The University of New Mexico hosted a documentary and a doctor who said he ventured under bridges to not just help the unhoused, but to save the medical profession.
Now, across cities and nations, medical teams go on the street to carry out their mission of bringing care to the vulnerable and reconnecting with the outcast.
On Thursday, Oct. 2, UNM hosted a screening of “Go To The People,” a documentary following “street medicine” teams that deliver healthcare to people who are unhoused.
Directed by Jeff Sewald, the 2024 documentary investigates the development and philosophy of street medicine, including the work of street medicine steward and founder of the Street Medicine Institute, Dr. Jim Withers.
“I’m an internal medicine doctor who grew up making house calls with my dad and working overseas. I have had my career, as I see it, in teaching,” Withers said. “In a nutshell, I feel like I want to bring the values and the energy of making the house call to excluded people, to people who are misunderstood, into medical education. I was searching for a classroom, and the classroom of the streets became an ideal place.”
The event was presented in collaboration with the UNM Department of Internal Medicine, and featured a Q-and-A with Withers and Lindsay Fox, director and founder of the UNM-affiliated street medicine team.
In addition to his upbringing, the catalyst for founding the Street Medicine Institute was an experience he had with a patient he treated who was then released by the hospital without shelter and froze to death, Withers said.
“It bothered me a lot,” Withers said. “He’d been living on the street. The comments about him were cruel and dehumanizing. So I thought, ‘This is a tragedy, but it’s also an opportunity.’”
When he began providing care to those living on the streets in 1992, Withers did so as a lone agent, without telling his bosses or malpractice attorneys. Now, the Street Medicine Institute has grown into a worldwide organization with over 80 medical schools with street medicine programs, including UNM.
“There’s a lot of energy about street medicine,” Withers said. “I think it appeals particularly to learners: nursing, medical, physicians, (physical therapists), (occupational therapists), (pharmacists), because it’s a place where they can respond to the actual reality people are living in.”
The documentary was a large undertaking, filming in the U.S, India, South Africa and Denmark to capture the soul and scope of street medicine, Sewald said.
“We agreed that we would not do a biography on him, because he didn’t want that. We wanted to cover the movement — the worldwide movement,” Sewald said.
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“Go To The People” has been in over 41 film festivals with nine festival wins, Sewald said. It is now aired in select showings, such as the one hosted on UNM North Campus.
“This is the only film that embraces the street medicine movement and its scope and potential,” Withers said.
Fox emphasized the importance of the UNM School of Medicine as a way to educate students and carry street medicine forward, she said.
“It’s not only about delivering care, but growing the next generation,” Fox said.
Fox has been working in street medicine within Albuquerque since 2021, when she saw a need exacerbated by the Covid-19 Pandemic, she said.
“New Mexicans, by and large, are some of the most resilient folks I’ve ever met. It never ceases to amaze me: the courage, compassion and tenacity. That’s one of our strengths. We’re a small state, we’re like a small community. Somebody knows somebody who knows somebody. We can bridge across political, we can bridge across civic, we can bridge across legislative and really get down to dealing with the heart of the issues,” Fox said.
The Albuquerque Community Safety department, a behavioral health-first response team, has been particularly essential for providing care and addressing homelessness in the community, Fox said.
“Being with ACS brings in a case management and navigation piece. Those two must go together. People always ask ‘What comes first?’ I believe it’s not the fear of ‘or’ but the genius of ‘and.’ I think that when we look at it that way, we have a better chance of breaking the cycle,” Fox said.
The city still faces a shortage of affordable housing, Fox said.
“We just haven’t kept up with the building of homes,” Fox said. “I was driving around one time with a policy person and they asked me ‘Why are all these people homeless? Is it drugs or mental health?’ I was dumbfounded. I was like ‘No, it’s because there’s no houses.’”
Working alongside Fox is the Street Medicine, Addiction and Harm Reduction Team, a student group founded by UNM medical students Morgan Stein and Jenna Norton, that provides education and care to underserved communities through blanket drives, needle swaps and education outreach. SMAHRT helped create a fourth year UNM School of Medicine elective that allowed street medicine to be included in students’ rotation, Stein said.
“It gives energy, more than it takes energy. In med school, it’s good to remember why you’re excited about being a doctor,” Stein said. “Outside all the stuff we’re memorizing, there’s a reason I wanted to do this.”
Energy and care was the primary theme of the night as healers at all stages of their careers, as well as artists and advocates came together.
“We need our community, locally but then globally to say, ‘How do we do this?’ Because we’re still making it up. How can you be vulnerable?” Withers said. “Honesty and transparency and accountability and not perpetuating B.S., just love.”
Addison Fulton is the culture editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
