It’s a rotation unlike any these students will experience inside a hospital.
West Virginia University health sciences students make these rounds twice a month along riverbanks, under bridges and at Morgantown’s homeless shelter. The program is called the Multidisciplinary Unsheltered Homeless Relief Outreach of Morgantown or MUSHROOM.
Karen Fitzpatrick, MD, helps lead the bi-monthly rounds. She’s also the medical director of Morgantown’s free clinic, Health Right, where every Wednesday she directs the Homeless Care Clinic.
“We’re going out on the streets to look for people that are homeless,” Fitzpatrick said, “To make contact with them, and let them know that we’re doctors and student doctors and nurses and that we care about their situation.”
Fitzpatrick said part of what they do is educate people about the services available to people who are homeless in the Morgantown area.
In 2005, David Deci, MD, was a professor at WVU when he helped create MUSHROOM at the urging of a student.
Deci explained that one of his students was inspired by a program in Pittsburgh called Project Safety Net.
“A physician in Pittsburgh by the name of Dr. Jim Withers actually takes medical care to the streets and serves the homeless where they’re living,” Deci said. “And the student was very impressed by that. I said well, if you can make all the arrangements, and figure out what we have to do next then I’ll be more than happy to support you.”
Within weeks students of all majors were gearing up to take services to the streets. Students of journalism, political science, law, pharmacy, occupational therapy and dentistry have volunteered.
The last stop of the evening is usually the cramped and smoky homeless shelter called the Bartlett House. On this night MUSHROOM participants handed out water and toothpaste and took blood pressure readings.
Erin O’Hara currently lives at the Bartlett House. She found herself in a financial crisis when she split up with her fiancée last year.
“That left me without insurance and also very little resources in the community to get good medical care,” O’Hara said. “A couple of the team leaders with project MUSHROOM have pushed for some correct testing and correct medications for me. They were very thorough and very professional about everything that they handled, and they treated us like anyone else with insurance so that’s what matters the most. We get equal care.”
Cecil Knigell also stays at the Bartlett House. He enjoys visits from the MUSHROOM students and Dr. Fitzpatrick.
“She said she’s gonna bring me a sleeping bag,” Knigell said. “That’ll do me some justice, keep me from getting frostbite.”
Gail Roberts is a fourth year medical student. For the students, MUSHROOM is an opportunity to develop their bedside manner.
“Every time you meet new people and learn new people’s stories and learn a little bit about how to be a better doctor and how to integrate the resources we have in this system and make it work better for everyone,” Roberts said.
Fitzpatrick says there are at least 150 homeless people in Morgantown and possibly two to three times as many people who have to live with friends or extended family.
She says mental illness contributes to homelessness but 25 percent of people who are living on the streets are there simply because they are unable to make ends meet.
Fitzpatrick worries because she says the number of homeless, especially homeless families, is growing in this economy.