After years of planning, the student-run organization that informally began bringing health care to underserved communities nearly 40 years ago celebrated the grand opening Thursday of a wellness clinic at the Lotus House, a sanctuary for homeless women and children in Overtown.

Beginning this Thursday, the Lotus House Wellness Center, the third community-based clinic in South Florida staffed by Miller School faculty and medical students through the Mitchell Wolfson Sr. Department of Community Service, or DOCS, will offer gynecological screenings and other women's health services once every other week at the shelter.

"Many of these women are grappling with substance abuse, domestic abuse and other issues and, until now, if they had an urgent need, they were referred to another community clinic, but it wasn't their own and it wasn't easy to get there,'' said Janki Amin, a second-year student who serves as DOCS professional liaison at Lotus House. "The Lotus House clinic will make it easier for these women to get care.''

Funded with a $100,000 grant from The Blue Foundation for a Healthy Florida, the clinic also will provide DOCS student volunteers with invaluable clinical care experience as they'll operate and staff the clinic under the guidance of the attending physicians Amin is responsible for recruiting.

In addition to Amin, the DOCS Lotus House staff includes second-year students Elishia McKay, the project manager; Rujuta Pandya, who's in charge of logistics; and Michael Spertus, the student liaison.

They and their predecessors have anxiously awaited this moment for two years, the time it's taken the Lotus House to overcome the permitting and bureaucratic hurdles that stood in the way of converting office and counseling space at the shelter into two examination rooms.

 "It was a long time coming, and I'm glad we finally got it up and running,'' said third-year student Prabhat Mishra, the previous DOCS project manager.

For Lotus House president and founder Constance Collins-Margulies, who has created a unique and tranquil oasis in Miami's poorest neighborhood, the clinic is the first step in the shelter's vision of becoming a resource and education center for the greater Overtown community. For now, the clinic serves only Lotus House residents, about 50 women and their children. But one day, it will open to all women and children in the neighborhood. When that happens, DOCS volunteers are counting on being there, too.

Though founded in 2000, DOCS traces its origins to 1971, when Miller School students held their first health fair in Big Pine Key. Today, DOCS holds almost a dozen health fairs across South Florida, and staffs the Saint John Bosco Clinic in Miami, and the Caridad Clinic in Boynton Beach.

UM-affiliated physicians, especially in the fields of OB/GYN, family medicine, internal medicine and psychiatry, who are interested in volunteering at the Lotus House should contact Amin at jamin@med.miami.edu.