Title:Small steps, big impact

Living in Washington, DC, Julianne Kiene (G’18, M’23) noticed that the local unhoused population often didn’t have shoes and suffered from untreated foot problems. While attending the School of Medicine and working at the HOYA Clinic, she founded the Hoya Foot Care Clinic: specific events to provide shoes, podiatric care, and education for unhoused patients.

Kiene chose to attend Georgetown for its dedication to service. “I knew I would meet people who were equally likeminded about providing health care to everyone,” she says. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she had more time to focus on launching the clinic with Byron Rosenthal (M’24), Schulyer Gaillard (M’24), and Nina Kishore (M’27). The first clinic took place in Spring 2021 at the Harriet Tubman Women’s Shelter in DC’s Ward 7. There are now monthly events at a number of locations, which cumulatively helped over 400 patients last year and have been in such high demand that they now have wait lists.

Kiene, who will begin her dermatology residency in the fall, says the condition of someone’s feet can reveal significant medical conditions, including circulation issues and diabetes. She can also learn a lot from the treatment of wounds and calluses.

Foot clinic patients receive care from medical student volunteers, who are overseen by podiatry residents and attending physicians, who can provide prescriptions or referrals, if necessary.

In addition to learning from the doctors, Kishore, a previous HOYA clinic coordinator, says the students learn from watching their attendings and each other. The patient interactions and clinical experience help the students apply their medical training while learning from and serving the community.

“For medical students, the more patients and people from different walks of life you meet, the better you’ll be able to care for your future patients and understand the complexities of their health needs,” says Kishore.

Though they don’t need a traditional hospital environment to treat patients, clinic volunteers are careful to provide space and privacy for those wary of the vulnerability of exposing their feet for treatment. Working in a nontraditional environment also allows the student volunteers to provide an immediate improvement to a person’s comfort with minimal disruption or cost.

“The way we take care of people has a significant impact on how they move forward with their day,” Kishore says.