6 GROUNDCOVER NEWS HEALTHCARE JUNE 13, 2025 Advocacy, empathy, equity, justice: Wolverine Street Medicine is filling healthcare gaps In my youth, I wanted to be a medical doctor because my grandmother used to work in the emergency room as a transporter, where she used to moved patients around the University of Michigan Hospital. Now that I have met some of the members of Wolverine Street Medicine, and have become aware of their practice I believe I would have made a good street medicine physician. Wolverine Street Medicine was founded in 2017 by medical students at the University of Michigan Medical School who were inspired by other local street medicine organizations and understood the health injustices faced by unhoused individuals in our community. Today, they are a student-run organization focused on caring for the health of those experiencing homelessness in Washtenaw County and Detroit. Their mission is to partner with individuals experiencing homelessness to meet their medical and social needs and to cultivate compassion and relevant knowledge in the future health professional workforce. They accomplish this mission through organizing street runs, foot care clinics and harm reduction events across Southeast Michigan.They also educate healthcare providers and trainees through our volunteer events, educational sessions, hands-on training and a rotation for senior medical students. They aim to conduct all of the activities in partnership with community organizations and people with lived experience in order to develop programs that clients desire and appreciate. These are their committments: 1. Unconditional positive regard 2. Continuous improvement and sustainability 3. Community-driven programs 4. Meet people where they are 5. Develop human connections Dr. Brent C. Williams MIKE JONES Groundcover vendor No. 113 Meet Brent C. Williams, MD, Professor of Internal Medicine Dr. Willliams, a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, has been on faculty at the University of Michigan Medical School since 1989, and is set to retire at the end of this month. In 2010, one of his jobs was to engage the Medical School with the community and to connect students to communities in Detroit, other parts of Michigan, low income communities and impoverished counties nationwide. Students would have to do projects in these communities. A doctor named Stephen T. Liechtenstein (then a student at U-M Medical School) went to Detroit on his own and got connected to the Wayne State Street Outreach Program. He started working in the Detroit area for a short period of time but soon faded out. In 2015, a group of medical students came to Dr. Williams and said they wanted to be involved with street medicine. He replied, “You guys don't know anything about street medicine and what do you guys want to do?” So, he asked them to do their homework and for the first two years they did their research, finding out what resources were already available, and where medical services were most needed. After the medical students did their research and assessments they came back to Dr. Williams with their findings.The students were convinced that they wanted to do the work and that there is a need; they believed they could fulfill that need. Then Dr. Williams told them that students come and go; we need to make sure that this endeavor is sustainable. He asked them to make a commitment to be in it for the long haul. Then he asked them how they were going to do that. So, the students went about building relationships in the community by connecting with Wayne State Street Outreach Program and Federal Qualified Health Centers in the Washtenaw County area and Detroit, and from there they started their program, Jim Bastian providing footcare, a common practice of Wolverine Street Medicine's outreach. Wolverine Street Medicine. The students set a system in place so when one group of students graduates another group of students will be ready and on board to take over; this is what Dr. Williams meant when using the word “sustainable.” This was truly a student-led initiative and year after year the students have been building this program with the backing and support of the U-M Medical School. Meet Jim Bastian, RN, Community Liaison Jim Bastian is a registered nurse, a graduate of Washtenaw Community College, and has nearly two decades of experience working with the homeless population in southeast Michigan. He helped found Wolverine Street Medicine, serving as an advisor and mentor to students and faculty. He recently retired from Washtenaw County Community Mental Health (PATH), where he led their street outreach efforts and helped community members experiencing homelessness find housing. Bastian has been with Wolverine Street Medicine since 2017. He told me that he wanted our readers to know the incredible work ethic of all the WSM students over the years. These students come from all different backgrounds, but they all share the passion to help and serve others. Meet Meera Bhagat, U-M Medical Student Meera Bhagat did her undergrad at University of California, Los Angeles, and now is a first year medical student at the U-M Medical School. She wanted to get involved with street medicine because being from the Los Angeles area, she sees the unhoused everywhere. In her medical career she Amanda Casetti wants to give back and she sees an immediate need in the unhoused community. While she attended UCLA,she joined a project called Mobile Clinc Project. Mobile Clinic Project is a student run medical group that is involved in street medicine in the Los Angeles area. Bhagat wants to go into Family Medicine as a Primary Care Physician and work for a Federal Qualified Health Center where she would work in the clinic and in street medicine. Meet Amanda Casetti, U-M Medical Student Amanda Casetti did their undergrad at the University of Michigan and is now in the U-M School of Medicine. This is their third year in medical school and they will do their residency to become an Emergency Room Doctor when they graduate. Casetti got into street medicine because they lived in the Detroit area during the pandemic and was doing a lot of volunteer work serving the unhoused, so when they came back to Ann Arbor to see MEDICINE page 11
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