It’s a busy morning at the Healing Hands clinic inside the Oklahoma City Homeless Alliance.
Nurse practitioner Febi Mathew calls out names from a growing list of people who have signed up for medical care on the spot. Outside her office, day shelter visitors relax in a large air-conditioned room or grab a meal from the on-site canteen.
FM: I'm right there in the middle with them, and I just have to open the door and they see me.
For Mathew’s job, accessibility matters. A traditional doctor’s appointment can be out of reach for many of the patients she sees. Without reliable transportation, a phone or stable housing, even routine healthcare visits become difficult to access for people experiencing homelessness.
FM: I didn't know how complex it was. And we're not even prepared in school like this. We're always just taught about diagnosing and treating.
Now, Mathew is helping the next generation of doctors know what to do when they have patients who are unsheltered. She’s working with residents from the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine in what’s called a street medicine and advocacy pathway. It’s a new way for doctors-in-training to get hands-on experience. The program launched this year with the help of a $1 million dollar federal grant.
Cameron Kirkendoll is one of the first residents to take part. He says he’s learning a lot seeing Mathew navigate the complicated and changing needs of her patients.
CK: She'll make the phone calls as they come in because she knows how touch and go things can be … they're living life by the second and a lot of it is drinking from a, drinking from a fire hose, trying to figure out, you know, how to, how to, how to help these people best.
Kirkendoll grew up watching his parents navigate addiction and homelessness. His tumultuous childhood is one of the reasons he wanted to take part in OU’s new program.
CK: It almost feels like I'm like uh, in a selfish way, like understanding myself and understanding, you know, where I came from.
Still, being embedded in the community clinic is forcing Kirkendoll to confront what he knows about being a doctor.
CK: What exactly do they want to get out of this patient-provider relationship and kind of you know, within, within reason, like helping them achieve those goals, you know and it may not look exactly the way that that, that, that I think that it should.
Doctor Brian Lich helped start the program and says that’s exactly what he wants the it to do for its residents. He says patients who are experiencing homelessness are often labeled as “resistant to care,” but medical professionals need to take the time to realize what they really need instead of writing them off.
BL: You know, to us as the doctor, like, treating the infection seems like the number one priority, but they have other life issues that they have to prioritize.
Lich says he hopes the residents take what they learn in training with them once they graduate and become licensed physicians.
BL: When our residents go through this type of education … They’re a lot more open and able to have those conversations and just say, tell me about your living situation in an open, non-judgmental way. Whereas if you don't have those experiences, it can be a tough road to navigate.
For the next five years, three to four residents from both internal medicine and family medicine residency programs at OU will be selected to take part in the eight-week rotation.
At the Homeless Alliance, Mathew says she’s glad future doctors are taking an interest in the work.
FM: I think they see hands-on how they can address their needs, what are the resources out there and help the patient succeed in their healthcare and to empower the patients.
She says she hopes residents walk away with a more expansive view of medical care, including services that help people achieve their basic needs.
In Oklahoma City, I’m Sierra Pfeifer.