June 4, 5, & 6

This has been a very busy past few days filled with wonderful opportunities.  The internet has some limitations therefore I do not have any pictures that can be uploaded at this time, but please check out the student's blog links on the left for more details of these days I am capturing briefly below:

June 4 (Tuesday) We had a busy day at Cherokee Indian Hospital beginning at 0730 to 1615. The students each had rotations through Inpatient, Outpatient, ER.  We had a lunch with the nurse Educator in the park near the hospital.   After clinical we had some good home cooking for supper at our cabin, we went to see the Mountainside  Outdoor Theatre to watch the presentation of "Unto these Hills".  It was a long day but the students had the opportunity to grasp more history and how it plays a part of the current issues and trends in this community. 

June 5 (Wednesday) Lots of driving through curvy roads to a rural region of the Qualla Boundary (Snowbird, near Robbinsville, NC) to the Residential Recovery Center. After supper, the students packed up the donations of school supplies and took them to the Macedonia Baptist Cherokee Church, where the students had an opportunity to observe a church service and interact with people in the local community. 

June 6 (Thursday) Traveled to Asheville, NC to Mission Children's Hospital.  We toured the general peds unit, PICU, NICU and Reuter clinic.  What a phenomenal place to work as patients are the center of care in all the areas we observed. Find out how inspiring this was in the student's blog! After our tours, the students had the opportunity to shop and dine downtown. 

June 2 & June 3

June 2, 2019  "These are My People"

On this day we toured the Museum of Appalachia along with the rural health class located in Clinton, TN.  Right away students learned it is pronounced Appa- LATCH-uh if you are from the area.  If you pronounce it like Appa-LAY- shuh, you are describing the mountain range or you are clearly not from "these parts".

The region encompasses several states that are among the Appalachian mountain range. Some states are more "core Appalachian", based on the region.  The core Appalachian states are parts of NC, KY, TN, VA, GA and all of WV.  When people think of people from Appalachia , the image that comes to mind may greatly vary based on one's experience or lack of experience with individuals that are considered Appalachian.  Some may use stereotypes terms like "backwoods", "introverted", "backward", "hillbilly", "poor", "redneck","uneducated" or even "inbred" to describe people from the Appalachia region.  These are derogatory terms often used by people who do not truly know of the people from these areas and their rich history. 

While I was not directly raised in Appalachia country, it is in my roots.  My father and his family are all from West Virginia. I have been blessed with many fond memories of interactions with family and people of this region.  While I learned many were poor, as they were living far below the poverty line, as a kid, I didn't recognize this.  In fact, the sense of family and kindness was so apparent, with lots of waving, manners, smiles and helpful attitudes, I hated coming back to Illinois where I didn't see this as much. 

My father came to Illinois from the Appalachia region of WV at age 18 because he didn't want to work in a coal mine and dependable work was scarce. He literally hitchiked with a bag of clothes and $50 to Peoria, IL as he heard about the posssibiites of Caterpillar. Eventually he landed a job there after working at a fuel station. Although he has been retired for the last 18 years, he continues to work hard.  One thing he has noticed over the years in this area is the continued lack of work for many people in this region.  These once proud people, in his words, have became "dependent of food stamps" and "lost their pride".  I would be interested to know if anyone else would correlate "no work, no pride" to some societal issues?

 If you would ask me to make generalizations based on 45 years of interacting with people from this region this is my list:  hard working, kind, church going, God fearing, self sustaining, possess high amounts of ingenuity, hospitable, modest, family oriented, grow their own food, have a fun sense of humor, musically talented, patriotic & stubborn. 

While students had the opportunity to see pictures from Appalachia today, I thought I would share some photos from my family in the Appalachia region.  Many did not have much of an education but they had life skills.  I am a first generation college student and the the first college graduate in my entire family on my fathers side. While that may sound like I have "made it", I do not posess the ingenuity that was in my grandfathers and father's generation who could fix anything, and wouldn't give up until it was done right! 

My Great Great Grandma

See any safety concerns? 

My Grandma, her sister in law (holding little baby), 3 of the 5 kids pictured here.  My dad likely trying to get away in this photo. 

 

...and the beat goes on!

My Grandma and her brothers.  None could read music, but they could pick up any instrument and play it.  Something that didn't leave her, even after she was diagnosed with Alzheimers and didn't recognize her family any more. Music is definitely powerful! 

June 3, 2019  Cherokee Culture & Generosity

We had orientation and a tour at the Cherokee Indian Hospital and explored the culture by going to the museums and Ocanaluftee Indian Village. We recieved a gracious gift on this day as the hospital arranged for us to have free admission to the museum, and Indian Village!  This was very kind and meaningful for all of us, and displays the type of people we have the privelege to learn from!  

As it is expected to rain half way through our week, we took advantage of the evening and some of us went for a float ride.   Please check the student's blogs for more postings and details about this  day's events.  If you want to see a clip of our adventure...please check this out!   

(students provided me permission to post and the student was rescued.  Definitely making fun memories here! )

Arrived to Powell, TN June 1, 2019

After some critical thinking bright and early June 1st- the students made more room in our 15 passenger van by leaving the entire back seat at the college.  Don't be alarmed, everyone has room and a seatbelt available.  

 Definitely having fun with Mrs. Riney as chaperone (AKA:  "Mama Bear")

The evening of June 1st at 6pm EST, we arrived to the Holiday Inn Express in Powell, TN.  Our day of travel was a few minutes short of 10 hours including a few stops for food and gas.  The highlight of my trip was the singing that transpired throughout the van when we got close to Tennessee. Mrs. Riney played "Rocky Top" using her Apple music app to expose everyone to a bit of music inspired by this area from the 1960's.  I'm not sure we are going to go on the road with it, but everyone was awake by the time the song ended. If you aren't sure if you have heard it or not, click below to experience it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n9prNixjbg&list=RD_n9prNixjbg&index=1

The weather was sunny and traffic not as heavy as I have encountered on this journey in the past.  The students are terrific! Several of us ate at the COOK OUT chain for the first time today.  Personally I was impressed, and probably more hungry than I thought. My order consisted of a grilled cajun chicken sandwich, cole slaw, onion rings and a chocolate malt all for under $7! Not the healthiest of choices, but it was certainly delicious!  (This is also the first time I am also going to include blogging about food in my 4 years of coming here- so all you foodies out there, more to come).

https://cookout.com/

I have not had the opportunity to explore the Appalachia Museum and looking forward to this later today, so more to come!

Take a look at what the students have to say so far about their experience by clicking their names on the left hand side of the page. 

I know so many students have been waiting for this journey since late last year...in less than 8 hours we are embarking on the beginning of our travels.  The past couple weeks there has been training, packing & prepping for this.  What a wonderful adventure it will be as we learn together more about how culture, environment & family affect pediatrics. 

 First Day of Pre-travel class with BLS refresher before Simulation

 Some of the crew loading up donations in my car.

 LET'S ROLL!  

 No UHAUL this year to pull- Mr. G loading up!

We may have went over our 4 totes I promised him...

Going to pick up the BIG vans at the airport...