Orientation and the Start of Long Nights

by Julie Cioffi

As Christmas vacation was ending, I began to anticipate the long-awaited semester away from Hope College in Chicago. Originally from Naperville, IL, a Chicago suburb, I was excited to finally experience the city and everything that city living entails. The other nursing students and I were placed in an apartment in the Pilsen neighborhood, which is close to the University of Illinois Hospital where I will be interning on the night shift in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. 

Orientation week started off with a group dinner at Lou Malnati's Pizzeria, where we were introduced to the various professors of The Chicago Semester, and were able to meet the others students in the program. It was all beginning! The week of orientation was filled with new experiences for me. For one, public transportation. At Hope College, everything is in walking distance, and I have barely used the public transportation system in Chicago. Figuring out the 'L' train and bus system was challenging at first, but quickly became familiar.

In Pilsen, we were placed in an apartment building for students called La Casa Student Housing. The seven other girls who I live with and I decided on some fun events while we had the time during orientation week. Tuesday night, four of us decided to see The Phantom of The Opera at the Cadillac Palace Theater, which was phenomenal. Thursday night, five of the nursing students and I went to Adler After Dark, at the Adler Planetarium where we saw shows on space that were breath taking, and also an improv comedy group. That weekend, the La Casa girls spent the afternoon in the National Museum of Mexican Art, which is located a block from out apartment. It was exciting to see so many different parts of city.

Something that I will cherish about Chicago, isn't that there is a Starbucks on every corner, but that there are different personalities of the Chicago neighborhoods. As a vegetarian and someone who loves coffee and cooking, I truly enjoyed finding new vegetarian/vegan restaurants as well as local coffee shops. Some would call me a 'foodie'. My favorite restaurant so far is Karyn's on Green, in the West Loop Neighborhood.

As mentioned previously, my internship is in the Neonatal ICU at University of Illinois Chicago Hospital, on the night shift. The other five nursing students are on the day shift, so this experience is quite a bit different for me. While they are working during the day, I will be sleeping, and working at night. My first few shifts were definitely an adjustment. It wasn't too bad the first night, everything was so new and my preceptor and I kept busy. But, the sleeping during the day and napping will be the greatest balancing act when working the night shift. I am very excited to spend the next twelve weeks in the neonatal ICU. My preceptor is wonderful and a great teacher thus far. The babies in the NICU are primarily premature infants, and they are tiny and adorable. It's amazing how something so small can bring such joy. I feel so blessed to be a part of the team in the NICU and am ready for what God has to teach me this semester in Chicago.

Volunteering with the AIDS Foundation of Chicago

As the other three nursing students and I start our fourth week of internship, we are beginning to get the hang of the routine and the city. Between the four of us, we are doing internships on the pediatric unit, two different medical-surgical units, and the emergency department at University of Illinois-Chicago Medical Center. We have quickly adjusted to the life of getting up at 5 am in order to get ready and catch the 6 o’clock Red Line train. We are getting used to working 8 and 12 hour days multiple times a week. And most importantly we are learning what it is truly like to be a nurse. Another focus that the four of us will have this semester is our service project with The AIDS Foundation of Chicago.

The mission of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) is “to lead the fight against HIV/AIDS and improve the lives of people affected by the epidemic.” AFC has created a wide variety of projects, events, and fundraisers to help them achieve their mission including runs, dance events, and passing out safe-sex kits at a variety of festivals and events around the city. These next few months the Chicago Semester nursing students will be meeting on the last Tuesday of every month to help AFC pack the safe sex packets that they hand out. The last Tuesday in January was our first time attending the “Safe-Sex Kit and Movie Night” event and the four of us were a bit unsure of what to expect. Once we arrived at the offices, we learned that we would be spending the next few hours watching and discussing movies about social issues while packing the safe-sex kits. Shortly after we got there other volunteers continued to join us until we had a group of about 12 people. To start, the coordinator of the event told us a bit about why we were making the kits and how they pass out thousands of these kits every year, especially during the events in the city during the summer months. As we watched and discussed If These Walls Could Talk and If These Walls Could Talk 2, the 12 of us ended up making over 1,000 kits of condoms, lubricant, and a flyer. In addition to helping out AFC, we were able to talk with the other young adults from Chicago that we otherwise would have never met. It was interesting to hear their stories and their passion for service and the HIV/AIDS community.

As future nurses, this semester in Chicago is a great opportunity for us to learn about the health disparities in such a large city and educate ourselves about how we can help better the health of those around us. We have all gotten the opportunity to interact with a wide variety of people and cultures in our internship experiences and have learned how education and prevention plays a major role in the health of an individual. Participating in projects that are outside of a hospital setting is a great way for us to stay involved with community health and decreasing health disparities.

A Reflection on Giving Food to Homeless People

I rolled out of bed in slow motion not wanting to get up and go out into the cold… I did not want to have to spend my day off packaging food and walking the street to find homeless people. It wasn’t the homeless people that bothered me… it was my own selfishness that was getting in the way. I was thinking to myself… “I get up every day to go help people at the hospital, can’t I enjoy a couple days off now and then?” Ugh! But at the same time I thought to myself… “I am in a warm apartment, eating good food, and watching TV while thousands of PEOPLE are out in the cold, hungry!” I had mixed feelings, but the dread of having to go out seemed to consume me more than the guilt… a serious problem! Ironic too, since I decided to dedicate my life to caring for people and since normally I feel guilty when I see the homeless on the streets.

When I walked into the CS office, my mood started to turn. We packed up the snack bags in a mere 10 minutes and there we sat chit-chatting away for the next half hour. It was great! It helped put me in better spirits so that I gave with desire and not out of “just doing it to fulfill a requirement.” As we walked out of the building, we were immediately confronted with our first homeless person, but he was passed by because we were suppose to meet up with Trinity students to distribute food. That still bothers me! WHY? There was no reason that we could not have given to those first few people we passed by! But thank God for those people who are willing to step up and take action into their own hands. One of the CS students started passing out bags. Soon others began to follow. We rely on societal norms and peer influence way too much sometimes. We all need to be that person that will step outside the boundaries sometimes!

Photo by  Keith Harris

We split into small groups and roamed the streets seeking out the homeless. It was actually very enjoyable despite the negative feelings I had had earlier! Our group was fairly successful! We passed out quite a few bags! We had persons refuse the snacks, thank us for the snacks, and even ask for extras. I think that is what touched my heart the most… the mother who had a child and asked for a snack for her son. What do you say to that?  A couple blocks later, we walked around a corner where a man was sitting with a cup of change… everyone passed him by. They honestly NEVER saw him. Not ignored him, but did not see him. We have become way too use to homelessness that we have tuned them out! It starts out as intentionally zoning them out, but we get so “good” at it that we don’t even realize that we are doing it any more. Sick! Just sick! But I think that most of us can attest to doing this! Later, we had a more light-hearted experience with a panhandler who played an April fool’s joke on us. We all laughed. Look! They are people too. Feelings. Emotions. Thoughts. Of course we all know that but we don’t all let our hearts believe that. Sad!

I hope that I don’t let those negative feelings that inflicted me that morning ever persuade me to turn a blind eye to the harsh realities of the world. I need to tune in to the problem of homelessness! Become aware. Not just say, “Yeah there are homeless people. How sad!” But actually let that sadness become personal. I pray for God to move my heart to help those in need ALWAYS. I need to work at it! Pray about it! And let my heart hurt with those who hurt. <Sigh!> Not fun but necessary. I have a lot of thinking, praying, and actions to take. But just as importantly, society has a lot of thinking, praying, and action taking to do! Until we join together to make a difference, homelessness will continue to increase one PERSON at a time!


~ Written by Chelsey Wentzel