EVERETT — Several dozen doctors gathered Wednesday evening at Providence Regional Medical Center to fill 125 bags with supplies for street medicine kits.
The Providence-Washington State University’s internal medicine residency program focuses on underserved populations. In that spirit, the doctors and program staff combined their holiday celebration with this service project.
The residents regularly go outside the clinic’s walls to provide medical care to unsheltered people. It’s part of their education, to learn the “humanistic side of medicine” that can’t be taught in the classroom. Dr. Katie Buckman said she chose this residency program because “they really put the mission of community service into action.”
The residency program faculty and staff provided funding for the kits, with items like gauze, antibacterial wipes, toothpaste and warm socks.
These kits would go to the Lynnwood Hygiene Center, where the doctors and MercyWatch volunteers work together. MercyWatch is an all-volunteer organization of medical and social work professionals who run mobile medical clinics in the county.
MercyWatch medical director Sheila Murphy expects they will use up the 125 kits in about two afternoons. The needs of people they serve include wound care, congestive heart failure, diabetes, hypertension and more.
A rainbow of 125 street medicine kits ready for the Lynnwood Hygiene Center. (Joy Borkholder / The Herald)
Through the trust built with residents and assistance from MercyWatch, some of these folks are now coming to the clinic on the hospital campus for further care. Murphy said this is especially important as she is seeing more and more seniors show up without housing and regular medical care.
Dr. Imee Talavera-Paragas, a first-year resident like Buckman, said the Providence-WSU program is committed “to really be integrated into the community surrounding us and making more physicians for the state of Washington, and training good primary care and other internal specialists for the state.” Like Buckman, she plans to stay in the Everett area indefinitely.
Joy Borkholder is the health and wellness reporter for The Daily Herald. Her work is supported by the Health Reporting Initiative, which is sponsored in part by Premera Blue Cross. The Daily Herald maintains editorial control over content produced through this initiative.
Joy Borkholder: 425-339-3430; joy.borkholder@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @jlbinvestigates.
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