Esprit de Chicago Health Corps

Esprit de corps is a French military phrase that translates as spirit of the corps. It refers to a military unit's morale and sense of shared purpose. Often associated with the French Foreign Legion, this phrase highlights how a group of individuals can come together despite their vast differences and function together both coherently and amicably. When the 2015-2016 members of the Chicago Health Corps (CHC) met for the first time during Pre-Service Orientation (PSO), we knew very little about each other. As we began to introduce ourselves, it became clear that we were a very different group with many distinct experiences. We hail from eight different states, represent different faiths and ethnicities, and have different educational backgrounds. We attended prestigious private universities, small liberal arts colleges and large state institutions where we studied the gamut of our university's catalogs. We also represent a variety of career paths including medicine, social work, nursing, dentistry and public health. In a sense, our corps is a miniaturized version of the public health field. Despite these differences, throughout PSO we began the process of building this esprit de corps that is necessary for our success here with the CHC.

PSO started off much like any other orientation—paperwork, icebreakers and team building exercises. The paperwork, as it has since time immemorial, united us in our frustration of bureaucracy. Similarly, the icebreakers and team building exercises inspired many jokes but served an important and practical purpose. We did not know each other, and these exercises gave us a chance to learn each other's quirks, senses of humor and life experiences. Friendships began to develop, and this growing sense of camaraderie helped foster deep and meaningful conversations in our Cultural Foundations and Health Disparities sessions. We often had different points of view and unique ways of dissecting problems, but this mirrors the diverse field of public health where physicians work alongside statisticians, educators and administrators to solve problems on a community-wide scale. These differences helped us realize the diversity of opinions that we hold as a group and, more importantly, the passions that we share for social justice and health equity. During PSO we also had a very frank and open discussion about what we expected and needed from our fellow corps members throughout our term of service. This discussion helped set our expectations for the service term and gives us a way to evaluate how we are meeting the corps' needs.

Our fellow corps members will be integral to our success throughout the service term, and our experiences during PSO have helped prepare us to work together cooperatively. As members of the public health field, we must make use of our varied interests and perspectives. Together we can foster relationships between our respective host organizations, and perhaps more importantly, support each other through personal and professional challenges. Like the diverse field of public health, CHC varies in our academic backgrounds and professional goals, but we are united in our goal to create healthier communities. PSO helped us recognize this shared purpose and formed the basis of our esprit de corps.

This post was written by Taylor Cox.

Taylor serves at Heartland Health Centers-Hibbard as a Health Promoter.