Methods and Results from "Barriers" Portion

Barriers to volunteering at the Rhode Island Free Clinic according to past, current and never primary care physician volunteers

Methods: To assess the barriers to volunteering at the Rhode Island Free Clinic, I created two surveys. The Full Survey assessed 8 advantages and 16 barriers and was emailed to approximately 450 lifespan and brown email addresses and to current and former volunteers. The survey was intended for primary care physicians and to sort out which physicians were primary care, I googled each name. The RIMS survey assessed 8 barriers and contained a comments section. This survey was sent as a link to the Rhode Island Medical Society (RIMS) list serve. Respondents for both were asked to assess a barrier as either a "major barrier", "minor barrier", or "not a barrier".

Below are the results graphed using excel. Red bars equal data collected from just the full survey. And green bars equal data collected from the full survey and RIMS survey. Several barriers were combined for the green bars. For example, "Increasing demands at work" was a barrier question on the RIMS survey. The results below demonstrate those results in addition to the "increasing demands at work due to increased patient load and per visit patient time" barrier plus the "increasing demands at work due to increased income requirements or increased costs" barrier from the full survey. The green and orange bars of the second "the free clinic is too far of a drive or the timing of the clinic is inconvenient" represent data from only the RIMS survey because the answer choices were altered for this question.

Several write-in barriers are listed at the bottom of this section. Two are quotes, the others are paraphrased.

Results: 54 replied to the full survey and 58 responded to the RIMS survey. Therefore for certain barriers there were anywhere from 54 to 107 tallied responses.


I volunteer/work with a similar population elsewhere




I do not believe in the mission of the free clinic




Challenges presented by wait time for referrals




Challenges presented by lack of consistent medication samples




Challenges presented by patient language barrier




Challenges presented by rate of patient non-compliance




Challenges presented by electronic medical records




Concern over malpractice issues




Concern over degree of volunteer recognition by the RIFC




Challenges presented by turnover of staff at the RIFC




Increasing demands of family time




Increasing demands at work




Lack of information about free clinic volunteer opportunities




The free clinic is too far of a drive or the timing of the clinic is inconvenient




The free clinic is too far of a drive or the timing of the clinic is inconvenient




Other barriers written in:

"Never been asked."
"The free clinic has never approached me or any physicians that I know."
There is a lack of communication between the board and the volunteers.
The staff does not appreciate the volunteers.
Not interested in volunteering.
Volunteers at the RIFC get no recognition from Brown University.