Students

Chicago Street Medicine (CSM) is currently seeking applicants to join their executive board. Founded in 2017, CSM is a student-fueled, interdisciplinary, inter-professional nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the health and well-being of the vulnerable in Chicago through service, education, research, and advocacy. CSM is focused on the unsheltered homeless population.

CSM is currently looking to fill the following board positions:

• Director of Community Education
• Director of Graduate Education
• Director of Legal Affairs
• Director of Outreach Integration
• Director of Policy and Advocacy

These 2-year volunteer positions will be active- no absentee board members! CSM is a new organization and is looking for talented, passionate community members to help them grow and continue their mission to care for those who have been forgotten by society.

Applications are available on CSM’s website and are due by Thursday, February 28th. The application process will be followed-up by an interview period, and new directors will begin their on-boarding in April.

Please reach out with any questions to ChicagoStreetMedicine@gmail.com.

The All of Us Research Program is a national research study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The goal is to advance precision medicine. Precision medicine is an innovative approach that takes into account individual differences in people’s genes, environments, and lifestyles.  The mission of All of Us is simple: to speed up health research and medical breakthroughs. To get there, one million or more people are needed to join in the effort. Those who join will share information about their health over time. Researchers will study this data. What they learn could improve health for generations to come.

We’re looking for student volunteers to serve as recruiters to help us reach our goals at UIC of enrolling around 6,000 participants each year for the next five years. We recruit primarily from the outpatient clinics at UI Health and also attend health fairs to spread the word about the program. We will be selecting a cohort of 6 to 8 student volunteers to begin in Spring semester 2019.

This project is right for you if you are attracted to:

• Using your excellent communication skills to approach patients in outpatient clinic waiting rooms at UI Health and asking for a few minutes of their time for you to discuss our research program.
• Describing the research program clearly and inviting people who are not familiar with the research to participate in the program.
• The option of attending health fairs to help promote the research program at community events.
• Helping interested people sign up for more information or to participate using iPads.
• Gathering information from individuals that have been historically underrepresented in research.
• Reducing health disparities.

Training Requirements:

• Complete CITI IRB Training online (approximately 1.5 hour).
• Complete HIPAA and Human Subjects Protection training online (approximately 1 hour).
• Complete All of Us Consortium Training and Quizzes online (approximately 4 hours).
• Participate in a hands on orientation training led by staff at the All of Us Program (approximately 4 hours).

Student Expectations:

• A time commitment of 3 hours per week for at least a semester but continuing involvement is possible and appreciated.
• Must obtain a UI Hospital identification badge prior to participating in the program.

What will you gain?

• Experience in the research process and knowledge about precision medicine.
• Experience interacting with socioeconomically diverse populations.
• Opportunity to work with and learn from a cohort of interprofessional students as well as health researchers.
• Students who meet the requirements will be provided with a certificate recognizing their participation.

If you would like to be considered for this program, please fill out an interest form by Friday February 08, 2019. Suzanne Hambright, Assistant Director of All of Us Research Program, will contact you about next steps. For more information, please contact Ami Shah, Project Coordinator at the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs.

This project focuses on the mental health needs of women who receive perinatal care at UI Health, a population which includes a disproportionate number of people who are low income and members of minority groups. Although rates of perinatal depression are significantly higher among economically disadvantaged women, they seek mental health services at a lower rate than women in general. The goal of this project is to validate the Computerized Adaptive Testing Tools for Mental Health (CAT-MH) a tool for screening for and diagnosis of major depression and anxiety in perinatal women.

We are looking for student volunteers to work with referred patients to administer CAT-MH and conduct the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID). Interested students can be at the undergraduate or graduate level from any health professions academic program at UIC. Students will work within the Women’s Mental Health Research Program in the Department of Psychiatry.

This project is right for you if you are interested in:

• Health disparities.
• Conducting research within an urban, diverse, clinical population.
• Combining research and clinical efforts to address gaps in mental health screening, referral and treatment for program participants.

Requirements:

• CITI training in Human Subjects Protection and Information Privacy and Security (IPS)/HIPPA.
• SCID training to validate depression and anxiety in patients through online videos and practice interviews.
• Conduct research visits with patients, either in person or over the phone.
• This project requires a minimum of a one semester time commitment with a maximum of 4 hours per week. Involvement for more than one semester is preferred.
• The first group of students will begin in January, 2019.

What will you gain?

• Experience in administering assessments and conducting interviews with socioeconomically diverse populations.
• Participation in monthly multidisciplinary Perinatal Mental Health meetings held with clinicians & researchers from the department of Psychiatry, Obstetrics & Gynecology, including nurses, midwives, social workers and the research team.

If you would like to be considered for this project, please fill out an interest form by November 30, 2018 and a member of the Women’s Mental Health Research Program will contact you with additional information in December 2018. For more information, please contact Ami Shah, Project Coordinator at the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs.