Doctor Finds Calling Among Poorest of Poor : Medicine: Joseph Pierson decided early to give something back to the community. Now he takes care of the indigent, homeless and mentally ill.
A dozen years have passed since Dr. Joseph Pierson graduated from medical school and opened his practice. By now, it would not be unusual for someone in his position to work four days a week, vacation in Europe, and concentrate on putting away a tidy nest egg for a well-heeled retirement.
Instead, Pierson works long hours each day, seven days a week, not with affluent suburban patients or at an important research center, but treating patients he describes as “the poorest of the poor” in central Los Angeles.
Pierson, a 38-year-old Compton native who determined early in life that he wanted to give something back to his community, takes care of the indigent, the homeless and the mentally ill at his Florence Avenue office--regardless of whether his patients can pay for his services.
“When I first started working with these patients eight years ago, I was drawn to them because they were, in my experience, the people in greatest need in our community,” he said. “The people I work with have two or three strikes against them right off the bat. They are mentally ill or developmentally disabled, they are physically ill and they are people that nobody else wants to deal with.”
If Pierson’s patients do not have insurance, his staff tries to help them acquire insurance or government-funded medical coverage so Pierson will eventually be reimbursed. And as a staff physician at Los Angeles Metropolitan Hospital in addition to his private practice, the Baldwin Hills resident has not exactly taken a vow of poverty. But his policy is not to turn anyone away for lack of funds. Pierson cannot bring himself to deny them medical care when they need it.
“I was raised Catholic and I was educated in Catholic schools, so I have very strong religious beliefs, strong morals and ethics, and I’ve always believed in helping people who can’t help themselves. I was taught to do that from a very young age,” Pierson said.
Although many private physicians refer indigent patients to county facilities for care because they are unwilling to absorb uncompensated costs and fear that the patients’ lack of hygiene or poor social skills will drive other patients away, Pierson seeks them out.
“I’ve worked with several doctors and have been very intimidated by the way they carry themselves,” said Daisy Smith, the board-and-care coordinator for Pierson’s medical group, Medipro Inc. “But Dr. Pierson talks to his patients, he jokes around a lot; he doesn’t make them feel put down. He really takes time with them.
“I remember once when an elderly lady came in who was very, very slow. He’d ask her questions like, ‘Where does it hurt?’ It must have taken her five minutes to answer even simple questions like that. I was getting impatient. But he sat so patiently and just listened. It was like he was visiting with a friend. And at the end, he hugged her.”
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Pierson, the son of a carpenter and a school secretary, knew he wanted to be a doctor from the time he was a boy and had a cousin who started talking to him about her work as a nurse. As a teen-ager, he volunteered time at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. He was accepted into the premed program at UC Irvine. He went on to UCLA Medical School, where he was one of 10 African American students in the graduating class of 1983.
His practice has grown to include not only that community office, but a staff of doctors, psychiatrists, nurses and physicians assistants who see patients in 120 board-and-care homes for the mentally ill.
Pierson describes some of the disturbing things about his homeless patients in matter-of-fact tones.
“Their poor mental condition contributes to problems like lice, scabies, hepatitis and TB,” he said. “We really have to educate them about those things and about HIV and AIDS, because a lot of these patients are IV drug users and have unprotected sex.
“A lot of them are so sick they’ll even have sex for a couple of cigarettes or a little change to go to the store and buy candy. Even though most of them are collecting money every month, they use it up quickly on rent, cigarettes, candy, junk food and snacks.”
Maria Barrios, the owner of Wilton Haven, a board-and-care home between Koreatown and South-Central Los Angeles, said she will never forget the homeless man who first brought her into contact with Pierson several years ago.
The man, a Latvian native, had been referred to her care by a homeless shelter.
“He was roaming around the streets, crazy, with no benefits. I had to call Washington to find out when he came to this country and whether he was eligible for medical coverage,” Barrios said.
She learned that the man had come to the United States fleeing Communism and had worked in the aerospace industry for a number of years before becoming mentally ill and ending up homeless. She agreed to house him in her board-and-care facility, but she knew she would have a difficult time finding a doctor to treat him.
“He had gangrene when he first came to us. There wasn’t a doctor that wanted to treat that man, especially without insurance coverage,” she said.
Then she asked Pierson to help.
“Dr. Pierson treated that man--gangrene and all--without benefits for six months while we worked on getting him medical coverage through the system. I’ll never forget that,” Barrios said.
