Student and physician volunteers smile for a picture at La Clinica Latina. Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Summit Shah
On Tuesday nights, the Rardin Family Practice Center buzzes with Spanish and English as volunteers move quickly through the halls, ushering patients in and out of the waiting room.
This calculated chaos has been a weekly staple of the clinic since 2010. La Clinica Latina — located at 2231 N. High St. — is a free clinic catered to the Spanish-speaking community in Columbus.
“We recognized that there were large barriers to accessing care for the immigrant population, a large portion of which is Spanish-speaking in Columbus, and there were no other free clinics that were dedicated to serving this population,” Summit Shah, clinical assistant professor at Ohio State and volunteer physician board member of La Clinica Latina, said.
To meet this need, La Clinica offers free and comprehensive care to every patient, regardless of insurance status, immigration status or other factors that can make health care inaccessible, Jessica Cohen, a third-year in medicine at Ohio State and former clinic lab coordinator, said
“We do see every single patient that comes in,” Cohen said. “We don’t really ask about insurance information. This is geared towards patients who don’t have insurance or don’t have the means to pay for health care services but that’s not a requirement to be able to use our services.”
Although the clinic only operates one evening a week, its reach is extensive, Cohen said. In 2024, volunteers facilitated more than 2,000 patient visits and the clinic provided more than $700,000 worth of health care services free of charge, Cohen said.
“It’s pretty incredible, especially for a free health care clinic,” Cohen said.
La Clinica is unique in its provision of specific resources for the Spanish-speaking and Latino communities in Columbus and the surrounding area. This clinic is one of the largest and only free clinics specifically focused on serving Spanish speakers in the Midwest, Shah said.
Each week, the clinic offers general care for patients for a range of concerns, Cohen said.
“For our general clinic, we have family medicine, internal medicine — a lot of random services,” Cohen said. “Primarily, it would be what you would see your general practitioner for.”
Beyond primary care, volunteers host specialty clinics that provide more targeted services like musculoskeletal and women’s health care. Through these services, they can offer more direct treatment in the form of necessary prescriptions, pap smears and referrals to other clinics for more complex cases, Cohen said.
La Clinica works closely with departments at Ohio State to provide specialized services. The College of Pharmacy aids volunteers in providing prescription medications and hosting vaccine clinics and the College of Medicine contributes grants, resources, and faculty and student volunteers, Cohen said.
As patient demand rises, the clinic is expanding its services and specializations, said Kathleen Wyne, professor in endocrinology at Ohio State as well as one of the clinic’s medical directors.
“We are constantly trying to grow and get more specialities and more access,” Wyne said. “When I first started, if we saw 10 patients a night it was a busy night. We’re now routinely scheduling 30 just for the general clinic.”
Eliana Abraham, a family medicine intern and volunteer physician, said she has noticed significant growth since she began volunteering as a first-year medical student.
“It’s a huge impact that we’re making, and it’s honestly just been growing so much in the last three years,” Abraham said. “The fact that we now have a pharmacy with medicines that we’re able to give, that wasn’t a thing when I was a first-year.”
Last year, the College of Pharmacy helped establish an in-house pharmacy, allowing patients to receive same-day prescriptions. The clinic now provides 23 different prescription medications for patients, reducing barriers to access and making La Clinica Latina a one-stop-shop for health care needs, Wyne said.
“We do labs here too, so people get a clinic visit, basic labs and now some generic medicines for free,” Wyne said.
Because the clinic is entirely volunteer-run, every dollar from grants and donations goes directly back into patient care, Shah said.
“The free clinic is 100 percent volunteer based with no paid employees and there is never any charge to a patient or any billing of insurance to collect money for services performed,” Shah said. “It’s 100 percent charitable care.”
Many of the volunteers speak Spanish as a first or second language, allowing patients to communicate without relying on electronic translators.
“The key is, because of the Spanish language fluency [of volunteers], we can give culturally aware, culturally sensitive care to patients in their native language,”Wyne said.
This creates an environment where patients feel understood and accepted, Wyne said.
“It’s a way for patients to come and feel like they are seeing a clinic that understands their needs so that they know they are getting care from people who want to serve their population, specifically,” Cohen said. “It’s rewarding to see that what we do has an impact on patient lives and it really does make a difference.”
La Clinica Latina accepts new patients every Tuesday and is actively recruiting undergraduate, graduate and physician volunteers.
This story was updated Sept. 9 at 9:35 a.m. to correct the attribution of a quote.
