Bentley students help from afar

Bentley College students showed that you don't have to travel 1,200 miles to help rebuild the Gulf Coast.

They used brain power, not muscle power, to help an Alabama clinic get back on its feet.

The students of the special course ``ID 299 -- Rebuilding Business Processes" had more than just a grade riding on their classwork. They were charged with shoring up not the bricks and beams, but the financial underpinnings of the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic. Their efforts were crucial if the clinic was to continue providing everything from vaccinations to minor surgery for its low-income and uninsured patients.

They spent four months crafting a business plan, coming up with ways to increase the clinic's revenues so that it could expand services and develop a disaster relief plan. Students also obtained software to handle patient information and billing, replacing the paper system the clinic had used for years.

``I'd give them an A," said Dr. Regina M. Benjamin , the clinic's founder and director, three months after she had been presented with the results. ``A-plus, if you can do that sort of thing in college. I'd give them bonus points for the extra effort that they went through."

Six other classes worked on related aspects of the project, involving 183 students and eight instructors at the Waltham college. An expository writing class researched grant applications worth more than $1 million. If approved, the money would pay for new staff, mental health and dental services, and lab equipment. A website design class worked with the ID 299 students to create a page for the clinic, and a class in Internet law wrote disclaimers and a guide for copyrighting the site's content.

``I'm impressed, really impressed," Benjamin said. ``I expected it to be good. I didn't expect it to be great. To have hired a firm to do this would have cost me thousands of dollars."

Benjamin is still paying off a federal loan that helped her rebuild the clinic after Hurricane George destroyed it in 1998.

She said the students worked on the kind of problems that had been keeping her up nights.

In their work, she sees the makings of a model that could be applied to other clinics like hers.

``There are a lot of doctors out there struggling to treat vulnerable patients," Benjamin said. ``You don't want them to burn out, you need to give them solutions."

The clinic is now applying for the grants Bentley students suggested and putting into place some of their suggestions for organization and long-term planning, the director said,

The partnership grew out of a relief effort that Bentley students started just after the hurricane. They raised $7,000 from donations and a ``camping for Katrina" event in which students spent a rainy night under a tent.

Event organizer Manny Carneiro , then a junior, said students wanted the money to go to a specific cause, rather than a general purpose charity like the Red Cross.

Dr. Michael Rich, with Bentley's student health center, suggested contacting Benjamin, whom he had heard speak at a conference.

Bentley's offer of aid was well timed. On New Year's Eve, just as the clinic building was about to reopen, it was severely damaged by a fire blamed on an electrical problem. The staff is now working out of a trailer and has been offered the use of a house until the clinic is rebuilt.

Bentley doesn't plan a follow-up class this fall but does want to maintain ties through fund-raising and possibly internships, according to Shawn Hauserman, assistant director for academic programs.

Hauserman said Bentley may offer another class in the spring after the clinic has had a chance to digest all the information students have already provided.

``It was one of the biggest learning experiences I've ever had as an academic," said Hauserman, who taught the special clinic course with an associate professor of marketing, Ellen R. Foxman.

``In a way, it was more real life than anything they've ever experienced in the business world," Hauserman said. ``A majority of the students really came together and realized, `Wow, this is real stuff, this is something unique, something special that I get to be a part of.' "

For more information on the clinic and how to donate money, visit www.bayouclinic.org or call 251-626-2200.