Outreach

Helping others helps you

Nurses are passionate about helping patients prevent illness and manage symptoms, providing care even for those who cannot afford it. Dedicating time to your community helps you understand these needs.

The IU School of Nursing at Indianapolis has a proud history dedicated to closing the healthcare gap through innovative programs like the MOM Mobile, which brought ultrasounds to expectant mothers and cut infant mortality among Indy’s Black moms in half during its operation.

As a nursing student, you get to work under faculty leaders in a variety of different clinics, programs, and opportunities. You’ll experience what it’s like working with, managing, and treating patients in clinics and programs across central Indiana.

Fulfilling the promise of a healthy tomorrow

Clinical partnerships

Clinical partners around central Indiana are ready to help you practice traditional clinical skills and educational partnerships that are unique to IU Indianapolis and extraordinarily valuable to your career.

Become a Preceptor and shape the future of nursing

Practicing nurses can become preceptors and provide their expertise and high-quality education to nursing students on-the-job.

Over a decade of service at the IU Student Outreach Clinic

Nursing student with community member at the Eastside Clinic

Over 11,000 patient encounters and 50,000 volunteer hours

On weekdays, the Neighborhood Fellowship church near 10th and Rural is a school. On Sundays, it’s a church feeding the soul of the community and the people they serve. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays, students from IU Indianapolis, Butler, and the University of Indianapolis come together to bring much-needed healthcare, social assistance, and legal aid to the church on Indy’s near Eastside.

“As nurses, it’s our role to be a medical ‘interpreter,’” says experienced nursing mentor Jessica Klipsch. Klipsch has worked alongside the clinic for many years. “Volunteering here, you’ll get interprofessional exposure to learn about other health professions. It’s a good opportunity to practice fundamental nursing skills, too, like taking blood pressures, putting a patient at ease, explaining health conditions, and delivering patient education,” says Klipsch.

It’s the patient education that’s proven so important. As patients cycle through medical partners, “Medical care information can get muddied as people talk to several medical students and residents,” says Klipsch. “But the nurse stays with the patient through all of it.” Part of the magic that happens at the Outreach Clinic works because nurses keep a written document so the patient walks out with a list of things to follow up on, when to come back, what everyone at the Clinic did that day.

Jim Strietelmeier and his wife, Neighborhood Fellowship Elders

The IU Student Outreach Clinic has been a place of compassion when compassion has been needed most of all. It is a place where the dignity of all people is embraced, patient and student alike.
Jim Strietelmeier, Neighborhood Fellowship Elder

Partners involved each Saturday at the Clinic include

The Student Outreach Clinic started in 2009 as a way to provide cholesterol and blood pressure screenings. Today, the program has expanded to include nearly a dozen partners and Neighborhood Fellowship has purchased space across the street from their church where an expanded, permanent clinic is being planned and renovated.

Neighborhood Fellowship Church and supporting members of the community
IU School of Medicine residents and medical students provide exams
IU School of Health and Human Sciences Physician Assistant Program
IU School of Dentistry provides dental exams and referrals for in-person treatment
IU School of Nursing offers ongoing patient support
IU School of Social Work helps connect food, housing, and more
IU Robert H. McKinney School of Law and Indiana Legal Services provides guidance on topics like benefits, divorce, child support, landlord issues, and more
Butler University College of Pharmacy helps patients fill prescriptions on-site
IU School of Health and Human Sciences Department of Occupational Therapy provides therapy
Physical Therapy programs at IU School of Health and The University of Indianapolis provide a variety of assistance
VIDA (Volunteer Initiatives Domestic and Abroad) at IU Indianapolis helps check-in patients and provide patient scheduling