Feinberg
Northwestern Medicine | Northwestern University | Faculty Profiles

News Center

  • Categories
    • Campus News
    • Disease Discoveries
    • Clinical Breakthroughs
    • Education News
    • Scientific Advances
  • Press Releases
  • Media Coverage
  • Podcasts
  • Editor’s Picks
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Cancer
    • Neurology and Neuroscience
    • Aging and Longevity
    • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
  • News Archives
  • About Us
    • Media Contact
    • Share Your News
    • News Feeds
    • Social Media
    • Contact Us
Menu
  • Categories
    • Campus News
    • Disease Discoveries
    • Clinical Breakthroughs
    • Education News
    • Scientific Advances
  • Press Releases
  • Media Coverage
  • Podcasts
  • Editor’s Picks
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Cancer
    • Neurology and Neuroscience
    • Aging and Longevity
    • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
  • News Archives
  • About Us
    • Media Contact
    • Share Your News
    • News Feeds
    • Social Media
    • Contact Us
Home » Students Gather in Support of Affordable Care Act
Campus News

Students Gather in Support of Affordable Care Act

By Anna WilliamsFeb 3, 2017
Share
Facebook Twitter Email
whitecoatcarpet-7
Feinberg medical students lay down their white coats in a symbolic gesture of support for the Affordable Care Act. Image: Wil Gibb

Close to 200 medical students laid down their white coats on the floor of the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center on Monday, in a symbolic gesture forming a white carpet in support of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The rally, called “White Coats for Coverage,” urged Illinois legislators to maintain the state’s healthcare coverage and protested a national repeal of the ACA, which student organizers felt would “pull the carpet out from under our patients’ feet,” said Jordan Rook, a second-year medical student who organized the event.

Michelle Gorecki, Andrea Henricks and Arturo Salow — all second-year medical students — were co-organizers. They are part of a group of about 20 students who have been regularly meeting since November’s presidential election to discuss courses of action in support of health equity.

“There’s been a lot of discontent about some of this administration’s decisions about healthcare. The ACA may be flawed, but it works,” Rook said. “We wanted to give students a way to channel some of that discontent, by simply laying down their white coats to show how much this matters. And they really showed up.”

The white coat demonstration was inspired by #ProtectOurPatients, a national grassroots organization of healthcare professionals opposed to the repeal of the ACA, but was intended to demonstrate support among medical students in Illinois specifically.

arturo
Arturo Salow, a second-year medical student and co-organizer of the event, speaks out at the “White Coats for Coverage” rally in support of the Affordable Care Act.

“Our general philosophy is that our voices will be most effectively heard at the state and local levels,” said Stephen Whitfield, a medical student who also assisted with the event. “Our main aims are to protect Medicaid expansion, healthcare subsidies and pre-existing coverage within the state of Illinois, under Illinois law.”

A petition with those demands, authored by the event co-organizers, has since gathered more than 700 signatures from 11 medical schools in Illinois, and will soon be sent to state officials.

­Other speakers at the event included Noelle Martinez, a third-year medical student; a representative from the office of U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.); Bruce Henschen, ’12 MD, ’12 MPH, ’15 GME, assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics; and Matthew Davis, MD, MAPP, Professor of Pediatrics and head of the Division of Academic General Pediatrics and Primary Care at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

“We hope this inspires an ongoing, persistent engagement among medical students,” Whitfield said. “Through the petition, we’ve now built a network of about a dozen other medical schools in the state who are interested in this type of action. Today was a very important immediate initiative for us, but it’s just the beginning of our engagement, and we’re hoping events like this will become more commonplace in the future.”

Events Medical Education Public Health Students
Share. Facebook Twitter Email

Related Posts

AOA Honors New Members

Mar 20, 2023

Celebrating Feinberg’s 2023 Match Day

Mar 17, 2023

Future Directions in Continuing Medical Education

Mar 14, 2023

Comments are closed.

Latest News

Pre-Surgery Immunotherapy May Increase Survival in Advanced Melanoma

Mar 23, 2023

Hormone Therapy Plus Current Treatments Improves Survival in Prostate Cancer

Mar 22, 2023

How ChatGPT Has, and Will Continue to, Transform Scientific Research

Mar 21, 2023

New Directions for HIV Treatment

Mar 21, 2023

Humans are Not Just Big Mice: Identifying Science’s Muscle-Scaling Problem

Mar 20, 2023
  • News Center Home
  • Categories
  • Press Release
  • Media Coverage
  • Editor’s Picks
  • News Archives
  • About Us
Flickr Photos
20230315_NM036
20230315_NM046
20230315_NM134
20230315_NM205
20230315_NM206
20230315_NM132
20230315_NM130
20230315_NM082
20230315_NM063
20230315_NM058
20230315_NM030
20230315_NM038

Northwestern University logo

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

RSS Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Flickr YouTube Instagram
Copyright © 2023 Northwestern University
  • Contact Northwestern University
  • Disclaimer
  • Campus Emergency Information
  • Policy Statements

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.