Service
Over the past six decades, the Watson Clinic Foundation has
led meaningful efforts that have altered the level of wellness throughout our
community and beyond, including:
- Free community health screenings. Early
detection is the first line of defense against our most common and threatening
diseases. From blood pressure checks and body fat analysis to screenings of
breast, skin and prostate cancers, the Foundation has provided community
members with a series of health screenings performed by highly trained
physicians and medical providers.
- Partnerships with local organizations. By working in collaboration with partner
agencies, the Foundation can reach outside the walls of Watson Clinic
facilities and truly impact the lives of those who are most in need. These
projects have included our donation of vehicles to Volunteers in Service to the
Elderly (VISTE). This gesture empowered the organization to better serve meals
and other essentials to homebound elderly residents in our community. The
Foundation also assisted in launching the “9-1-1” service in Polk County.
Working with American pacemaker manufacturers, the Foundation established 37
charitable pacemaker banks in 24 third world nations, eventually saving lives
by implanting 5,000 devices. Our organization also worked with state
legislators to provide cardiac defibrillators in ambulances and other emergency
vehicles statewide and expanded this donation of defibrillators to local police
departments and county sports complexes through partnerships with local rotary
clubs and community leaders.
- Speaker’s Bureau. The Foundation has sent
highly qualified physicians and medical providers to local organizations and
workplaces to discuss topics related to general wellness and disease
prevention.
- Research. The Foundation has helped to
fund the promising medical research of the past half century, mostly in
conjunction with the Watson Clinic Center for Research. We’ve also supported
important local studies that have proven instructive on a national level,
including the treatment-related cognitive impairments experienced by local
breast cancer patients and the survival impact after treatment among Polk
County’s elderly population.
- Scholarships. In our efforts to nurture
the medical talents and breakthroughs of tomorrow, the Foundation has granted a
series of scholarships to young medical and nursing professionals in our
community as they’ve pursued degrees in the healthcare field.
- Arts in Medicine. This continuing program, housed on the second
floor of the Watson Clinic Cancer & Research Center, patients and their
caregivers engage in the creative arts. These activities are more conducive to
healing and have been shown to improve treatment outcomes. Click here to learn
more about this exciting program.