Community Outreach

An important part of the Miller School’s commitment to community service began in 1971, when a group of students launched a health fair in Big Pine Key, Florida. This fair served a dual purpose of offering health care to the underserved and providing students with invaluable learning experiences.

More than 50 years later, the program now hosts 10 annual health fairs and weekly clinics in four counties. Medical students, trainees, and faculty annually spend thousands of hours providing care to communities where it is needed most.

Shop Docs is a volunteer organization that partners with barbers to combat health disparities that adversely affect minority communities. Run by Miller School students, Shop Docs’ goal is to change the delivery of health care by sharing key information, screenings, and resources with barbershop customers.

Bascom Palmer Eye Institute provides vision-saving eye screenings to the medically underserved throughout South Florida in the Vision Van, a 40-foot mobile eye clinic. Bascom Palmer faculty, residents, and fellows also volunteer in vitally important ophthalmic missions around the globe, including to Haiti, one of the most medically underserved countries in the Western Hemisphere.

The Pediatric Mobile Clinic offers free comprehensive medical care to uninsured local children. The clinic bus parks near Miami-Dade County’s public schools, houses of worship, and community centers, making medical services more accessible to families in need.

Regardless of insurance coverage, financial resources, or medical history, children receive the same services and quality of care from the mobile clinic that they would at a conventional visit to a pediatrician’s office, free of charge. 

Visit Pediatric Mobile Clinic

The mobile Game Changer clinics, directed by a team at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, travel throughout Miami-Dade and Monroe counties in South Florida to provide free cancer screenings to communities in need.

The Game Changer vehicle program reaches an average of more than 40,000 people per year, providing free cervical and colorectal cancer screenings, along with hepatitis C and STD/STI screenings. Game Changer vehicles also provide educational information on topics such as cervical, colorectal, breast, prostate, and lung cancers.

Visit GameChanger Vehicle

The primary goals of the Firefighter Cancer Initiative are to better document and understand the excess burden of cancer among Florida firefighters, and identify novel, evidence-based methods for reducing risk. The initiative now includes departments from across the state of Florida.

Visit Firefighter Cancer Initiative