Sylvia Paulsen stopped by a pop-up clinic set up on the grounds of Ali’i Beach Park in Haleʻiwa on Thursday, thinking the visit would be a quick in and out. Just a couple of inhalers to help with asthma made worse by the humidity that accompanied the Kona low storm.
It turns out that it wasn’t as easy and fast for the 85-year-old as a visit to Matsumoto’s Shave Ice nearby, even though parking was plentiful and there was no waiting thanks to a full staff of student doctors from the John A. Burns School of Medicine.
Two mobile clinic vans filled with supplies for wound care and a limited supply of medications parked next to several tables set up under yellow tents. Visits there were structured much like a visit to a doctor’s office, too, minus any available on-site lab work or other diagnostic tests.
But since the student doctors did not have a patient’s electronic health history available, they had to ask questions — a lot of them…