DP Day

Yesterday I traveled to Detroit with five M1 colleagues to volunteer with the Detroit Partnership's DP Day. This is an annual day of community service in which Michigan students spend several hours drawing murals, cleaning up parks, clearing vacant lots, and working on gardening projects. Transportation and lunch are provided for free, making it an easy opportunity for students to learn more about Detroit and lend a helping hand. In the mid-20th century, Detroit was the fourth largest city in the United States, with a population over 1.5 million. In the last 10 years, Detroit's population decreased 25% to its current level of 750,000. My group was assigned to the Brightmoor neighborhood, which was once a beautiful, thriving community but is now full of abandoned homes and crumbling, vacant school buildings. There are no stores or groceries nearby, forcing residents to eat at McDonald's.

Upon arrival in Brightmoor, we ate lunch at St. Christine's Soup Kitchen, which serves hot meals every Tuesday and Saturday. There we met some children from the community and a couple of energetic community organizers. For lunch we had Shepherd's pie, salad, rolls, and an assortment of desserts. After eating we met Billie, a master gardener and community activist who had recently moved to Brightmoor with her husband to help revitalize the neighborhood. She showed us a park and community garden where they were growing fruits and vegetables for residents in this "food desert." Some things they could grow year-round in a greenhouse. Then she took us to an abandoned house that had not been lived in for a decade. We cleaned up trash in the lot, boarded up windows, raked up leaves, and leveled the front lawn, which had been disrupted by water flowing from a broken pipe. The neighbor to this abandoned house was very grateful and came out to help us. We went to two other vacant lots and cleared them of trash, of which there was plenty.

In the late afternoon we attended the DP Day Rally at Stoepel Park. This rally was unfortunately a waste of time, and I've told the DP Day organizers that it should not be part of future DP Days, or should at least be made optional. I learned a lot more while I was working than at the rally; the rally speakers were not inspiring or interesting (probably because we couldn't hear most of what they were saying). What's more, the students littered about as much trash at Stoepel Park as they cleaned up during the day--papers, pizza boxes, and Red Bull cans were all over the place, and some trash blew away into the community before it could be recovered. Our time would have been much rather spent with a couple more hours working than attending the rally.

Here are some photos:

Lunch at St. Christine's

The Team
Boarding up windows
Cleaning up trash

Tomorrow is Hash Bash Ann Arbor

I won't be attending, but was intrigued.

Here are some photos from my sister Liz's visit last weekend:
These were taken during a walk over the Argo dam and along the Huron River, on a very sunny Sunday afternoon. On Saturday Liz and I attended a conference in memory of Sujal Parikh, a fourth year Michigan medical student who was tragically killed in a traffic accident last year while doing research in Uganda. The conference was called "The Social (Justice) Network"and it featured talks by professors and students on efforts to bring health care to disadvantaged people around the globe. The keynote speaker was Peter Mugyenyi, founder and director of the Joint Clinical Research Center in Kampala, Uganda. He talked about how the recent economic recession has led PEPFAR and other aid agencies to drastically reduce funding of ARVs for the treatment of AIDS in the developing world. The conference organizers hope to make it an annual tradition.

Liz's visit coincided with the final exam for our Central Nervous System Sequence, which was mostly neuroanatomy. The anatomy practical exam was especially tough, but fortunately it was the last anatomy exam ever! Our next sequence, starting Monday, is infectious diseases. This past week we learned how to do the neurology, ear nose & throat, and oral physical exams. We also learned a little about the in-depth mental status exam that psychiatrists do, and we had several interesting lectures on the Tuskegee experiments, child abuse, and LGBTQQ patients. On Thursday, our interpretive projects for the Family Centered Experience curriculum were due. My partner Kellianne and I made a video based on the everyday sights and thoughts of patients with chronic illness (my patient has type I diabetes, Kellianne's has multiple sclerosis). Kellianne happened to have knee surgery to repair a torn ACL several weeks ago, so I accompanied her to surgery to get some hospital footage. You can watch our video here. Our video project will be presented along with many others at a special reception on April 20 for the FCE families.

I'm starting to become very busy with the heap of extracurriculars I've taken on for next year. I'm a student coordinator for the Delonis free medical clinic, co-coordinator of the Students Teaching AIDS to Students program (med students teaching local high schoolers about HIV/AIDS), an editor for the Hippo med student magazine, and one of the leaders of the MedRunners group. Most exciting of all, I'm leading a group of 8 student rappers on a performance at the spring Biorhythms show May 14!