by Dang Le, Fort Worth Report
October 4, 2026
Dr. Christopher Rheams found a sense of home working with a patient who had no home of his own.
His name was Kenny. He came from New Orleans, Rheams’ hometown, and grew up in the neighborhood where the doctor attended school. In a Fort Worth park, the two men bonded over their shared disappointment: the New Orleans Saints.
“He’s someone I would never meet otherwise,” Rheams said. “Our paths just wouldn’t cross, but we had so much in common.”
Rheams, 71, spent 20 years treating hospital patients before retiring from clinical practice two years ago to teach. As faculty adviser to UNT Health Fort Worth’s Street Medicine Student Coalition, he helps students care for people experiencing homelessness — and teaches them to see the person before the patient.
The work earned him a nomination for 52 Faces of Community, the Fort Worth Report’s weekly series highlighting unsung local heroes.
“You know, I think humans are programmed to help each other,” Rheams said. “That’s part of what makes us tick, and it’s so easy to get caught up in careers and competition and all these things when what really gives us joy is a simple act of kindness toward another human.”
Every other Tuesday, Rheams and students spend two hours at Glenwood Park offering health screenings, vaccinations and medical counseling while distributing flashlights, clothing, food and other necessities.
With guidance from Rheams and other health professionals, students interview the patients about their medical histories, check blood pressure and blood sugar. A nearby JPS Health Network van offers prescriptions and additional care. The Love and Light Ministries provides social workers and meals.
“If I could be half the doctor he is, I would be very lucky.”
Rebecca Zapata-Smith, UNT Health’s fourth-year medical student
Rheams also volunteers at UNT Health’s Homeless Outreach through Medical Education Clinic and has served at Beautiful Feet Ministries, another group that serves people experiencing poverty and homelessness.
“These folks are so happy to have us there in any way that we could help them, and they have been so kind to us and so open to receiving care when it’s provided in a caring and nonjudgmental way, in a place where they feel safe and literally in their own homes,” Rheams said.
Heather Dixon, founder and executive director of Love and Light Ministries, said Rheams keeps looking for ways to serve, from bringing students into street medicine to donating to the nonprofit.
“He’s very well respected by the people that we serve because they see that gentleness, that kindness,” Dixon said.
The coalition began with three first-year medical students led by Rebecca Zapata-Smith and Madison Stevens. They needed a faculty sponsor, and Rheams agreed before they finished their pitch.
He knew little about street medicine, but his hospital years had shown him why it mattered. Patients without homes could lose their belongings or pets while hospitalized. Discharge plans could unravel when there was nowhere to recover or receive follow-up care. The experience can deepen a distrust that existed before the patient entered the hospital.
“They don’t trust us to have their best interest at heart,” Rheams said. “They don’t think we understand them because, largely, we don’t.”
Street medicine helps rebuild that trust. Students return to places where people feel safe. They learn names, meet families and hear stories they might otherwise miss, he said.
Dr. Scott Ewing, the coalition’s fellow faculty adviser and UNT Health’s assistant professor, sees that connection in small gestures. When Ewing first started with the coalition, Rheams introduced him to people by their names — or preferred nicknames. When someone needs to talk, Rheams sits beside them on a curb in the parking lot.
Zapata-Smith, a fourth-year medical student who helped start the coalition, recalls a woman who told Rheams she was vomiting blood. The woman feared going to a hospital because of her previous experience. Rheams helped calm her and called her an ambulance.
Rheams and his wife, Amy, bought the group’s first table, chairs and medical supplies, Zapata-Smith said. He remained a familiar face as student leaders changed.
“If I could be half the doctor he is, I would be very lucky,” she said.
Rheams’ service began decades earlier, baking bread in the 1980s at Christian Service Hospitality House, a Shreveport, Louisiana, soup kitchen. His faith drew him to both service and medicine, he said.
During his busiest years, he contributed money when volunteer time was scarce. Street medicine has brought him back to the desire to heal and serve people, which could get buried beneath hospital routines.
“I tell the students it’s the purest form of medicine they will ever practice,” Rheams said. “These people can’t do anything to reimburse us other than say, ‘Thank you.’”
Dozens of students have volunteered during the coalition’s first three years, Rheams said. UNT Health’s Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine now offers a monthlong street medicine elective for fourth-year students.
Students work in JPS clinics, ride along in its van and serve at HOME Clinic and Beautiful Feet Ministries, Ewing said. They also visit encampments and help residents get to medical and housing appointments with Love and Light volunteers, Dixon said.
Ewing said Rheams’ kindness inspires him to be more patient with students and more involved in street medicine.
“Even though he’s only a year older than me, I’m still hopeful that he can take me under his wing,” Ewing said.
Rheams keeps the coalition student-led, providing continuity as its leaders change. The students’ energy stays with him after Tuesday nights. So does the joy of giving care without expecting anything in return.
He hopes they carry these lessons into their practices.
“The biggest lesson, I think, is that there’s something about serving people who cannot repay you that’s joyous — about using your skills simply for someone else’s good, just very simply and directly,” Rheams said. “It makes you feel more human. It makes you feel more alive. It makes you feel more grateful for all the opportunities in life that you have.”
Kenny offered him a glimpse — and reminder — of that joy as Rheams’ first street medicine patient. They shared a hometown, a neighborhood and a football team that kept disappointing them, yet their lives had gone in different directions.
Rheams had come to the park to care for people without homes.
But there, he was reminded of where he came from — and why he entered medicine more than four decades ago.
Dang Le is the higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at [email protected].
The Fort Worth Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
The Report’s higher education coverage is supported in part by major higher education institutions in Tarrant County, including Tarleton State University, Tarrant County College, Texas A&M-Fort Worth Christian University, Texas Wesleyan University, the University of Texas at Arlington and UNT Health Fort Worth.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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