Street Medicine volunteers from Family Medicine took to the streets of Detroit, Hart Plaza and where I-75 meets Jefferson, on Tuesday, March 17, and met a lot of people needing help.

Hart Plaza was in the process of ‘being emptied’ for a music festival so at least 100 homeless people were “evicted” (though it’s technically city property). They’ve seen the same people in this space all winter. A few hold-outs were protesting the big exodus prompting the police to help remove them. There was a giant dumpster where workers were throwing out any belongings that were remaining in the space by the “move-out” date.

Street Medicine volunteers also tried to help a patient with a severe hand abscess that ultimately required surgical debridement. They did a roadside incision and drainage (I&D) on the off-ramp of I-75 and asked for him to allow EMS to take him to DMC but he didn’t want to lose a day of potential income from sitting by the freeway with his sign so refused to go. He said “Lunch is the busiest hour.” EMS had already come but since he refused to go with them, they couldn’t provide anything else for him so left. The team pictured above included residents William Nham, Lauren Hodge and attending Eleanor King as well as volunteers and team leaders from the medical school. The team did its best for wound care, draining and wrapping and gave him oral antibiotics. The following morning the patient was gone and they could only hope he had made his way to the hospital for curative management.