I think we have just gotten into this rough thinking this very individualistic mindset, of only thinking for oneself and thinking of poverty and poor health and thinking of all these things as a personal failure, rather than as a failure of society to care for their individuals. And I think you guys made great points there and I whole heartedly agree with both of you. And again, thank you so much for being here again, going on with the next question. What are something you are each looking forward to in the future of the free medical and dental clinic? Is there any initiatives that are coming up or any great things that you guys are looking forward to in the future?

Cecilia Norris:

I was going to take the lead on that, but since we’re talking about initiatives coming up, I’m going to let Barbara start with that one.

Barbara Vinograde:

Thank you, Cecilia. I want to hear your take on this as well, but one of the things I’m looking forward to is, we are in the process of making some changes to our lower level, so that we can provide patient care on two levels, rather than one. Right now all our patient services are provided on our main floor and our lower level is primarily used for storage. We are in just the beginnings of a three year plan to get the basement, the lower level I like to call it, rather than the basement, into a space where we can have thriving clinics down there as well. We’ve already applied for some grant funding and we’ve received it to make this happen.

Barbara Vinograde:

It’s going to be, it’s not going to happen overnight. But what we’re hoping for, is that our ophthalmology clinics will be able to have their own ophthalmology suite downstairs. Our ophthalmology partners have recently received grant funding, so that we’re able to expand the number of services we provide our patients. They now receive grant funding so that they can provide some of our patients with laser treatments, if they have diabetic retinopathy and they’re also receiving some funding so that our patients can get some cataracts removed, if needed. So we’d like them to have a little more space, we’d like some of our other specialty care clinics to have more space as well on our lower level. So what I’m looking forward to, is having two levels of care as well as one, in addition to what we have right now. Cecilia and I have both talked about our wishlist and I look forward to seeing more services at the clinic. And as both of us have mentioned, I think that would be only a positive thing, because the need for our services is not going to go away. Do you have anything to add, Cecilia?

Cecilia Norris:

The main thing I look forward to, is continuing to provide high quality healthcare to the best of our abilities, to people in our community who wouldn’t otherwise receive it. As we said before with the wishlist, we’d like to be able to provide mental health, we’d like expand our women’s health, but all of that is going to depend on the resources that are available. So it’s a little hard to predict, but regardless of what we have for our physical structure, for our services offered, the staff and volunteers at the free medical clinic will continue to treat people with respect and to provide services to the best of our ability.

Anya Morozov:

Well, I’m really excited for your lower level as well and I know there are a lot of listeners who are in the healthcare space in some way, shape or form. So whether you are, or you are not, please check out that wishlist again and if you have anything to offer, please do so. I think it really is amazing work that you’re doing in the community. So lastly, we’re going to ask you both the question that we ask of all of our guests. What is one thing you thought you knew, but were later wrong about?

Cecilia Norris:

I sort of mentioned it earlier, I really thought when I went into medical school, that by the time I was at this point, we would have some form of a healthcare system that provided a safety net for people without insurance and we don’t.

Anya Morozov:

You’re first on the podcast to have said that.

Barbara Vinograde:

I’m going to share a little more of a personal story. I mentioned earlier that I moved to New York after college, I was very, very young. Let me preface this story, I was very, very young. I had just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in flute performance. I loved music with a passion and I moved to New York, as I was convinced that I would be able to play with the New York Philharmonic. Now that demonstrates my naivety, most definitely also my passion for music. But again, I was very young and had a lot to learn.

Barbara Vinograde:

And obviously that didn’t work out playing for the New York Philharmonic. Music is still one of my greatest loves in life, and that will never change. And to be fair, I did a lot of playing in New York, but it was mainly on the sidewalk outside Carnegie Hall and in Greenwich Village. The good news is, when I moved to New York, I had to get a job right away to start paying back my student loans. And that led me to Mount Sinai Medical Center, which led me to the Iowa City free clinic. So it all worked out even though-

Eric Ramos:

What do you play, Barbara?

Barbara Vinograde:

I play flute.

Eric Ramos:

OK.

Barbara Vinograde:

I don’t don’t play flute anymore and believe me, you would be glad if you heard me play right now. But I still have, as I said, I still have a real passion for it.

Eric Ramos:

I played clarinet from fifth grade until senior year of high school. And I also have not picked up to clarinet since then, so you probably don’t want to hear me by clarinet. But thank you so much for being here, I look forward to seeing the great things that you guys continue to do and are doing. And for one day, not having the need for 800 bed hospitals, or even a free medical clinic one day. But thank you so much for being here, both you Barbara Vinograde and Dr. Cecilia Norris. My name’s Eric Ramos, I’m here with Anya Morozov. Thank you so much for being here and have a beautiful day, everybody.

Eric Ramos:

That’s it for our episode this week, both big, thanks to Dr. Cecilia Norris and Barbara Vinograde for joining us today. This episode is hosted and written by myself and Anya Morozov and edited and produced by me, Eric. You can learn more about the University of Iowa College of Public Health on Facebook. Our podcast is available on Spotify, Apple podcast, and SoundCloud. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to help support the podcast, please share it with your colleague, friends or anyone interested in public health. Have a suggestion for our team? You can reach us at CPH-gradambassador@UIowa.edu. This episode was brought to you by the University of Iowa College Public Health. Until next week, stay healthy, stay curious, and take care. Eric out.