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For more information about this program please contact:

Karol Dean
Program Director, Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellowship kdean@hmprg.org


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Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program

  • Overview
  • News
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Overview

Founded in 1996, Health & Medicine’s Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program cultivates aspiring health and human services professionals to be informed, concerned, and involved with addressing health inequities. Each year, the Schweitzer Program provides 30 exceptional students with opportunities to design and implement projects to improve the health and well-being of underserved Chicago communities. Fellows’ projects often address the social determinants of health, and their activities frequently include tutoring, violence prevention, health education, healthy lifestyles promotion, and outreach to vulnerable and marginalized groups. Our Fellows for Life alumni program supports our graduates’ further development as leaders in service, and provides them with continuing networking, skill-building, and community service opportunities.

 

  • Since 1996, over 700 Chicago Schweitzer Fellows have completed more than 130,000 hours of community service at more than 150 community-based sites.
  • In 2021-22, Fellows provided 5,275 hours of service to 5,027 community members from diverse backgrounds, including people living with homelessness, undocumented immigrants, and LGBTQ+ populations.
  • 2021 marked the 25th anniversary of the Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program. We are thrilled to continue a powerful legacy of social justice in action!

The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship (ASF) was founded in 1940 to support the Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon, West Africa. That work continues now, eighty-two years later, sustaining the Hospital and training health professionals from across the globe. ASF has grown through a network of Fellowship programs across the US, immersing a diverse group of health profession students in an intensive mentored experiential learning and leadership development program designed to increase their skills and commitment to more effectively address the health needs of underserved people.

For over 30 years, the U.S. Albert Schweitzer Fellowship has prepared the next generation of professionals who will serve and empower vulnerable people to live healthier lives and create healthier communities. 

The first U.S. Fellowship began in Boston in 1991. Today, the U.S. program consists of 13 chapters, which are in Alabama, Chicago, Columbus-Athens, Dallas-Fort Worth, Detroit, Houston-Galveston, Los Angeles, New Hampshire/Vermont, New Orleans, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, San Francisco Bay Area, and Tulsa. The Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2021, has long been a leader amongst the chapters, but it is the collective power of the chapters that has made the real difference. Working together to alleviate human suffering and build the next generation of humanitarian activists, the program has supported graduate students in health care and related fields to complete more than 700,000 hours of community service and partnering with more than 1,100 community organizations and 203 academic partners.

Chapter staff work together to create best practices and foster a vibrant network of alumni who support current Fellows and one another. Graduates of the program, or Fellows for Life, are more than 4,000 strong. At every stage of their careers, these alumni respond to systemic injustice, racism, health equity disparities, and so much more. Stories of their leadership and commitment to the values of the Schweitzer Fellowship Program abound and their impact is profound.

News

  • Fellows for Life Seed Grant Application Deadline Extended to May 12th

    May 5, 2023

    Deadline extended! Fellows for Life are invited to submit proposals for seed grants of up to $3,000 to create, sustain, or build upon a year-long project to help improve the health and well-being of an underserved Chicago community. The project should be direct service oriented and should involve an existing community-based organization. The Fellow for […]

  • Health & Medicine Announces 2022 Schweitzer Seed Grant Recipients

    June 20, 2022

    Each year, the Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program offers seed grants to Fellows for Life interested in beginning, sustaining, or building on innovative community projects. Fellows for Life commit to designing, implementing, and reporting on direct service-oriented projects with existing community-based organizations. We are pleased to share our 2022-2023 Seed Grant recipients! François Blumenfeld-Kouchner, 2010-2011 […]

  • Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program Announces 2022-2023 Named Fellowship Recipients

    June 1, 2022

    Amy De La Torre, University of Illinois School of Medicine; Brice Jones, Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine; Niam Vora, University of Illinois Chicago College of Pharmacy; Austin Hwang, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; and Isaiah Brown, University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine were awarded Named Schweitzer Fellowships—distinctions within a year-long service-learning program […]

  • Health & Medicine Welcomes 2022-2023 Schweitzer Fellows

    May 26, 2022

    Twenty-eight passionate health professions graduate students have been selected for the distinguished Schweitzer Fellowship, a year-long service-learning program that helps Fellows design and implement innovative projects that help address the health needs of underserved Chicago communities. Named in honor of famed humanitarian and Nobel laureate Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program encourages […]

  • Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program Celebrates Class of 2021-2022

    May 2, 2022

    Each year, we gather to celebrate the tremendous work of our graduating Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows. We were thrilled to present our 25th class of Schweitzer Fellows — our second class to complete the Fellowship completely during the time of COVID-19 — at our Celebration of Service. Our 2021-2022 Fellows’ creativity, flexibility, and deep commitment to service […]

  • Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program Announces 2022-2023 Frank J. Indihar, MD Fellowship

    April 5, 2022

    Health & Medicine Policy Research Group and the Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program are pleased to announce the Frank J. Indihar, MD Schweitzer Fellowship. The Fellowship—named in honor of Frank Indihar, MD, whose grandniece, Kelly Moore (née Koronkowski), was a 2020-2021 Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellow—was established to provide mentorship and support for those looking to […]

  • Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program Opens 2022 Seed Grant Application

    March 16, 2022

    For the past several years, the Chicago Schweitzer Fellows Program offered seed grants to Fellows for Life interested in beginning, sustaining and/or building on innovative community projects that help underserved Chicago communities. We are pleased to continue this offer and invite Fellows for Life to apply for a 2022 Seed Grant. Schweitzer Fellows for Life […]

  • Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program Announces Named Fellowship Sponsorships Available for 2022-2023 Class

    February 1, 2022

    Looking for a meaningful way to support the next generation of aspiring health professionals? Consider sponsoring a Named Fellowship at the Health & Medicine’s Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program. For 25 years, the Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program has provided a platform for graduate students to design and implement innovative projects that improve the health […]

  • Health & Medicine Raises $2,700 on Giving Tuesday for Our Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program

    December 4, 2021

    Your generosity helped us raise more than $2,700 in one day. Thanks to all of those who participated in our Giving Tuesday campaign on November 30, 2021. Giving Tuesday is an international day of giving, and this year we jumped on board in an effort to raise funds to support our Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows […]

  • 2021-22 Chicago Schweitzer Fellows Fundraise for Health Equity Projects

    September 9, 2021

    Our 2021-22 Schweitzer Fellows have created short videos explaining their innovative public service projects that promote health equity in Chicago’s underserved communities and their wish lists of supplies and resources that will help them realize their service project goals. View the videos below and visit the Fellows’ fundraising pages here to learn more and support […]

  • Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program Announces 2021-22 Named Fellowship Recipients

    June 30, 2021

    Paige-Ashley Campbell, a medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine; Ivy Hernandez Delgado, a Master’s in Social Service Administration student at the University of Chicago; and Karen Montes, a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Nursing, were awarded Named Schweitzer Fellowships—distinctions within a year-long service-learning program that helps […]

  • Health & Medicine Welcomes 2021-22 Schweitzer Fellows

    June 23, 2021

    Twenty-eight passionate health professions graduate students have been selected for the distinguished Schweitzer Fellowship, a year-long service-learning program that helps Fellows design and implement innovative projects that help address the health needs of underserved Chicago communities. Named in honor of famed humanitarian and Nobel laureate Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program encourages […]

  • Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program: Celebrating 25 Years of Social Justice in Action

    April 19, 2021

    In 2021, we are celebrating our 25th year of the Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program at Health & Medicine Policy Research Group. In our 25 years, we’ve worked with over 670 graduate students in the Chicago area, students who have gone on to be the public health, equity, and justice-oriented nurses, physicians, social workers, optometrists, […]

  • Health & Medicine Celebrates 40 Years Advancing Health Equity and 25 Years of Social Justice in Action

    April 1, 2021

    2021 marks two significant milestones for Health & Medicine Policy Research Group. Health & Medicine was founded 40 years ago on July 23, 1981. That’s when 15 scrappy health advocates came together with the lofty goals of creating policy and systems that would improve the health of all Illinoisans by addressing past and present systemic […]

  • Health & Medicine Welcomes 2020-21 Schweitzer Fellows

    June 24, 2020

    Twenty-eight passionate health professions graduate students have been selected for the distinguished Schweitzer Fellowship – a year-long service learning program that helps Fellows design and implement innovative projects that help address the health needs of underserved Chicago communities. Named in honor of famed humanitarian and Nobel laureate Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows […]

  • Health & Medicine Welcomes 2019-20 Schweitzer Fellows

    June 25, 2019

    Thirty-one passionate health professions graduate students have been selected for the distinguished Schweitzer Fellowship – a year-long service learning program that helps Fellows design and implement innovative projects that help address the health needs of underserved Chicago communities. Named in honor of famed humanitarian and Nobel laureate Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows […]

  • Health & Medicine Welcomes 2018-19 Schweitzer Fellows

    June 7, 2018

    Thirty exceptional health professions graduate students have been selected for the prestigious Schweitzer Fellowship – a year-long service learning program that empowers Fellows to design and implement projects that help address the health needs of underserved Chicago communities. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, the Fellowship exposes students to real-world inter-professional, collaborative care and aims to develop lifelong leaders in service. The 2018-19 Fellows include students from 10 area universities and 20 academic programs, ranging from nursing to disability studies and public health. The exceptional class of Fellows was selected from a pool of almost 100 applicants through a competitive process.

  • 2017 Schweitzer Leadership Award to Honor Ai-Jen Poo

    June 5, 2017

    Health & Medicine Policy Research Group and the Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellowship Program and pleased to announce that Ai-jen Poo, Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, has been selected for the 2017 Schweitzer Leadership Award. Each year, Schweitzer Leadership Award honors and an individual who has done significant work to mitigate the social determinants of health in their community, and whose commitment to service has influenced and inspired others.