A Thesis submitted to The University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Medicine.

Muslim Charitable Clinics are free healthcare clinics that provide healthcare services to uninsured patients of all faiths, free of charge, and publicly identify as Muslim. This study seeks to better understand Muslim Charitable Clinics’ potential to provide vital healthcare services to communities in need while promoting mutual understanding between Muslim and Non-Muslim Americans. The data consists of a case study of one Muslim Charitable Clinic in Longwood, Florida, the American Muslim Community Clinic, and a national survey of Muslim Charitable Clinics. The American Muslim Community Clinic operates a uniquely flexible model with profound benefits for underserved residents in the surrounding Longwood community. The study will explore how the clinic's Muslim identity may also help promote mutual understanding between Muslim and non-Muslim Americans by providing the Muslim American community with positive exposure and visibility. Comparing the findings from this case study to data reported in a national survey of Muslim Charitable Clinics, this thesis finds that the American Muslim Community Clinic was in many respects representative of many other Muslim Clinics across the country, as the survey demonstrates.

Thesis (M.S)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Decker School of Nursing, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

abstract: Emerging in the late 1960s, the Free Clinic Movement represented an attempt to provide equitable, accessible, and free health care to all. Originally aimed at helping drug addicts, hippies, and runaways, free clinics were community-led organizations that ran solely on donations and volunteers, and were places where “free” meant more than just monetarily free - it meant free from judgment, moralizing, or bureaucratic red tape. This dissertation is an institutional history of the Los Angeles Free Clinic (LAFC), which, as a case study, serves to illustrate the challenges and cooperation inherent in the broader Free Clinic Movement. My project begins by investigating the links between the Free Clinic Movement and aspects of Progressive era reform, health care policy, and stigmatization of disease. By the 1960s, the community health centers formed under Lyndon Johnson, along with the growth of the New Left and Counterculture, set the stage for the emergence of the free clinics. In many ways, the LAFC was an anti-Establishment establishment, walking a fine line between appealing to members of the Counterculture, and forming a legitimate and structurally sound organization. The central question of this project is: how did the LAFC develop and then grow from a small anti-Establishment health care center to a respected part of the health care safety net system of Los Angeles County? Between 1967 and 1975, the LAFC evolved, developing strong ties to the Los Angeles County Department of Health, local politicians, and even the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). By 1975, as the LAFC moved into a new and larger building, it had become an accepted part of the community. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation History 2016

No description available.