Of Revolutionary Change- in Conshohocken

Sometimes, things don’t go as planned.

I’m staring out the window of my attic room, feeling a bit like the Little Princess. I’m living for the next three weeks in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, and already, I can feel the difference. There’s so much quiet on the street… good for time to reflect on the plans that took so long to construct and validate, now gone.

I had originally intended to go to Camden, NJ to work with the Camden Coalition and the adjacent Lourdes Hospital to learn more about healthcare pre- and post-emergency room. But sometimes, a dime turns on its head and life changes. Plans have to adapt and evolve, emails have to be sent, and phone calls made. After feeling like a CEO with the amount of emails, texts, and phone messages (the last a medium I am unused to), I have a new plan. In the next few weeks, I’ll be shadowing and volunteering at Pennsylvania Presbyterian MICU, interviewing members of the Camden Coalition, and traveling to nonprofit organizations to find out more about the Philadelphia-Camden idea of preventative healthcare through service-learning and interviews. I’ll also be researching a monumental change in our governmental healthcare system, a reform to Medicare entitled the Medicare Access CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) and Reauthorization Act, through a health policy professor at Rutgers University.