Saturday: Arrival and Stroger Hospital Visit

Welcome to the Urban Health Scholars Chicago Spring break blog!

Day One of our Spring Break trip got off to a great start! Four first year scholars, Asha C., Asha M., Bianca and Evelyn, met at Logan Airport bright and early to catch our flight. We were all still feeling the effects of finals the week before, so students used the plane ride to catch up on a little bit of rest and relaxation

Once we arrived in Chicago, we had less than 3 hours to get to our first appointment at the John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital at Cook County. We were incredibly fortunate to have some of Bianca's family members meet us at the airport and drive us to the hotel, saving us a lot of transit time. We checked into our awesome hotel in downtown Chicago and got ready to really begin our trip!

Dont worry! Our "patient" is a volunteer 4th year student

We spent Saturday night shadowing in the Stroger Hospital ER and Trauma unit for their 4pm-12 shift. We were excited and nervous to see the ER, and not entirely sure what to expect going in. The ER serves over 100,000 patients a year and accepts everyone, regardless of their ability to pay.





Additionally, the hospital has a Level 1 trauma center and burn unit, so they see some of the most severely injured patients in the city. The result of all of this is an incredibly diverse patient population that presents with a huge host of health needs, ranging from emergent to chronic health conditions and medication refills. We split into pairs and each spent 4 hours in the ER and 4 hours in the trauma unit. Fortunately for the people of Chicago, it was  a very quiet night in the trauma unit! Our students enjoyed hearing about the experiences of a number of medical students and residents, and even got to learn about how to read an ultrasound. The students and physicians we met with were incredibly hospitable and welcoming, giving us the opportunity to ask lots of questions and learn from their experiences.


The Trauma unit may have been having a quiet night, but the same could not be said for the ER! Our students were incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to shadow Dr. Patrick Lank, an ER attending at the Stroger Hospital and Dr. Neeraj Chhabra. Dr. Lank took us along for his busy evening of seeing a wide variety of patients, demonstrating the art form of meeting patient needs, both physically and emotionally, in the ER. Our time with Dr. Lank demonstrated the importance of everything we have already learned over the past two semesters: from watching an inferior alveolar nerve block to discussing a cold agglutination test, we all reflected on the incredible relevance of "basic" sciences in medical care. Additionally, Dr. Lank talked to us about his experiences in urban health and patient care, providing great insight and many teaching opportunities for our scholars. We feel so lucky to have the opportunity to meet Dr. Lank and Dr. Chhabra and watch them work - they were compassionate, gentle and caring towards patients, while finding every opportunity to teach us something new. They were truly physicians to look up to.

We also appreciated getting the chance to meet a number of other physicians and medical students in the ER. Everyone was so friendly and constantly looking for learning opportunities for us during our night of shadowing.

Thank you so much to everyone who helped organize this great learning opportunity and who met with us while we were visiting. A special thanks to Dorothy and Patrick, awesome 4th year medical students. And to all the 4th years we met, good luck with match day!