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C A L I F O R N I A N U R S E N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 9 Anne and I are working as family nurse practitioners at a community clinic called Common Ground in the Algiers sec- tion of New Orleans, which is on the west bank of the Mississip- pi. After the storm and flood, Charity and University hospitals were totally closed. But their emergency rooms and clinics had been the main provider for indigent healthcare in New Orleans, so basically there was no healthcare available for people within the city limits. Common Ground had already been a local group active on tenants' right issues and neighborhood organizing, so they and some out-of-state volunteer EMTs responded to this need with this clinic. The local mosque donated its building, so the clinic is in the community mosque. The first week, it was just basic emergency response and tetanus shots, but they're now staffing what has been operating the past month as a full-fledged primary care clinic. We're like an intermediate primary care provider, seeing upwards of 100 to 150 patients a day—people with blood pressure, diabetes, chronic diseases. We're issuing in- terim dosages of free medication to keep them going until they can make contact with their regular doctors. The situation keeps changing. Now they're allowing people to come back in, so peo- ple are tromping around in these contaminated neighborhoods. We're seeing a lot of respiratory problems, asthma exacerbations, allergy exacerbations, infected cuts, bites. So we're trying to do education about wearing masks and protecting yourself. The most amazing thing about this whole process of giving medical care is that we have been spending half our time not on "medical care," but just letting people talk and tell us their sto- ries and crying. I'm just very honored to be part of the listening. —Marianne Jensen , FNP Recent UCSF FNP graduate PHOTOGRAPHS BY JACKSON HILL