Showing Up For Community Care: Notes from SKCC with Cynthia Gorsuch, L.Ac/EAMP

Cynthia shares her POV as one of many licensed healthcare practitioners serving at this year’s Seattle King County Clinic held at Seattle Center

Photo: Susan Fried

As some of you know, I took a day off from my regularly scheduled Friday shift at the end of April - thanks for covering, Joey! - to volunteer as an acupuncturist at the tenth annual Seattle King County Clinic at the Seattle Center!  This yearly pop up medical clinic is the "largest community-driven free health clinic of its kind in the United States." During the four days that the clinic was operating, 3,300 patients received health care services, including dental care, medical imaging & diagnostics, eye exams and new eyeglasses, behavioral health services and multiple bodywork modalities.

As part of the acupuncture group, I got to give 9 of the 175 treatments that were given over the course of 4 days!I was so impressed with the time taken to orient and educate all volunteers. The organizers made sure we all clearly understood what services the clinic could and could not provide, and why the systems in place were created and enacted: to make patients feel safe and cared for, and to create a culture of transparency and fairness. Our acupuncture clinic leaders were welcoming, organized and popular! Multiple patients remembered them from previous years and were happy to get treatments from them again this year! I also witnessed zero ego trips anywhere in the clinic. Clinic volunteers, interpreters, and providers were all aligned in working together to make sure our patients received the best care possible that day. It was truly wonderful to witness.

Photo: Seattle Center

The pop up clinic, while amazing, does not solve the systemic barriers to access to healthcare in this country. Those issues are too big to be solved by one weekend clinic in one city. The fact that the SKCC needs to exist in the first place was not lost on us volunteers, and was clearly addressed by the organizers. And I felt heartened that, in an age of performative cruelty and disregard for basic human dignity by some of our most powerful leaders, thousands of people donated their time and skills to make sure as many people as possible could access health care.

It was an experience I won't soon forget.

To learn more about the clinic, please click here: https://seattlecenter.org/skcclinic/