Sarah Gilbert CSA 2013

The 2013 Community Service Award recipient has contributed a great deal to the University and New Haven communities. She has made providing quality care to underserved women a focus of her time at YSN. Her clinical skills and dedication to provide excellent, culturally-sensitive patient care are impressive. She approaches her work with a mature, professional demeanor that puts at ease patients, staff, and colleagues. She has a strong grasp of didactic material, which she deploys readily in assessing and managing patients. Her commitment to caring for underserved populations is clear, and was demonstrated in the way she approached and responded to patients from diverse backgrounds experiencing a large spectrum of health conditions.

In particular, she saw a need among patients at the student-run HAVEN Free Clinic and seized the opportunity to develop and expand the operations of the women’s health department to serve not only patients, but also to educate the student staff of medical, physician assistant and nursing students on how to better serve patients presenting with women’s health issues. She served as the Women’s Health Coordinator, and was named director of the Women’s Health Department. In this role, she molded a brand new department into a resource for patients and for her peers. She is dedicated to HAVEN and is responsible for invigorating and expanding the Women’s Health Department to feature health educators that counsel patients on contraception and abnormal test results, in order to improve the quality of reproductive health care at the clinic. To accomplish her vision, she trained and coached a team of 11 health professional school volunteers in contraception, PAP testing, intimate partner violence. She created a domestic violence panel as a response to increase in reporting of intimate partner violence among her patients, and developed clinic guidelines so that patients could more efficiently be triaged and receive IUDs.

She has advocated strongly for women’s health services in HAVEN at all leadership and community meetings. She has recruited YSN faculty to serve as preceptors for HAVEN and has been instrumental in increasing YSN student participation. She takes personal responsibility for the most sensitive cases with compassion and commitment. Her colleagues particularly note her availability to other students to provide consultation on contraceptive education for patients. She builds bridges, collaborating and problem-solving through interdisciplinary teams of clinical advisors, students, and organizations all with the goal of better and speedier follow-up and healthcare delivery to the HAVEN clinic’s often complex patients.

One of her nominees made the following statement:

“…[She] is an outstanding student and colleague and has contributed much to the New Haven community. She is trustworthy, passionate and driven to help women marginalized by poverty, limited access to services, and psychosocial barriers.”

For her compassion, deep commitment and significant contributions to her community, the Yale University School of Nursing is proud to present the 2013 Community Service Award to Sarah Gilbert.”