Writing Projects

Survivor's Guilt

By Chris Gummert

I didn’t leave the company, the company left me. But somehow all of us ended up at the company holiday party the week after we were fired. The holiday party was one of those things that got put on hold while our lives and livelihoods were being sorted out.

“Are you going to the holiday party?

“Let’s see if I still work here then.”

Turns out it didn’t matter. As a goodwill gesture the people who were let go were all still invited. The company’s “goodwill” put everyone in a very awkward position. It seemed garish to the dead to even have a party after what happened, but by the same token it seemed heartless for the living not to have one.

So for one night the ghosts of employees past mingled with the skeleton crew that remained behind. I wasn’t sure if I was going to go. As I walked into the bar I wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision. No one was sure what to do, how to act. I felt invisible and fluorescent at the same time. It was every “naked in class” dream sprung to life.

After a few tentative steps into the fray I found myself a comfortable spot in the back of the bar. Away from the door, out of the spotlight. Protected by a small layer of friends. Hiding out in plain sight.

Everything was familiar, but different. People weren’t sure if they were allowed to be happy around me. Everyone approached like I was contagious. Small talk took on a tremendous weight. Every answer was weighed and measured for sarcasm and indignation. Each reply was scanned for the smallest traces of regret or bitterness. The whole bar had me on suicide watch. It was a vicious circle. The more unsettled they were by my presence the more animated and friendly I became which scared them all the more. I was a caricature of coping and overcompensating.

As the night wore on I found myself performing confessionals for people. This is where I first encountered the term “survivor’s guilt.” People would flag me down and actually apologize for still having a job.

At first I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. I was flattered by their misguided loyalty and overwhelming guilt complex. I didn’t know what to say. On more than one occasion I found myself actually making a case for my dismissal.

I heard every variation of “why do bad things happen to good people?” I would assure them I had no hard feelings toward them and that they should feel happy to have a job at all.

“It’s not your fault I got fired.” More smiling.

More nodding. More pleasantries. Twenty “Hail Mary’s” and ten “Our Father’s.”

It was my firing all over again playing out in a new location with ongoing cast changes. It was my story, but it wasn’t about me. I was there for them. To make THEM feel better. To allow THEM to work through their feelings. To allow THEM to come to grips with their place in this mess. I was there to assure everyone that it was going to be alright. That I would be fine. That things would work out for the best. Assure and reassure. Assuage them of their guilt.

I’m not sure if I believed what I was telling them or if I was simply trying to reassure myself through their ears. Like saying it aloud enough times would make it real. An incantation against future misfortune. Preemptive strike on doubt and fear that I knew would come. It’s not the type of magical thinking I normally engage in, but it seemed appropriate. Necessary. Like a dark fairy tale we all needed to believe. If I could get us all to clap loud enough maybe we could save Tinkerbell and everyone would be alright. We all just need to BELIEVE children!

A much darker part of me wanted to cause a scene. Make people uncomfortable. Say all those things that I wanted to say when I’d been fired. I wanted to tell off the people I’d never liked, complain about every management decision I’d ever disagreed with and tell them all the ways they are running the company into the ground. I wanted to burn the bridges and everyone who used them. I wanted to scream at all the people complaining about the reorganization at work, “at least you have a job to hate!”

I wanted to hear the place was a disaster without me.

I wanted to hear I was irreplaceable.

I wanted to hear that people resigned in protest.

I wanted to hear that they couldn’t survive without me.

I wanted to hear they’d closed the doors.

I wanted to hear that the earth had opened up and reclaimed the building.

I wanted to feel as important as I’d felt when I was working there. Instead I was on the business end of apologies and awkward posturing. I came to relive the job I love and say goodbye to it one last time. But my very presence is making people uncomfortable. I should have stayed home. Maybe. I don’t know. I have no template for dealing with this. I am making this up as I go. I’ve never loved any job I’ve ever had, until this job. I’ve never felt any significant bond with any of my co-workers, until this job. And I’ve never felt as blindsided and betrayed by any firing as I did at this job. I am in virgin territory here, stabbing in the dark.

Occasionally someone will throw me a softball over the plate. Like when Mark walked up to me and opened with, “Hey dummy!” That I know how to deal with! That I have experience with! For better or worse, that is the essence of my relationship with Mark. I fire back something equally pithy like, “Hey jerkface!” and we are off and running! And for a while I am back. I am in there. I am mixing it up. No kid gloves! No one tiptoeing around my feelings! Mark sees me for who I am, who I always was. Whether it was a conscious decision by Mark to treat me the same way as always or he was a thoughtless jerk who forgot I was fired doesn’t matter. The outcome is the same. In that moment I transcend my circumstances. I am not a tragic firing or an organizational mistake. I am not a charity case. I am an actual person. A person who needs to be heard more than he needs to be diagnosed, pitied or saved.

As stupid as it sounds, it meant the world to me to have Mark calling me names. It told me I’d been accepted for who I was, not just for the job I did. I wasn’t just a nameless drone holding a place. I was seen. Noticed. It reminded me that everything was right once and, under the right conditions, could be again. Between confessional and name-calling I started to get a picture of who I was to these people. It was just another layer of oddity in a supremely peculiar evening, but I realized that I was never so popular as when I was already gone. Freed of the burden of ever having to see me again people would open up in a way they never would ordinarily. I heard the most remarkable stories about myself. Stories about what people enjoyed and what they would miss. Stories about things I didn’t even remember doing. I found out that I affected people in ways I never imagined.

All told it was the best wake I’ve ever been to. I just wish I was on the other side of the casket.

Sense of Sight: The Pictures in your Head

by Chris Gummert

The first camera ever invented, dating back to roughly 400 B.C.E., is called the camera obscura. It's simply a wooden box with a hole in it. But it momentarily captures images. Light coming into the darkened box projects an upside down picture on the rear wall of the camera, a picture of whatever the hole is pointing toward. Point it at a flower, you get an upside down flower picture. Tree; upside down tree. Pineapple cake...you get the picture. Not too bad for a box with a hole and exactly zero moving parts.

Our sense of sight works in pretty much the same way, but with more moving parts and a lot less wood. Simply put, our eyes use reflected light to create an image. Light enters the eye through a small hole called the pupil. It's located in the center of the iris, the colored part of the eye. Unlike the camera obscura's single hole though, the pupil will change in size depending on the available light. In a dark room the pupil opens wide to take in as much light as possible. In bright light it becomes smaller. Next the light passes through the lens of the eye. The lens serves to focus the light onto a spot on the back of the eye called the retina.

Think of the inside of the eye like a tiny movie theater, but much cleaner. The pupil and lens are the projection booth, the light is the movie and the retina is the screen. The retina is coated with specialized cells called rods and cones. Rods judge how intense the light is, while cones figure out what colors are present in the picture and send that information to the brain. The firing of rods and cones is extremely fast, but not quite fast enough to be constant so our brain is supplied with a series of rapidly-updated still pictures. In between pictures your mind retains a brief after-image that overlaps with the next. That overlap is enough to trick your mind into believing it is seeing constant, fluid motion. This is also how animation works.

So from the moment you open your eyes in the morning until you go to bed at night your brain is watching the world's longest running cartoon.

UIC College of Pharmacy
Chris Gummert
cgummert@uic.edu
(312) 996 7785

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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Dr. Dima Qato Named ​Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar​

Dr. Dima Qato, Assistant Professor at the UIC College of Pharmacy, has been selected as a 2017-2018 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is the nation’s largest philanthropy dedicated solely to health. Founded in 1972, the foundation has supported research and programs targeting some of America’s most pressing health issues—from substance abuse to improving access to quality health care.

Dr. Qato and her team will receive an award for the RWJF of $210,000 to improve access to prescription drugs for residents living in communities on Chicago’s West and South Sides, areas affected by pharmacy closures. These areas are commonly referred to as pharmacy deserts. The goal is to establish a "pharmacy referral" service where prescriptions are filled and then delivered to patients in need at participating community health centers. This will require a partnership with local pharmacies and community health centers and the support of Community Health Liaisons.

Dr. Qato will also collaborate with local public health and policy officials, and pharmacy organizations to address the problem of pharmacy closures by advocating for legislative changes that prevent closures from occurring in the first place. Dr. Qato and her team will also begin an initiative to strengthen the capacity of existing CHCs located in pharmacy deserts to expand their services to include an on-site pharmacy. 

"This award will allow our work on underserved populations continue uninterrupted," Qato said. "Our hope is to bring equal access to healthcare to all populations, regardless of the income level."

Dr. Shannon Zenk, Professor from the Department Health Systems Science is a co-investigator for this award.​

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Creating impact is what every educator and researcher hopes to achieve. Impacting a student, impacting ideas, impacting the profession is what we strive to do every day at the UIC College of Pharmacy. And generous gifts like yours make that impact all the more powerful. Thank you so much for your donation of $500 to the DuBow Scholarship Fund. You and your gift are helping us impact the future of pharmacy!​

Scholarships have a major impact on student recruitment. Offering a scholarship makes us more competitive with the increasing number of pharmacy school options available to students. Contributing to the DuBow Scholarship Fund ensures top students attend to our world-class institution.

We really appreciate our vibrant alumni community and your dedication to the College. If you’d like to learn even more about what is happening on campus go to our recently revamped website, pharmacy.uic.edu, or check us out on your favorite social media platform.

Thanks to supporters like you there is ALWAYS something going on.

Sincerely,

Marieke D. Schoen, PharmD, 1988
Vice Dean
Associate Dean, Academic Affairs

Diversifying Pharmacy’s Future Talent Pipeline​

An Invitation to Invest in Pharmacy Care for Underserved Communities by Creating the CVS Health Urban Scholars Program

The pharmacy needs of the nation are always changing. Having been in the business of educating pharmacists since 1859, we know this better than most. Today underserved populations routinely suffer greater chronic health problems simply because they cannot find a pharmacist who speaks their language. At the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) we are actively working to combat these heath care disparities.

The UIC College of Pharmacy’s Urban Pharmacy (UPHARM) Program trains the leaders of tomorrow to work specifically in underserved communities. Pharmacists from a diverse array of backgrounds are given a thorough grounding in the social, environmental and economic factors impacting the communities they will serve. They receive additional training on diseases and medical conditions prevalent in urban settings, and must be fluent in a second language.

The UPHARM Program is preparing future pharmacists to work in the places they’re needed most, and, with your help, we’ll do even more! The CVS Health Urban Scholars Program would help recruit and retain amazing students who want to take on this monumental task.

Context and Community – Why We Care

“UIC’s mission is…to train professionals in a wide range of public service disciplines, serving Illinois as the principal educator of health science professionals and as a major health care provider to underserved communities.”

- UIC Mission Statement

Serving the public, especially underserved communities, is so central to our outlook as a University that it is written into our mission statement. And that is something we take very seriously at the College of Pharmacy. It is not a fashionable mantle we take up as the need arises, it is who we have always been. A mission of inclusion and service is central to everything we do.

Earlier this year, the College of Pharmacy reached an agreement with the City Colleges of Chicago that will guarantee admission of talented CCC students into the UIC College of Pharmacy, the #6 ranked college of pharmacy in the country according to US News and World Report.

Beginning this fall, five places will be reserved each year for qualified students who intend to complete a Doctor of Pharmacy degree. Applicants must maintain a full course load at CCC and have at least a 3.5 GPA, have completed all pre-pharmacy coursework at CCC, and receive at least a “B” in all prerequisite pharmacy courses.

CCC is the largest community college system in Illinois and one of the largest in the nation, with 5,500 faculty and staff serving more than 100,000 students annually at seven colleges and six satellite sites across the city. Colleges include Harold Washington, Harry S Truman, Kennedy-King, Malcolm X, Olive-Harvey, Richard J. Daley and Wilbur Wright.  We believe this partnership will greatly increase our percentage of bilingual and minority students.

UIC is also deeply engrained in the Hispanic community of Chicago. In fact, 28.2% of the undergraduate students at UIC are Hispanic. UIC has record enrollment for this fall with more than 29,000 students and the incoming freshman class (3,485) is 20.8% Hispanic.

The UIC College of Pharmacy is located just north of the Pilsen neighborhood, a historically Hispanic district of Chicago. Our address has given us unprecedented access to the nearby Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy and the UIC College Prep High School. The UIC College Prep High School’s students are predominantly Hispanic (67%), and the Career Academy was created by the Instituto del Progreso Latino specifically to prepare students for a college education in the health sciences.

We are also located mere blocks away from the Mexican Consulate of Chicago where we participate in Latin American Health Week. The UIC College of Pharmacy is a proud member of the Hispanic-Serving Health Professions Schools, and were the first pharmacy school to join their ranks.

This is where we are and what we do. Serving the underserved is our mission. And a Hispanic neighborhood is where we live and work every day.

Recruitment and Retention – How We Care

The UIC College of Pharmacy has created meaningful inroads into many underserved communities, and the groundwork is laid long before the UPHARM Program.  The Urban Pipeline Program (UPP) is for students in designated health sciences high schools in the City of Chicago. Juniors in the Chicago Public School system apply for chance to be in the program. Applicants must have two letters of recommendation, a 3.0 GPA and pass an entrance interview to be admitted to the program. The UPP combines classwork, mentorship and even an internship at local pharmacies, in order to prepare students for a career in pharmacy. At the end of their senior year, the UPP students become Certified Pharmacy Technicians.

We also recruit heavily from within our own undergraduate population, which is over one quarter Hispanic. Today, there are over 27 pre-pharmacy students who are part of the Honors College at UIC.  This is a diverse and talented group, one we pay close attention to.

As mentioned, UIC’s enrollment is growing, partly due to the university’s recent partnership (2015) with the City Colleges of Chicago on a program called Star Scholars. The program rewards qualified Chicago Public School graduates with a two-year tuition assistance scholarship to one of the City Colleges of Chicago. Upon completion of the City Colleges program, successful candidates are given a similar scholarship to UIC.

But the crowning achievement is still the UPHARM Program. UPHARM graduates receive the same great pharmacy education as their peers, but also focus on problems unique to underserved communities like the social determinants of health. The students learn how factors like health policy, economic status and race (among others) can effect healthcare decisions. And then they are given a chance to put that training into practice with community outreach programs.

Each year the UPHARM program performs much-needed community outreach programs. Last year alone they engaged in 50 hours of community service in underserved communities that engaged 150 people. These projects routinely involve meeting with local officials and community groups to determine the needs of the community, and then creating a coalition of organizations to deliver them. This creates many joint efforts between the College of Pharmacy and local organizations, but also provides real world experience providing health leadership in an underserved community.

Through our programs, we are making sure the right people are in all the right places.

Ingenuity and Improvement – How We Can Care for More

We intend to greatly expand the UPHARM program.  A partnership with the CVS Health and establishment of the CVS Health Urban Scholars Program will be a powerful tool in accomplishing that goal. It will serve as a powerful resource for attracting, retaining and graduating the world’s most talented pharmacists: pharmacists with cultural competency skills, pharmacists who will change the pharmacy workforce, and pharmacists who will contribute to CVS Health’s urban mission.

An investment of $48,000 a year over a five-year period ($240,000 total) from CVS will create The CVS Health Urban Scholars Program. With that, we can award six $8,000 scholarships a year to qualifying applicants. To qualify, a UPHARM applicant will need a PCAT score in the 90th percentile (or higher) or a pre-pharmacy GPA of no less than 3.5 on a 4 point scale and interested in working in urban and underserved communities.

With your investment, we could create even more pharmacists devoted to eliminating health disparities in underserved neighborhoods.

Programs, People and Purpose – Hope For The Future

The UIC College of Pharmacy is, literally, on a mission to help underserved populations and is perfectly positioned to do so. Our programs, our people, our purpose, everything in our make-up is driving us in this direction. But we can only do so much. As a public institution, our hands are tied by many outside economic forces. And that is why we look to partnerships like the CVS Health Urban Scholars Program.

The CVS Health Urban Scholars Program creates scholarships, but it is so much more.

It creates hope for communities who have lost it.

It creates change in a system that desperately needs reform.

It creates a better world for all.

And that is the world that we want to live in.