Gain valuable experience while providing vital health care for the disadvantaged through Creighton University’s community partnerships. You’ll have opportunities to live the values of your Jesuit, Catholic education through service to others—in Omaha and across the globe.
From getting involved through the student-founded, student-run Magis Clinic in Omaha to international service work through the Institute for Latin American Concern (ILAC) in the Dominican Republic, you can help meet the health care needs of those less fortunate.
Thanks to Creighton’s partnership with the Heart Ministry Health Center Porto Urgent Care Clinic, you can help provide no-cost care for people with acute health problems. You can also serve families in north Omaha through our partnership with the Charles Drew Health Center or volunteer through Project Hope to connect Omaha residents in need with food and clothing.
Interprofessional Experiences
Through Creighton’s Center for Interprofessional Practice, Education and Research (CIPER) and the Schlegel Center for Service and Justice, you can connect with other meaningful service opportunities that align with your passions.
Open the tabs below to learn more about community outreach opportunities unique to the health sciences.
LOCAL
Magis Clinic
Since 2004, Creighton’s student-run, student-founded Magis Clinic has provided free health care for uninsured and underinsured people in Omaha. The clinic, located at the Siena-Francis House near campus, includes a patient liaison program; a student-run pharmacy; an ultrasound clinic staffed by medical students and radiology residents; and a Sexual Health Clinic that offers HIV and hepatitis C testing.
Creighton Dental Clinic
Each year, the dental clinic serves more than 11,000 patients. As a dental student, you’ll enhance your skills and expand your heart through this crucial community service. You’ll be introduced to clinical situations as early as your first year.
OneWorld Community Health Center
On Thursday evenings, Creighton dental students and faculty volunteer to provide emergency care services to patients prescreened at OneWorld Community Health Center and the Magis Clinic.
American Cancer Society Relay for Life
Join a team of students from your school and fight to end cancer during the American Cancer Society Relay for Life, an overnight fundraising walk held annually at Creighton.
Charles Drew Health Center & Fred LeRoy Health and Wellness Center
Through the Senior Service-Learning Program, you’ll have the opportunity as a senior dental student to spend two weeks at a local public clinic, providing basic preventive, restorative, diagnostic and surgical care. The program is offered in partnership with Charles Drew Health Center, Fred LeRoy Health and Wellness Center and OneWorld Community Health Center.
Healthy Living Project
You’ll help provide health promotion and prevention services to children who attend Omaha-area parochial schools, located where most households fall at or below poverty.
Give Kids a Smile
Through this year-round program at our “adopted” schools, Nelson Mandela Elementary and Sacred Heart School in Omaha, Creighton dental students provide preventive dental services, including tooth-brushing program, fluoride varnishes, dental sealants and a voucher program for families who don’t have dental insurance.
Healthy Smiles Program
In partnership with Building Healthy Futures, the dental school works to improve oral health for underserved children and youth in the Omaha Public Schools. Dental students provide dental sealants, fluoride varnish and classroom education to thousands of school children annually across 10 schools.
Omaha Free Health Clinics
You’ll have hands-on learning opportunities at free health clinics in Omaha. At Porto Urgent Care Clinic, for example, you’ll provide no-cost service outreach to clients with acute health care problems, thanks to our partnership with Heart Ministry Center.
Project Homeless Connect Omaha
Through Project Homeless Connect Omaha, a one-day annual event, you’ll provide screenings and help connect individuals experiencing homelessness with community resources.
REGIONAL
Native American Partnerships
In partnership with Rosebud Indian Reservation, home of the St. Francis Mission, dental students travel to their dental clinic in St. Francis, S.D., to provide much-needed care to the people of Rosebud. The first American Indian dentist, George Blue Spruce, DDS, MPH, graduated from Creighton University School of Dentistry in 1956.
Pharmacy and Health Professions students have opportunities to help lessen health discrepancies through volunteer work with the Omaha and Winnebago Tribes of Nebraska.
Special Olympics
In partnership with Special Olympics Healthy Athletes program, dental school students, faculty and staff provide non-invasive oral health screenings, customized mouth guards, dental hygiene education and nutritional counseling to many of Nebraska’s Special Olympics athletes. Physical therapy faculty and students help do assessments, including checking flexibility and muscle and joint movements, and provide information on proper stretching.
International
Institute for Latin American Concern in the Dominican Republic (ILAC)
Since its founding by Creighton in 1973, the Institute for Latin American Concern (ILAC) has been providing health and dental care and community service to Dominican Republic citizens. Located outside Santiago, the center gives you the opportunity to grow personally, professionally and spiritually by spending two to four weeks immersed in service and culture. By volunteering at the center, located outside Santiago, you’ll grow personally, professionally and spiritually.
Project CURA
Through Project CURA (Creighton Medical United in Relief Assistance), you can spend four to five weeks during your M1 summer in medical school using your skills, compassion and empathy to help those in need in places, such as Ghana, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Romania, Vietnam/Cambodia and India.