Empathy in motion

Three nursing students — armed with basic medical supplies — set out to offer care to individuals experiencing homelessness on the streets of downtown San Antonio. The School of Nursing’s Population Focused Health course advances an educational model that promotes compassionate care.
A street nursing education model teaches students compassionate care
By Orith Farago
For the homeless community living on San Antonio’s streets, medical care can feel out of reach. For these vulnerable patients, nothing is taken for granted. Especially compassion.
Through The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio School of Nursing’s Street Nursing program, undergraduate students can participate in a street nursing clinical rotation that incorporates cultural sensitivity into its approach to providing care, allowing students to see the homeless community through a lens of empathy.
“You actually think of how you help the human being — not the protocols, not the institution,” said street nursing clinical rotation founder Diana Cavazos, PhD, MHSA, MSN, School of Nursing associate professor. Cavazos said students learn not to stigmatize, not make assumptions and, most importantly, to hear the patient’s story.
And there are many stories to hear from San Antonio’s climbing homeless population — accounting for more than 3,100 people in 2023, according to the South Alamo Regional Alliance for the Homeless.
Helping vulnerable residents
In 2019, the School of Nursing partnered with Corazon Ministries — a nonprofit organization that provides needed resources to the city’s most vulnerable populations — to introduce a new clinical site option for undergraduate nursing students enrolled in the Population Focused Health course.
As part of the course, students take a theory class, and then once each week, they implement what they learn by going to a local business on the city’s West Side to provide first aid, wound care and more to the homeless population in collaboration with Corazon Ministries.
Cavazos said students’ firsthand experiences with the homeless community have been pivotal to shaping their perceptions as future health care providers.
Closing the gap
Growing up, nursing student Deanna Spear was taught not to look at or talk to homeless people. After taking part in the street nursing clinical rotation, she saw homeless patients with a new understanding.
“It’s really opened my eyes, and I look forward to ways of trying to figure out how can we close that gap for them because they can’t do it on their own,” Spear said.
During one encounter with an elderly gentleman who was out of breath, Spear asked if he was all right and if she could get him some water. His response: “I’m done.” What Spear learned he meant is that he wanted to be done with his addiction. Spear and her team coordinated the man’s travel to a treatment center that day.
Nursing student Francisco Hernandez had an especially enlightening experience working with a homeless diabetic patient who stood out because of the drastic turn his life had taken.
Hernandez learned that the patient had been an accountant, married with children.
“It just took one turn for it to all just kind of go away,” Hernandez said. “That made it entirely real for me.”
For nursing student Frank Jenkins, talking with people in recovery from substance abuse gave him a new perspective.
“I could put them in the same shoes as people I know in my personal life,” Jenkins said. “These aren’t just people that you try to look through. You’ve got to look at them and see the hurt and the need that they have.”
Jenkins said the street nursing clinical rotation has given him and his classmates new insights and provided an important opportunity to be ambassadors to their entire nursing cohort.
“When we talk about what we see and what we do out in the field, it helps to change the minds of our fellow classmates,” Jenkins said.
Another way to help
UT Health San Antonio students who are unable to participate in the clinical rotation can volunteer through UT Health San Antonio Street Nursing, a student-led organization that provides care on the streets with an interdisciplinary team including doctors, nurses, physician assistants and social workers. Volunteers have a brief virtual orientation for safety purposes before going out in the field.
Students from any UT Health San Antonio school can donate their time, and community members can donate medical supplies or clothing by contacting Cavazos at Cavazosdm@uthscsa.edu.