Operation Safety Net a model for national, global programs that provide medical care for the homeless
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Dr. Jim Withers hands medicine to Raymond Sager. -
Operation Safety Net founder Dr. Jim Withers, left, hits the streets on his normal Monday night in Downtown, Pittsburgh. -
Willie Johnson, left, gets checkied out by Operation Safety Net founder Dr. Jim Withers. With him is Elise Schmidt, a 4th year medical student from LECOM (Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine) and outreach person Mike Waoka Sallows.
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Jim Withers, who founded Operation Safety Net in 1992, says his early years of practicing street medicine in Pittsburgh were a product of his imagination.
"I made it up, and I had a philosophy that drove it. It's 'The streets have to teach health care how to meet them on their terms.' "
And have they?
"They've taught us a great deal, and they're continuing," he said. "I feel like we're in the, maybe, sixth grade at best, but we're learning."
And Dr. Withers, along with Operation Safety Net program director Linda Sheets, has shared those lessons with the rest of the world.
"Jim has certainly been a very passionate visionary," said David Deci, who in 2005 helped West Virginia University medical students form a street medicine program called the Mushroom Project that was modeled on Operation Safety Net. The Pittsburgh outreach is a program of the Pittsburgh Mercy Health System, part of Catholic Health East and sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy.
"What started as a very local response to providing care on the streets he transformed into a global movement. And Linda has been kind of the logistics, background manager who has allowed street medicine to kind of have its home and launch it into a worldwide venue," added Dr. Deci, who now is director of medical student education, the department of family medicine, at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Both roles were necessary to the spread and success of the practice of street medicine, he said.
"Jim in particular has been tireless in making contacts with communities who were interested in providing street medicine or perhaps were already struggling with street medicine programs," he said. Dr. Withers has provided aid, encouragement and resources, "helping to energize and synergize between communities. And he has done this not just on a national level but on an international scope that's particularly amazing," Dr. Deci said.
First Published October 3, 2011 12:00 am
