Ohio Northern University

Clinic provides health screenings, occasionally addresses emergencies

A five-year partnership extension has been made between Ohio Northern University’s HealthWise Mobile Health Clinic and Mercy Health-St. Rita’s Medical Center. The value of that collaboration was illustrated by a recent health emergency at a Lima, Ohio event, where the mobile clinic was staffed by ONU pharmacy students and faculty, as well as by physicians in St. Rita’s Internal Medicine residency program.

According to Raabe College of Pharmacy, the mobile health clinic was at a block party in Lima to offer free health screenings when a fourth-year pharmacy student detected high blood pressure in a woman who was 38 weeks pregnant. The team feared the cause was pre-eclampsia, a potentially fatal prenatal complication.

“With help from the Mercy Health team on site, the patient was taken directly to the hospital” where a C-section was performed and a healthy baby delivered, said Pharmacy Dean Stuart Beatty, PharmD ‘03. Mother and baby are doing well.

Phillip Zoladz, Ph.D., Ohio Northern University professor of psychology, will present his research findings on psychedelics at a press conference to be held at the November 2023 Society for Neuroscience conference in Washington, D.C. His research explores the potential of psilocybin to enhance exposure therapy’s effectiveness in individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Zoladz is one of several presenters the Society selected to introduce their intriguing and important findings to journalists.