Summarizing MAPSCorps

With the summer of 2013 coming to a close, our theme for this week’s mapper reflections is the MAPSCorps experience: What they’ve learned, what has challenged them, and how they plan to move forward with the skills and insights they gained over the past six weeks.

Students take a break from mapping; image courtesy of Washington Park Consortium Field Coordinator Emma Roberts

From what I’ve seen in various communities of the South Side, I’d tell community leaders that we need more black-owned businesses and less liquor stores, fast food, and beauty supply [stores]. I feel as though these places are really destroying our communities and aren’t really helping to give us growth. I really feel we need change!

–Arkier Burton, 18, Centers for New Horizons

The life of a MAPSCorps mapper is tiring. It [takes] a lot of courage and energy to walk every day. My mapping experiences in the field taught me communication skills and to also be open-minded. I would tell community leaders to be more considerate as to where we walk, like. in rough neighborhoods. I think that there should be more medical clinics [on the South Side], especially if MAPSCorps is giving sites and locations for healthy environments and lives.

–Willie Fields, 16, Centers for New Horizons

As a MAPSCorps mapper you have the opportunity to meet many new people and places. For example, when riding on the bus people are engaged and curious as to what MAPSCorps is and what we do. There are people who want to learn more about us and those who praise us for the service we provide. As a mapper you get the chance to discover new places and allow other South Side community members to see them as well. Mapping in the field has taught me how to approach people, communicate professionally, pass on information, and create great first impressions. Based on the South Side communities we’ve been exposed to, I would tell community leaders that we need more community programs, such as centers dedicated to health, rather than liquor and convenience stores.

–Lorianna Anderson, 17, Centers for New Horizons

Throughout the MAPSCorps program, I have developed skills that I will need in the future. I’ve developed skills such as public speaking, people skills, and problem solving skills. This program has been very helpful. I have benefitted dramatically from being here.

–Danielle Howard, 17, Centers for New Horizons

A day of a MAPSCorps’ mapper is definitely interesting. Every day I encountered something new in a neighborhood. This helped me learn more about my community and where things are. I learned a lot about where streets are and the sections they’re broken into. We also got to meet and talk to a lot of people of different ethnicities. Being a mapper may seem boring, but it’s the best you could ever do to have a full-blown experience through Chicago’s big jungle. There is more to the South Side than just violence and I am definitely learning that.

–Amber Foster, 17, Centers for New Horizons

In my community the only thing we see is stores, not parks or things that would benefit families…Now that I’m walking more since MAPSCorps, I have been seeing parks I never saw, so I tell my community to explore more. [The South Side] is more than stores, it’s parks, lakes, and more places that people can enjoy.

–Catherine Jones, 16, Centers for New Horizons

I would improve the types of stores out here on the South Side. The South Side needs more hospitals and more childcare places. Also the police need more improvement on helping people.

–Shontanese Luckett, 17, Centers for New Horizons

My experiences in MAPSCorps have helped me travel and know the streets of Chicago. It has also taught me public speaking skills, as well as ways to explain and elaborate my [role with MAPCorps]. I have also learned a lot of patience, as much is needed with the obnoxious people on the bus. Perseverance is needed especially when I don’t feel like writing or walking. Overall, I feel empowered and well-deserving of the lessons I learned over the time I have been here.

–Raushan Richardson, 17, Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation

One suggestion I would give to a community leader would be to add more programs to clean the community. Since I’ve been mapping I have noticed many empty lots that are filled with trash. I think adding more programs that clean up the community would motivate people to take more pride in their neighborhood.

–Nina Hunter, 18, Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation

MAPSCorps fits into the field of data science in many ways. In my opinion, MAPSCorps explains science. MAPSCorps uses science by collecting data, and science is mostly about data collection and [finding] similarities [in those data]. MAPSCorps also fits into the science field because of the sources it uses to collect data. Science deals with people, comparisons, computers, and data—MAPSCorps put all of these into one field.

–Candace Tolbert, 17, Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation

A day of mapping is a very inspiring thing. We walk a few miles, which is very good when it comes to my exercise. I am very pumped to work for this type of organization because it brings a lot of youth together to help cover strengths and weaknesses. I am trying to become the key element in everyone’s group because I never want people to fall out. I think that what defines a mapper’s day is: complex, busy, and fun. From walking around and talking to people, I was able to develop better people skills and find something I liked doing. Knowing that I’m the youngest, it’s kind of hard to find a place to fit in, but once I’m settled into a good group situation, I know that I’m going to succeed and get the job done.

I have learned that you will not always be placed into a group you like, and being quite honest, it isn’t always the most fun thing to in the world. However, throughout mapping I’ve learned that some points in time I’m just going to have to be real with myself and grow a lot. My typical day of mapping could either be good or bad depending on my actions and reactions.

–Clifton Allen, 16, Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation

One suggestion I would give to community leaders is to create access to healthy food for the people of the community. While walking I’ve noticed throughout my experience with the program that there is an abundance of fast food stores as well as corner stores throughout several neighborhoods in the community. Instead of allowing [more] corner stores to be created and established within the community, community leaders should instead create community farmers markets. By having quick and easy access to healthy food, the health of the community can thus be improved.

–Devonta Dickey, 17, Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation

Why should we care?

I had the opportunity today to talk with our incoming first year medical students about the South Side Health and Vitality Studies, as part of Dr. Monica Vela’s course on Health Disparities in America. Here are some of their thoughts in response to my question: “Why should we care about the health of people living on the South Side of Chicago?” The following responses are paraphrases of students’ comments.

‘This is our home now. Many of the people we will treat live on the South Side.’

‘We care about all people equally, regardless of where they live or the demographic from which they come.’

‘We need to know and respond to the specific needs of people living on the South Side because we have an obligation to give back to the community where we are learning to be physicians.’

‘Thinking specifically about the South Side helps us understand specific cultural issues that may affect people’s health or how they think about their health.’

‘Studying health of people living on the South Side of Chicago may help solve problems in other places that are similar. It can be a microcosm of larger health issues. For example, the Baltimore Longitudinal Study, funded by the National Institute on Aging, is of value to many researchers around the country.’

You’ve got plea mail

Dear Doctor, Please help me. I have no insurance. I have tried to get help and noone will help me. I have lost my job. I am bleeding and I don’t know why. I am scared. I have children and grandchildren who rely on me. I hope you reply to this email. It is in God’s hands now. All I can do is pray that you can help.

Where does the physician-patient relationship begin and end? What does it mean for a physician to receive a plea for help and ignore it? How is a plea mail to a physician (defined by me as an email that contains a plea for help) different from a call for help from a girl who falls from her bike in the street? How is it different from the sound of choking in a restaurant? Can a physician delete plea mail and go on with her day as if nothing happened? Can a physician walk past a homeless person lying unconscious in the gutter on a freezing January day? Sure she can. It happens all the time. But what does it mean for the man, for the physician, and for our society?

These plea mails are coming more frequently than ever before. I don’t know if it’s a reflection of the economy or if I’ve just answered enough of them that I’ve made it to a plea mailers’ Top 10 Doctors to Email for Help list. Either way, these are the emails that keep me up at night. Can I help? Can I offer the patient an appointment to see me? If not, who? Where can a woman who is bleeding, yet uninsured, get help? Could she have cancer? An ectopic pregnancy? Physical trauma?

In the most recent case, paraphrased here, I went to one of the undergraduate students working in my lab. She is a premed student who is volunteering with a program called Project Health. Project Health situates students in health center lobbies, gives them access to the internet and an online database of resources (in Chicago, it’s Southsidehealth.org), and empowers them to help direct clinic patients to important social services not provided by the clinic. My student, using this resource, was able to identify several clinics (and driving directions) within a several mile radius of the patient’s location. In one business day, we emailed this information to the patient and received an immediate reply filled with gratitude and shock. The patient was moved by our concern for her, my student was inspired by the opportunity to help, and I am left wondering what will happen from here. Will she get an appointment? When? What will be the quality of her care? Will the bleeding stop? Will she return to work?

There are millions of people in the United States with the substance of plea mails that most will never send. We urgently need to find a way to match need with resources and resources with need. Plea mail is not the solution, but until we find a better one, physicians do have an obligation to respond to individual pleas for help.