Wisdom From the Homeless: Lessons a Doctor Learned at a Homeless Shelter by Neil Craton M.D

Author:Neil Craton M.D. [Craton M.D., Neil]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Medical, Physician & Patient, Medical, Caregiving
ISBN: 9781525531392
Publisher: FriesenPress
Published: 2018-10-29T16:00:00+00:00

This photograph is taken with permission from Leah Denbok’s work, Nowhere to Call Home. Photographs and Stories of the Homeless. Volume One or her website. It is not an image of any character referred to in this book. To see more of Leah’s photography, visit ldenbokphotography.com.

Lesson 12: If I want to follow Jesus, I need to wash people’s feet. To wash people’s feet, I need to get on my knees.

To touch is to heal

To hurt is to steal

If you want to kiss the sky

Better learn how to kneel (on your knees boy!)

—U2: Mysterious Ways

One of the most potently-recurring images of my time at the Siloam clinic is providing care to people with foot problems. This is particularly ironic because, in first year medical school, my anatomy partner and I decided that the foot was too complicated to learn in the time available, so we took a chance and didn’t dissect that part of the body at all. We figured there would only be one question about the foot on the exam but that we would have to spend too much valuable time to understand the complexity of this design marvel. We were right, just one question regarding the foot was set on the exam, and we saved ourselves hours and hours of memorization. Lest this make you question my competence or dismiss me as a complete fraud, I can reassure you that I have since made up for this glaring omission in my early training. I studied the foot extensively during my sports medicine fellowship and, in fact, demonstrated the dissection for the medical students at the University of British Columbia in the second year of my Master’s degree there. Better late than never.

People who live on the street are on their feet most of the day. They walk to get to appointments, walk to stay warm, and walk because people don’t want them loitering in one spot for too long. All this trekking around is typically done in second-hand footwear that doesn’t fit properly. The additional burdens of diseases like diabetes and alcohol use disorder cause damage to peripheral nerves, making skin prone to blisters, ulcers and infections. This, combined with sweating, old socks and the lack of regular bathing, makes foot problems one of the most common entrance complaints at the Mission clinic. Siloam is well-served by a foot nurse and donated supplies from Canadian Footwear, a local shoe store that specializes in treating foot pathology through appropriate footwear. I recall my interactions with several patients where the example of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet helped me provide care with a positive attitude, despite the many challenges encountered in this line of work.

Brandy was an Indigenous woman in her mid-thirties. She wanted to get clearance for “detox”, a process through which a client is medically examined and found to be at low risk to go through withdrawal of drugs or alcohol. Brandy had been drinking—mostly beer but up to 20 a day—for the past several months. This level

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