On Monday, April 11th, six hardy Certified Medical Assistant (CMA) students awoke at the crack of dawn (3:30 am to be exact!) to join 2136 other health care professionals who signed up to serve as volunteers in the Remote Area Medical (RAM) volunteer clinics held in Sacramento and Oakland these past two weeks.

Our students served in the clinic held at the Oakland Coliseum where registration began at 4:00 am for volunteers who would together provide service to over 3000 patients with 5530 medical and dental services! Volunteer tasks undertaken by our students included serving as patient escorts, conducting check in and registration, participating as assistants in complicated dental work and (according to one long time volunteer) just being “a delight to be around!”

Following the event, founder of RAM, Stan Brock, mentioned that out of the 640 clinics held in the US, the Sacramento and Oakland clinics were the best experienced. Asked what made the clinics the best, Mr. Brock‟s responses were: the friendliness of the volunteers, appreciation from the patients, location and organization of the event.

Our students participated in the volunteer clinic at the invitation of the Oakland Office of Congresswoman Barbara Lee who, in the last year, has provided many opportunities for the professional development of our students – including establishing an Office Assistant (OA) Work Based Learning site in her Oakland Office!

Participants were pleasantly delighted when the Congresswoman attended the RAM event, thanked the founder and acknowledged our very own CMA students for their hard work! You can watch the clip at:

April 2011
: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=8066191