By Kimrey Van Perre
My friends have been called “courageous” for sharing their plight as undocumented students with the US Congress. They have been called “DREAMers” due to the Dream Act that has been repeatedly introduced in Congress but never passed. I call them “selfless” and “unrelenting” in their commitment to the medically underserved despite their uncertain legal status.
I am a 3rd year medical student at the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine (SSOM). I am not a DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) student. I was born a US citizen. But many of my friends at SSOM are DACA students. Their families, like mine generations ago, immigrated to this country. They wanted their children to have opportunities and to grow up in a safe and stable country…
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Good afternoon, my name is Kamaal Jones and I am a first year medical student here at Stritch. I first would like to briefly acknowledge all those involved in making today happen, specifically Chizelle Rush, who really took the lead in mobilizing and organizing us for this event. Today we, along with over 1000 medical students across the nation, are here to stand in solidarity with the recent protests which have captivated our country. For those who may lack some familiarity, these demonstrations have been born from a long history of issues with racial profiling and police violence in our society, and specifically, the grossly disproportionate levels at which the lives of Black and Brown people are taken by officers in this nation. The tipping point which has served as the catalyst for these most recent events was the August 9th killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, as well as the July 17th killing of an unarmed man named Eric Garner by an NYPD officer in Staten Island, NY. In both of these incidents, Grand Jury’s decided not to seek any charges against the officers…
Reflective MedEd 