At Sioux Falls Clinic, Students are the Doctors

SIOUX FALLS - At one clinic in Sioux Falls, students run the show.  One evening a month, students from the Sanford-USD School of Medicine come to the Avera Health clinic in downtown Sioux Falls to diagnose and treat patients, write prescriptions and give them advice.

The Argus Leader reports that the students do everything but collect the patients' money, because everything is free.

The students see about a dozen patients during the three-hour span each month.

Both patients and students say they find the arrangement beneficial because the students need the practice and the patients are able to get medical treatment that they may not otherwise have been able to afford.

Area physicians also supervise the students.

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