HIP Corps
HIP Corps Provides Valuable Education to Chicagoland Youth
By Charlotte-Paige Rolle and Lindsay Finger, MS 2 Co-Coordinators
Charlotte-Paige Rolle, MS 2
Lindsay Finger, MS 2
It is a sunny Thursday afternoon when six medical students from the University of Chicago embark upon a mission. Their destination: Andrew Carnegie Public School. The mission: education. The topic: HIV. No one is nervous and everyone is excited to be there. This group has a very important message to share and they cannot wait to interact with the students.
At 1:30 pm, it is time for the presentations to begin. Within the first few seconds there is a lot of giggling and whispering as the medical students announce what they have come to talk about and why it is important that the students listen. As time moves on, the mood in the classroom changes—it is a lot quieter, there are pens and notebooks out, and the students attentively copy down everything that is being said. In an interactive exchange, teachers tease out what the students already know, which turns out be quite a bit. It is then up to the medical students to separate fact from myth. There are a lot of questions, and the teachers answer each one in a very knowledgeable and non-judgmental fashion. As the presentation comes to an end, the students seem a bit sad; they want to keep on learning about HIV. For many, it is the first time someone has spoken to them so openly about the disease.For the adolescent population in the South Side of Chicago, HIV/AIDS is still a mystery; knowledge about the disease is mainly derived from the television, radio, and rumors. It is very difficult to change beliefs and behaviors. The topic of HIV/AIDS presents a special challenge within this community, but a group of medical students at the University of Chicago have set out for battle, and they call themselves HIP Corps. HIP Corps—HIV Intervention and Prevention Program—was founded approximately four years ago by two medical students from Pritzker in conjunction with the Office of Community Affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Anna Fishbein, MD ‘07 and Jay Kersh, MD ‘07 were disturbed by the recent news that the incidence of HIV was steadily rising among Chicago youth. They took their concerns to the Office of Community Affairs and together they developed a product to address the need: HIP Corps, a group of medical students who travel to various schools within the community to speak about HIV/AIDS.
(left to right) Seema Jeswani, Charlotte-Paige Rolle, and Rebecca Wolsky
Participating medical students undergo comprehensive training on HIV education and prevention at the beginning of the school year and during the HIV Epidemiology course in the spring quarter. Medical students learn how to spread their message in a non-judgmental and culturally sensitive manner at the training sessions. The training sessions usually buzz with excitement, as it is a time when medical students can learn more about HIV and dispel any misguided views and beliefs they may have held about the disease.
After training is complete, the Office of Community Affairs sets up school visits and the group goes out for battle. They have approximately one hour to open minds and change behaviors; the final goal is to provide students with enough information so that they can protect themselves and others from HIV. Knowledge is power!
