Primary Care Training and Enhancement -- Residency Training in Street Medicine - The purpose of this initiative is to train primary care residents in the practice of street medicine by incorporating structured clinical experiences and social systems awareness into non-traditional healthcare settings, including mobile medical units, shelters, and community outreach sites. Cooper University Health Care (CUHC) is well-positioned to integrate a new, innovative curriculum dedicated to individuals experiencing homelessness into its existing Internal Medicine (IM) Primary Care and Family Medicine (FM) residencies. Established in 1887 to provide comprehensive care to underserved populations, CUHC is now South Jersey’s leading academic, tertiary referral center, with its main campus in Camden—a city with some of the highest poverty and overdose rates in the state. Both the IM and FM programs have a deep commitment to serving the Camden population and providing transformative training to their residents through connecting to the Camden community. CUHC has a track record of combating healthcare disparities through innovation. To that end, CUHC developed an Addiction Medicine Division (AMD) to address stigma and provide high-quality care to people with substance use disorders. The AMD, in its mission to meet patients where they are, built a Mobile Health Care Unit that is currently providing addiction care to individuals experiencing homelessness in Camden. Additionally, CUHC has been supporting the Camden Faith and Mental Health Work Group, a coalition between the psychiatry department and local churches in Camden to provide educational workshops to community members to increase understanding of mental illness, decrease stigma, and promote access to care. With support from the Primary Care Training and Enhancement – Residency Training in Street Medicine grant, CUHC will build on the innovations of the Mobile Health Care Unit and Camden Faith and Mental Health Work Group to establish a Street Medicine training track within its primary care residencies. Residents will deploy with CUHC’s Mobile Health Care Unit to deliver primary care, chronic disease management, mental health assessments, and substance use disorder treatment directly to unhoused individuals where they receive shelter, food, and other services. Supervised by faculty trained in Primary Care, Addiction Medicine, and Psychiatry, residents will engage with a highly stigmatized population that is often reluctant to seek care in traditional healthcare settings. By enhancing the existing curriculum with dedicated education on caring for unhoused individuals, residents will gain a deeper understanding of trauma-informed care, harm reduction, de-escalation strategies, culturally aligned care, and navigation of complex social and legal systems. Through community-based rotations on the Mobile Health Care Unit and close work with community partners, Street Medicine residents will experience interdisciplinary team-based care grounded in a patient-centered model and informed by feedback from the community. By embedding care within the community, CUHC’s Street Medicine program will equipe the next generation of physicians to provide care, and ultimately improve health outcomes, for people experiencing homelessness.
