A new multilingual clinic expands the reach of free care.
Amal. In Arabic, the word means “hope.” For the patrons of Amal Clinic, which operates out of Clínica Esperanza in Providence, the word brings hope as well.
Clínica Esperanza offers free care for uninsured and underinsured Rhode Islanders. According to Samer Wahood ’21 MD’26, the state’s free clinics have few comprehensive resources for South Asian, Middle Eastern, and African immigrants, even as these communities have grown in the wake of refugee crises.
The inspiration for Amal Clinic sparked during Ramadan, at a health fair in a local Providence mosque, where Ummara Khan MD’27, Wahood, and other medical students and faculty offered free general health screenings, blood glucose panels, and blood pressure checks. “In only three hours, we saw 50 patients,” Wahood says—many of whom believed that follow-up care was unrealistic, because they lacked insurance.
“We knew that we needed a way to prescribe medications to [these patients], to connect them to the specialists that they need to see,” he says. He and his mentor, Abrar Qureshi, MD, MPH, P’25 ’27, the Warren Alpert Foundation Professor and chair of dermatology, saw a need “to start a free clinic in Rhode Island for these communities that haven’t been served,” Wahood says.
Yet, they learned, such a clinic had existed, and recently: the first Amal Clinic was founded in 2011, and served patients until the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the clinic founders had since moved away, and Wahood had to bridge a “loss of institutional knowledge.” In a fortunate turn of events, he didn’t have to look far. “One of the physicians, Dr. Abdallah Chahin [F’16, former assistant professor of medicine], moved down the street from my house in the Chicago suburbs,” Wahood says.
Since Amal Clinic reopened in February 2024, its staff has grown to include representatives of more than 20 medical specialties offering services in several languages, including Arabic, Urdu, Wolof, French, Dari, and Pashto. Some of the clinic’s first patients came for follow-up care after the Ramadan health fair.
Amal Clinic is an exceptional teaching opportunity, Khan says: “Students not only go in, take medical histories, and do physical exams, but identify possible next steps for patients.”
Khan says her experiences with health policy in her home village in Pakistan “fueled the fire” to create change for those seeking access to health care. “Learning the infrastructure of what makes a free clinic run, and how you can tap into existing resources and organizations to bring about these new opportunities, really aligns with what I hope to do in the future,” she says.
Wahood brings his experiences with refugees to Amal Clinic, including volunteering overseas as a medical interpreter for Syrian refugees and helping to lead Brown Refugee Youth Tutoring and Enrichment. “We’re part of one interconnected global community, and the cultural humility you learn from helping communities abroad can help us better care for each other here,” he says.
