Street Medicine - an International Collaboration

International Street Medicine featured on NPRs Fresh Air with Terry Gross

Welcome listeners of Fresh Air to the internet home of International Street Medicine. We are thrilled be featured on today's episode of Fresh Air with Terry Gross. From the NPR website:

In 1992, Dr. Jim Withers began making "house calls" under bridges in Pittsburgh, Pa. — sometimes dressing as a homeless person to help earn the trust of the truly homeless.
Other volunteers joined him, and out of their efforts grew Operation Safety Net, one of the nation's first full-time street medicine programs. It provides medical attention and case management to the homeless, and helps train medical professionals to work more effectively with poor and homeless patients.
The nonprofit organization operates under the aegis of the Pittsburgh Mercy Health System, where Withers is a faculty member in the Department of Medicine.

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4th Annual Symposium-Registration & Agenda

San Juan, Puerto Rico, September 10th-12th, 2008

Update: Full Color Brochure Now Available! Click Here to Download to Hard Drive.

We are very pleased to announce that the 4th International Street Medicine Symposium will be hosted in beautiful San Juan Puerto Rico this September 10 – 12th, 2008.

A significant portion of the Symposium will be dedicated to joining Chaco and the wonderful people of Iniciativa Comunitaria in their work with the street homeless and poor of San Juan.

Other activities will highlight the ongoing collaborative projects within the Street Medicine community and how we can move forward to even better relationships. The meeting will be held at the Marriott Courtyard Hotel near the airport on a delightful beach. Charming Old Jan Juan is a short distance from the Marriott.

To attend, complete the online registration form below and email to Linda Sheets at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it or send by fax at: 412-232-3726.

If you seek more information, please contact Linda at 412-232-7224, email This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it or send by fax at: 412-232-3726.

This symposium is sponsored by the Glaxo SmithKline and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundations.

Click Here to Register Online Now

Agenda & Lodging Information

Contact info:

Linda Sheets at 412.232.7224

email at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

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Meet the Puerto Rican Crew

This year's Street Medicine Symposium will be held in San Juan Puerto Rico. Taking this opportunity, I would like to introduce the Puerto Rican hosts of the symposium which I had the great honor to meet and work with during their yearly missions to Guatemala. When I met Dr. Chaco at the Houston’s Street Medicine Symposium I expressed my great desire to work abroad in third world countries. Without any hesitation, he invited me to join his crew "Iniciativas de Paz" on their annual mission to Guatemala to provide medical services to the indigenous community of Caribe Tzul in the highlands of the Petén region in Guatemala. How could I have refused? To do field medicine in the third world was what ignited and has sustained my desire to become a physician. It didn’t matter if the trip was in ten days and I was in the middle of my school exams and economically incapable to travel, I went. Ten days later I was in Guatemala City awaiting the arrival of the crew. I had no idea that these would be some of the most incredible people I was yet to meet in my life and that they would take me to such a tremendously remarkable place.

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Klea's Guatemalan Report

Read about the incredible work of Chaco's Iniciativas de Paz through the eyes of Klea Nasi

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