WISE - Hundreds of volunteer medical professionals are preparing to break records again this summer with the ninth annual Rural Area Medical Clinic from Friday through next Sunday.

The clinic will provide a wide range of free medical care to those in need.

Last year's clinic set national records with 2,506 patients receiving 8,401 procedures, according to the University of Virginia Health System. Clinic organizers expect to break those records this year.

Volunteers will provide medical, dental and optical services at the Wise County Fairgrounds from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, then from 6 a.m. to noon next Sunday. Registration begins at 6 a.m. Friday, and care is on a first-come, first-served basis.

"It's a really gratifying experience," said Scott Syverud, an emergency medical physician at University Hospital in Charlottesville and professor of emergency medicine at the U.Va. School of Medicine. "It reminds us why we went into medicine."

U.Va. will bring about 200 volunteers - including doctors, nurses, lab technicians, pharmacists, social workers and medical students - to the clinic.

Other organizations, such as The Health Wagon and the Virginia Dental Association, also bring volunteers to the event, and local medical professionals volunteer.

The clinic is aimed at people who have no health insurance, the underinsured and the unemployed who cannot afford health care or for some other reason cannot get appropriate health care.

Syverud stressed that by providing the clinic, volunteers don't mean to imply that health care is inadequate in the area.

"Southwest Virginia has a very good health-care system," he said. "I'm always surprised by how good it is."

Instead, the clinic is set up to help those who lack access to the health-care system for a variety of reasons.

The Rural Area Medical Clinic has provided the free clinic in Wise since 2001, and Syverud has been coordinating U.Va.'s participation for the past five years. U.Va. also participates in the Rural Area Medical Clinic in Grundy, which will take place later this summer, Syverud said.

In addition to the volunteers, U.Va. donates hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medical supplies to the clinic, Syverud said. Medical specialists also will be available at U.Va.'s Charlottesville campus for phone consultation during the clinic.

Timothy Cama writes for the Bristol Herald Courier.