University of Chicago Medicine is
a unique academic medical center.
Patients seek us out because they certainly
have complex illnesses.
But they also have illnesses that are life-threatening
and very stressful for them.
The reason they come to University
of Chicago Medicine is we offer, not only just
innovative therapies for patients,
novel therapies for patients, you
will get a view into tomorrow's therapies here today.
I think the University of Chicago
prides itself in being able to provide a welcoming environment
for people who have ideas that are unconventional.
And our campus has many people who don't quite fit
into the conventional boxes.
But they are innovative.
They're creative.
They've got interesting new ideas.
They challenge existing paradigms
in creative and constructive ways.
We, at the University of Chicago Medicine
within the international program,
want to make sure that patients from all over the world
can get access to some of the best care here.
We're recognized as one of the top teaching
hospitals in the nation.
We have a variety of clinical centers of excellence.
And just to name a few, we have a designated comprehensive
Cancer Center.
We have a Heart and Vascular Center,
with transplant outcomes that are
some of the best in the state of Illinois right now.
We have a world class woman in pediatric center.
So from a clinical perspective, we
have state of the art care for our patients.
We recognize it's hard for patients to leave their homes
and come here for care.
And when possible, we try to keep patients
in their own homes for care.
But when they can't, and we recognize
that we have a therapy, or we have some kind of a procedure,
or a clinical innovation that will help a patient based
on the condition that they have, we
do what we can to make sure that we get them the best care here.
So for every single patient who wish
to come to University of Chicago Medicine, when they first
submit their request to us with their clinical records,
so I first review these records and making sure
they are sent to the appropriate specialist for review.
So here we making sure everyone's cases
is triaged to the right person.
And we want to make sure we can make a difference.
So if after review there's any treatment options that's
not available in home country that we can offer here,
we will go ahead and let the patients know.
We pride ourselves to have a state of the art, five star
level guest services unit for international patients.
What we do is we start communicating
with the patient prior to arrival to the United States.
We work with them on understanding their needs
from housing standpoint.
And we give them an area of--
area of choices on where to stay,
depending on their preference.
So we are able to place our patients in hotels,
in extended stays, in corporate housing.
Upon arrival, we have a tailored meet and greet service
for every single patient in the airport.
So that when the patient arrives to land in Chicago,
we have a team that will go and pickup the patient,
drop them free of charge at their destination
here in Chicago, check them in also in there--
wherever they're staying, whether it's corporate housing
or whether it's hotel.
We set up their cell phone service.
We set up their banking.
And then we give them guidance about ethnic grocery to them.
If they're looking for worship places,
we guide them through that.
Basically we answer all the questions that they have.
Anything that is not clinical, the guest services unit
is in charge of.
So as an international program coordinator,
I am a like a liaison.
I act as like a--
I connect the patient with our physician,
our care team here, and the embassy,
which is the guarantor.
All of us coordinators are also certified interpreters.
In addition to having interpreter services,
we have in-person interpreters.
And we also have over the phone, 24/7,
and iPads available to our inpatients.
We put them in the room.
We stay in communication.
We would remind them about their appointment the day before.
If there's any instructions, any labs, any results,
anything like that, so we always touch base with them,
just to ensure that patient understands their plan of care
from every aspect and facilitate communication
between them and our care team.
Everything was arranged, basically,
from the ambulance since we started coming here.
They offered as well to give us accommodation.
They provided a social worker to communicate with us.
And of course, Claudia was daily with us, talking to us.
Even if we are not there, she was--
she would visit Sulaimon every day.
We would talk to her to communicate with other doctors.
If she had any comments or complaint,
I would go back to her.
So everybody was helpful and professional and emotional
at the same time.
So I'd like to thank them all, you know,
all the staff, medical, nurses, social worker,
everybody actually was doing a great job.