WISE — Donna Sampson winced in pain Sunday morning as a hypodermic needle slid into the side of her foot. It was attached to a glass syringe filled with lidocaine usually used for dentistry, but some instruments serve double duty at this field hospital in the middle of a mountain fairground.
Soon, a third-year medical student and a Roanoke doctor volunteering his time and expertise were slicing a wart off Sampson’s left foot . They cauterized the wound and wrapped the area with gauze.
Sampson was one of an estimated 3,000 uninsured or under insured patients who lined up for hours — even days — to receive free medical, dental and eye care at the 14th annual Remote Area Medical clinic at the Wise County Fairgrounds in far Southwest Virginia.
The three-day event draws thousands every year from the coalfields of Appalachia for charity health care and is staffed by a small army of nearly 2,000 volunteers.
Sampson, 47, from Hiltons , arrived Saturday with her boyfriend, his son and a friend and slept overnight in a compact Kia Sephia so they could be seen Sunday. They waited in line more than eight hours Saturday just to wake up and be back at 5 a.m. Sunday .
Sampson said she came to the free clinic to have her teeth cleaned, but medical volunteers suggested she be checked out as well.
She and others were seen in makeshift doctor’s offices in what would usually be fairground facilities. Buildings without air conditioning were converted into medical suites using bed sheets and clothes pins hanging on twine.
Doctors, medical students and other volunteers worked outside their comfort zone to treat the thousands who had shown up to receive care.
Ben Davis, who works at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, showed Tripp Hines, 26, a medical student from East Tennessee State University’s James Quillen College of Medicine, how to slice off Sampson’s wart. The two then removed an infected nail from Sampson’s right foot.
About 500 to 600 of the 1,700 volunteers at the RAM clinic this year are medical, dental or eye care professionals, according to organizers, and many of them are students. The event is an important training tool for them.
Stephen Fintel, a third-year student at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Dentistry, performed his first tooth extraction over the weekend at the clinic.
Fintel, 27, a 2004 graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, said it was his first time volunteering at an event of this magnitude.
“It’s a little bit overwhelming at first, but once you get rolling, it’s no big deal,” he said.
As strong rain moved through the fairground and volunteers rushed to pull the siding down on the dental tent, Corey Taylor, a Roanoke native and second-year student at VCU’s dental school, helped pull a decayed incisor from Laura Logsdon. The sound of heavy raindrops on canvas mixed with the whirs of dental drills and suction devices.
Logsdon, a 50-year-old mother from Lee County, said she works as a cook at a nursing home but doesn’t receive health insurance.
That’s a common refrain at the annual event, held in an area where nearly 20 percent of people lack insurance, according to 2010 census figures.
“We’re seeing people who’ve had health insurance all their lives, and then they’re forced to lose a job and they don’t have anything,” said Teresa Gardner, one of RAM’s organizers.
Other patients may have medical insurance but can’t afford dental or vision care. Or their copays or deductibles may be too expensive. Or they may have been in a recent accident. Or they may have been diagnosed with a devastating illness. The list goes on.
“You hear a lot of things that are really heartbreaking,” said Jamie Swann, a nurse with INTotal Health, who was working to triage patients and send them to the appropriate areas for care.
The clinic is one of several like it in the country, but the Wise RAM has historically seen the most patients. Gardner said last year’s event saw more than 5,000 people from Friday through Sunday, with volunteers performing an estimated $1.9 million in free care, including more than 3,300 tooth extractions, 2,600 medical procedures and 800 eyeglasses made on-site.
Carole Pratt, a dentist from Pulaski County, has volunteered at the clinic since it started in 2000. She said she considers it her summer vacation.
Pratt, 62, said she keeps coming back because of patients who line up for hours on end seeking care.
“If you ask any volunteer here, everybody will tell you there is a moment or two or three in every one of these clinics where you just have to go hide behind some place and get yourself together because of the stories they tell,” she said. “There are people who’ve lost their jobs and lost their benefits … and they’re embarrassed to be here, but they want to tell you why they have to come to a fairground to get medical care in the most wealthy nation in the world.”
She wiped away a tear.
“Everybody’s got a story.”
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