Helping people get back on their feet never meant more than this past December when Michael Goldberger, M.D., a foot and ankle surgeon with Tri-County Orthopedics in Morristown, New Jersey, spent a Sunday at the Market Street Mission providing medical care and comfortable shoes for bunions to the homeless and the poor.
Offering the Gift of Foot Care to Homeless
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Goldberger told OTW that he has been doing this sort of volunteer work for eight years now. He gathers a team of volunteers and sets up shop in different locations each time.
“Part A is we bring everyone in and do foot care. We treat callouses and trim toe nails. Part B is we give them a new pair of shoes through donations from organizations like Soles4Souls and shoe companies like Aetrex [Worldwide, Inc].”
He said many people come in with holes in their shoes or shoes that are the wrong sizes. Even many of the working poor can’t afford a new pair of shoes.
“I love it. It is a humbling experience. I arrange it so that the people we are caring for are sitting on a chair above me and my staff while we kneel at their feet. It is important to remember that one of them could have been sitting next to me in the second grade. We are all in this together.”
Goldberger likes his children to help at these events and join him and the other volunteers because it is important lesson for them to learn as well: No matter where life brings us, we are all the same and we need to help each other out.
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This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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