Doctors Learn About the South Side of Chicago
Chicago Center is helping the University of Chicago Hospital’s newest Residents of the Friends Family Health Center and Section of Emergency Medicine learn about their new community.
Through the Center’s LearnChicago! Program, these doctors are being introduced to the South Side by Arvis Averette, U of C alum and Chicago Center Social Work Director (standing at the rear of the group in this picture).
Arvis has introduced the South Side to about 60 Residents in the past few weeks, covering the cultural institutions, history, politics and economics. “I try to show them about the health of our communities on this tour too,” says Arvis. Encompassing many middle- and upper- class neighborhoods, the South Side is also home to realities such as ‘food deserts’ (nowhere to buy healthy or fresh food) and environmental dangers for some neighborhoods built on old sewage dumps.
“Another thing that I think is very positive is that a lot of these doctors are now making their home in the city, and on the South Side. Two or three years ago, most of this group would have been commuting in from the suburbs. Now many of them live in Woodlawn.”