Field Placement: UCLA OB/GYN Clinic & Center for Reproductive Services
Location: Westwood, CA
Preceptor: Gita Patel, MS, MSO III and Angela Chen, MD, MPH
Student Name: Helena Hart
Year: 2004

Marketing Medical Services & Establishing Internal Clinic Support

The UCLA OB/GYN Clinic is a UCLA teaching health center located at the West Medical Building in Westwood, CA. The clinic is a training center for resident physicians and medical students from the David Geffen School of Medicine. The Center for Reproductive Services (CRS) is located on the second floor of the West Medical Building and works closely with the clinic to provide patients with services such as: family planning counseling; STI screening, counseling and treatment; and pregnancy termination counseling and services. Approximately 80% of the clinic clientele is Spanish-speaking. A large proportion of the clientele of the OB/GYN Clinic are already using or can enroll in Medi-Cal or State Family Pact for their healthcare.

In July 2004, the UCLA OB/GYN Clinic and CRS began providing pregnancy termination services. As an intern, my job was to market these services to other healthcare providers and the general public. During my time and the OB/GYN Clinic, I helped to revise and update clinic and CRS brochures and have them translated into Spanish. I also created a referral list of providers in the Los Angeles region to whom it would be beneficial to send marketing packets. These marketing packets included: brochures, a clinical update, and an introduction letter. As part of our marketing strategy, I also created a document with information on our services to be posted on a local healthcare provider’s web site.

Aside from the marketing, another key aspect of my job as an intern was to help establish internal clinic support. In other words, the clinic administration wished to improve the general flow of the clinic in order to provide patients with excellent, efficient and timely service. They also wished to gain a clearer understanding of internal clinical performance so that they could make any necessary changes in clinic operations. As an intern, I worked with the clinic staff, another intern and volunteers to organize a Medi-Cal and State Family PACT billing training, create a variety of consent forms, and create a “snapshot” with data given to me regarding the clinics’ patient load, resident and attending arrival time information, etc.

Working for the Center for Reproductive Services at the UCLA OB/GYN Clinic has been a very enlightening and enriching experience. I have had the opportunity to learn a great deal there. If a student is interested in the delivery of reproductive health services and family planning, I think this would be a great internship for her or him. The staff is wonderful and my Preceptors were excellent!

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