“Do you want me to be your doctor and sign you up as a patient?” “I’ve been drinking all morning? Is that OK?” King asked him if he’d like any medical attention. He wore a mask that covered his salt-and-pepper beard. John Simpson, 64, peeked out from a ragged two-person tent. King pulled up and parked his van beside the Third Avenue encampment, where 30 or so people were living. When I go to the beach to surf, I see my friends that I surf with and my patients.” As soon as he makes a stop on his rounds, patients emerge from cars and tents to ask about housing, about treatments, about the local gossip. When I go to the grocery store, I see my patients. “I live within blocks of encampments and the clinic. “I’m immersed in this neighborhood,” he told me during one of his morning rounds in early April. He lives in Venice himself, surfing at the beach and biking in the Santa Monica Mountains, about 10 miles up the coast. When King, who is 52, started practicing street medicine 14 years ago, he quickly became a local fixture, recognizable for his handlebar mustache and shoulder-length hair. He also sees patients at a shelter and keeps hours a couple of nights a week at the Venice Family Clinic. These include the one on Third Avenue, another on Hampton Drive, another on the boardwalk, one that used to be along Penmar - typically, clusters of tents, plywood structures, tarps strung up overhead. King is especially proud of the extra step and handle he installed, which helps patients climb into the vehicle when he visits the various homeless encampments around Venice, Calif. From the back of the van, his team - a nurse, caseworkers and often a volunteer - draws blood, checks vitals, conducts psychiatric evaluations. The mobile unit has been tricked out to Dr.
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