Master Gardeners aid base with garden clinic

A new garden clinic at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Medical Center has earned the Greene County Master Gardener Volunteers a state award while involving some of the medical center’s diabetic and pre-diabetic patients in a medical research study.

Maj. Sarah Fackler, M.D., the chief of endocrinology at WPMC approached the Master Gardeners in 2011 about helping the medical center with a research study evaluating the benefits of exposing diabetic and pre-diabetic patients to experience-based, hands-on learning in a community garden.

The Master Gardeners volunteered over 800 hours to help the medical center staff create gardening and training plans and construct a community vegetable and flower garden near the hospital.

Recently, during the 2012 Ohio State University Extension Outstanding Master Gardener Volunteer Awards Program, the Garden Clinic program was named the Outstanding MGV Project in the large program category. The clinic was also the winner of the Environmental Horticulture Initiative award.

Wright-Patterson AFB Medical Center provides treatment to approximately 5,000 diabetic and pre-diabetic patients in Ohio and several surrounding Midwestern states.

The WPMC Garden Clinic research study is scheduled to operate for three years. A separate group of diabetic and pre-diabetic patients will be included in each of the three years. Garden clinic participants are requested to spend five hours each week in activities related to the Garden Clinic.

The Garden Clinic is limited to diabetic patients managed by Dr. Fackler. There is no charge for WPMC patients that are selected to participate in the research study.

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