SHP to host Frontera de Salud volunteer information session

By Kate Hunger 

Janna Roberts wants students in the School of Health Professions to know they are welcome to volunteer with Frontera de Salud, an interprofessional, student-run organization that provides preventive health services and education to the medically underserved in San Antonio and South Texas. 

A second-year occupational therapy doctoral student, Roberts is the School of Health Professions liaison for the organization’s UT Health San Antonio chapter. She will be one of the speakers at a volunteer information session to be hosted by the School in September. 

Frontera de Salud volunteers perform health screenings including blood glucose, blood pressure, lipid panels, and body-mass index, perform school physicals and offer nutrition counseling. 

“The Frontera de Salud group trains everybody on what they need to know in order to deliver these health screening services,” Roberts said. “No prior knowledge or experience is required.”

By joining medical and nursing student volunteers, health professions students enrich Frontera’s interprofessionalism, she said. 

“If they don’t want to be hands-on with health screenings themselves they can jump in and participate in the counseling piece,” Roberts said. “I think it’s great for any student no matter the program or school they are in, to get the patient interaction experience.”

The information session will be held in the flex labs (DTL 2.217–2.221) on Sept. 10 from 12–1 p.m. Lunch will be provided to those who register by the Sept. 4 deadline, but all are welcome to attend. To register, email robertsj7@livemail.uthscsa.edu.

Upcoming training and volunteer events will be posted on the chapter’s Facebook page. Applications for chapter leadership roles will be available this fall.