Picking up in Pontiac

A recent community outreach program led by medical students from OUWB aimed to help clean up downtown Pontiac.

Street Medicine Oakland (SMO) held clean-up events on Aug. 28 and Sept. 24. SMO was joined by members of another student organization, the Emergency Medicine Interest Group (EMIG), at the clean-up in September.

Between the two events, a total of more than 75 medical students, residents, and staff participated.

Randy Hilleary, one of the co-leaders of SMO, said overall it’s an important initiative and that the goal is to get as many people as possible involved from the OUWB community.

“It’s a big way for us to be involved in Pontiac, which is obviously a community near (OUWB’s) campus,” he said.

“We’re hoping that the clean-ups help promote better health and a cleaner community, especially for some of the disadvantaged individuals that we work with.”

OUWB’s Street Medicine program launched in late 2019, and is a first-of-its-kind program in Oakland County.

The program aims to help the homeless population in Pontiac and Royal Oak in myriad ways — from assisting people struggling with drug and alcohol addiction to helping the vulnerable population manage their respective ways through one of the worst global pandemics in history.

Cleaning up the streets where students provide these critical services is an extension of SMO’s overall mission, said Hilleary.

“Something we noticed when we were doing these outreaches is that there’s a lot of trash in the community,” he said. “A clean environment is better for mental health.”

Students picked up all kinds of trash discarded in the open, from fast food wrappers to alcoholic beverage bottles (some full), needles, discarded vape cartridges, and more, said Rose Wedemeyer, Ph.D., director of Education Training, OUWB, and part of the school’s Compass team. (Compass is the OUWB department that focuses on community engagement.)

Wedemeyer volunteered at the September clean-up.

“We, as Compass, often solicit for medical student volunteers for different community events,” she said. “When a student group works to organize and lead an outreach event, I’m happy to participate and support them.”

As future physicians, Hilleary said that it’s important for the medical students to see that health care isn’t just delivered in a clinical setting.

“The more that you’re involved in the community, the more people are going to be familiar with your face and willing to talk to you,” he said. “I feel like getting to know people outside of the clinical setting is just so powerful.”

Several students at the event talked about what it meant for them to give back, even on a rainy Saturday morning in late September.

“With emergency medicine, everything is about giving back to the community and helping those in need, and there’s nobody better to work with than the community of Pontiac itself,” said Sylvia Kashat, president of EMIG.

Connie Chen, M2, said she agreed there was a bigger purpose for the day that went beyond picking up garbage.

“You have to participate and be on the grounds of the community to see what the needs are,” said Chen. “It can be hard sometimes to see the bigger picture outside of school, so I think just coming out and seeing the city of Pontiac and meeting the people where they’re at is a good compromise.”

Matthew Helou, M1, also said he feels it’s important to give back.

“It’s really important to serve the community in ways that go beyond medical,” he said. “Things like this…can make a big difference to the community. It can help uplift spirits and promote a safer environment.”

Revelle Gappy, M3, also volunteered at the clean-up. Gappy said she is intentional about not forgetting her roots in community service.

“To treat the community is not only just medicine itself, but taking care of the other things, like making our communities beautiful and assisting wherever we can,” she said. “In order to be good community members, we need to go out and show that we appreciate our community beyond the medicine that we provide.”