UNM wins $2.5 million federal grant to expand street medicine training

The University of New Mexico received a $2.5 million federal grant to train medical residents for its street medicine program, which dispatches doctors and nurses outside to care for people without homes.

UNM is one of 25 programs nationwide to receive the new five-year grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Under the grant, UNM residents in family or internal medicine can work at the mobile street medicine clinics in Albuquerque and in Shiprock on the Navajo reservation in northwestern New Mexico.

"It changes their career trajectory," said Dr. Sara Doorley, associate professor of internal medicine at UNM and a member of the street medicine team. "They are motivated to provide care to vulnerable populations and to those struggling with housing instability in the future."

UNM's street medicine clinic started in 2021 out of the back of physician assistant Lindsay Fox's Subaru. Fox, a professor at the UNM School of Medicine, drove around Albuquerque treating people living on the streets suffering from a host of physical and mental ailments who wouldn't otherwise have had an opportunity to visit a doctor.

People who are homeless experience all medical issues at a rate higher than the general population, Doorley said, and the street medicine team tries to find patients who are in such poor condition that they wouldn't otherwise make it through the night.

"Homelessness equals bad health," Doorley said.

The team at UNM is part of the Street Medicine Institute, a global network of mobile clinics providing care for people who are homeless. More than 85 countries and hundreds of cities now have their own street medicine clinics, and more are popping up all the time, Dr. Jim Withers, the institute’s founder, told the Journal in September.

Residents can get urban experience at the Albuquerque clinic, or they can work in a rural setting at the Shiprock clinic. UNM's family medicine residency program in Shiprock is the only medical residency based within the Indian Health Service in the United States, according to UNM officials.

"Hospital systems in New Mexico and clinic systems are incredible and provide great patient care, but they're not always set up to meet the needs of the individual that's sleeping out on the streets," Doorley said.

The street medicine program is one of the most popular educational experiences for UNM medical students, said Dr. Arthur Kaufman, UNM's vice president of community health.

"When they graduate, they can't consider practicing without this component," Kaufman said. "Once you get involved, you can’t go back, because you see a different reality, and you realize you have to change policy as well."