Joanna Bryant wants to make health care easier to access for Minnesotans.
As the Health and Wellness Coordinator for the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (SMSC), she helped develop a mobile medical clinic that visits American Indian and other communities around the state. The clinic offers preventative care like dental cleaning, eye exams and school check ups.
"The beautiful thing about a mobile [clinic] is that I can't think of a service I can't put in a mobile concept," Bryant said. "You just need the space and you need the provider. The core of it is very, very simple."
This summer, the mobile unit — an 80-foot semi-truck equipped for high-tech screenings including X-rays and mammograms — will go on tour for its ninth season, offering free services to Minnesota communities. Upcoming stops in the south metro include the Savage Public Library on May 21, Slavic Baptist Church in Shakopee on June 18, and Radermacher's Fresh Market in Jordan on July 9.
For Bryant, the clinic is about removing the barriers for people who might otherwise not have access to get potentially lifesaving screenings.
Christine Michael, mobile unit coordinator and mammographer, who goes on every mobile clinic trip where mammograms are provided, said she's already seen major benefits from the program first hand.
"We are reaching women who would normally not get a mammogram. They come here because they feel safe," she said. "They are so thankful that we come and do the mammograms, and then they come back and say, 'You found my cancer a year ago and it was early because I come on the mobile every year.' It's so rewarding."
Many of the communities the SMSC mobile clinic visits every year have come to rely on the service, Bryant said.