By Alice Horner
It’s Tuesday afternoon in what at first looks like a typical doctor’s office. Phones are ringing and copiers beeping. Then there is something different: laughter. Employees and patients are really enjoying themselves.
Welcome to Shepherd’s Clinic, a small brick building in a busy Baltimore neighborhood. Its mission is to provide health care for those without insurance. The suggested donation for an office visit is one hour’s wage for patients who are working and $9 if they are unemployed.
The idea started with an emergency room assistant at nearby Union Memorial Hospital who noticed about one third of the patients they saw were people who didn’t qualify for government assistance yet could not afford private insurance.
Jack VandenHengel (right) leads a staff meeting at Shepherd’s Clinic.
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Beginning in a two-room area in a row house basement in 1991, Shepherd’s Clinic has grown to 10,000 square feet. In 2008, the Joy Wellness Center was added, offering a more holistic health approach that includes yoga lessons, massage therapy and cooking classes.
Clinic operations rely solely on generosity of individuals and organizations. Except for four full-time and seven part-time workers, everyone is a volunteer. Doctors volunteer their expertise, while college students fulfill field-placement requirements for premed and social-work degrees.
Executive Director Jack VandenHengel, former pastor of Baltimore’s Seventh Baptist Church, says the benefits of Shepherd’s Clinic go beyond health care.
“Shepherds Clinic is responsive to deep human need,” he said. “This work is so relational. It not only meets the needs of patients, but the needs of ongoing goodwill to volunteers and staff. I get up in the morning because I know it’ll make a difference in somebody’s life health wise, but it also makes your day.”
VandenHengel, onetime director of Christian social ministries for Baltimore Baptist Association, also views the clinic as an expansion of social justice. “I’ve always grown up reading about justice, peace, the underdog,” he said. “And this place is where the underserved are served.”
Clinical Care Coordinator Kema Goodwin, a former labor-and-delivery nurse and now a six-year veteran of Shepherd’s Clinic, coordinates procedures, handles casework, manages volunteers and delivers direct services.
“There’s no red tape here,” she said. “Our staff is so small that we can implement things pretty quickly. I love that patients know who we are, and we know who they are. There’s that intimate feeling.”
Intake Specialist Jessica Sousa, the first face patients see when they walk in, began volunteering at Shepherd’s Clinic once a week after hearing VandenHengel speak at Goucher College while she was a student.
Drawn at first by VandenHengel’s enthusiasm, she later decided a premedical program was not for her. An opportunity for a full-time job opened up, and Sousa started working full time at Shepherd’s Clinic in July.
“I’ve had a lot of different jobs and worked my hardest at all of them, and the hard work goes so much farther here,” said Sousa. “There is so much more appreciation, to a degree that I have not experienced elsewhere. Because we are volunteer-driven, there’s an amount of trust once you demonstrate proficiency in certain areas.”
The clinic often becomes a steady rock for volunteers experiencing some turbulence in their own lives. “This became my oxygen during my first post-baccalaureate year,” Sousa said. “A lot of people who are going through transition periods often turn to volunteer here because of the encouragement. People here are just unbelievably grateful.”
One patient came to the clinic because her pre-existing hypertension, arthritis and reflux prevented her from being insured. “I used to work in the health-care field and the atmosphere was always so sterile,” she said. “But here it’s not. The place doesn’t feel medical, and it started ministering to me immediately.”
Not only was “Mrs. P.” treated, but she referred her friend to a Shepherd’s Clinic doctor. The friend was quickly diagnosed for thyroid cancer and underwent surgery at Union Memorial Hospital, a low-cost procedure thanks to the partnership with Shepherd’s.
VandenHengel said “you can’t help but be moved” by knowing that Shepherd’s Clinic saves lives. “The only reason that we have hundreds of volunteers is because they all come in here and find the same thing,” he said.
Jamie Spitzer, a 24-year-old volunteer who works with the International Rescue Committee in refugee resettlement, describes the clinic as a positive atmosphere for workers and patients alike. “I think it’s a really supportive and empowering environment,” she said. “All the providers here are really inspiring. All of the care is very holistic. The doctors are considering the person as a whole.”
“Twenty years later, the place still drives me wonderfully crazy,” said VandenHengel, the clinic’s co-founder. “Since we started it, this place has stirred my juices. I am pumped about what this place does because it transforms peoples’ lives.”