Rush Medical College student Sanket Aggarwal remembers how impressed he was by the perseverance of the nurses who helped him adjust to COVID-19 protocols during his clinical rotation this past year.
That鈥檚 partly why he and other student leaders and groups across Rush University created care packages, including encouraging messages, for clinicians at Rush who are treating patients who have COVID-19.
鈥淒ue to the length of the pandemic and the political climate drawing attention away, sometimes we lose sight of how much we owe to frontline clinical workers,鈥 Aggarwal says. 鈥淲e wanted to do something to alleviate the stress they face.鈥
Aggarwal and fellow third-year medical student Christi Brown, who are co-presidents of the student group , kick-started an idea that grew to include seven other student organizations spanning each of Rush University鈥檚 four colleges. Together they raised money for roughly 1,000 care packages, which include wellness items like stress balls, lip balm, lotion, tea and candy.
Each care package contains a card with encouraging messages written by Rush students, who assembled and handed out the kits to the nurses, physicians, respiratory therapists and other clinicians who have been caring for patients with COVID-19.
鈥淭hank you for your dedication and service to the medical field. You are truly making a difference in the fight against COVID, and we as students look up to you!鈥
- Christi Brown, third-year Rush Medical College student
鈥淲e have to take care of frontline workers,鈥 says Brown, who developed the idea for the wellness packages. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e crucial for making sure our patients are safe and healthy. The pandemic has been here for a long time and the numbers are getting bigger, but our frontline workers are still going.鈥
Team effort
Brown and Aggarwal first estimated they would have enough resources for 200-300 care packages, but they reached out to other organizations and the interest around campus grew. That included assistance from Rush Wellness and Bryant Adibe, MD, chief wellness officer at Rush.
鈥淓veryone was eager to help,鈥 Brown says. 鈥淚t really shows that our students are thinking of our frontline workers. It鈥檚 not an easy job.鈥
鈥淣ot only have you worked tirelessly to help patients in the COVID units but you鈥檝e also been a role model and asset to students such as myself. Thank you for persevering, thank you for staying strong, thank you for being YOU!鈥
- Sanket Aggarwal, third-year Rush Medical College student
Brown worked with the to pick up deliveries and store items for the care packages at her home. Then, during the winter break Brown single-handedly assembled 700 care packages herself to accommodate the University鈥檚 social distancing guidelines before taking them all to the University for distribution to frontline workers.
Brown and Aggarwal, who managed the budget and item inventory, credit , Do No Harm鈥檚 faculty adviser, for connecting students with University and Medical Center leadership as they were trying to figure out how to complete the project. They also praised University staff members Kapula Patalinghug, Graham Davis, Melissa McCrary, Justin Sapp, Ahad Bootwala and Kamran Ali for supporting the project and providing help with logistics, from ordering items for the care packages and facilitating delivery to finding room to assemble the care packages.
The other student organizations at Rush involved are the , the American Medical Association, the , the , the Graduate College Student Council, the and .
鈥淜nowing people were there to support us every step of the way was very reassuring,鈥 Aggarwal says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 pretty amazing to see how everyone came together. There was a spirit and determination to get this done, because we all feel strongly about showing frontline workers that we care.鈥