Noelle: A proud Chicagoan, dog lover, baker, hockey fan, trivia buff, painter, avid reader, and of course, a future physician.
Noelle Wojciechowski describes herself as a proud Chicagoan, dog lover, baker, hockey fan, trivia buff, painter, avid reader, and of course, a future physician.
Like many in medical school, it’s the latter descriptor she’s spent a lifetime desiring and working towards. Her interest in medicine stems partly from her father’s multiple sclerosis, diagnosed before she was born. As his disease progressed, affecting his mobility, eyesight and cognition, Wojciechowski helped her mother, a nurse, care for her father.
But a curious mind seeks answers, and Wojciechowski majored in neuroscience as an undergraduate as she attempted to better understand the workings of the brain and nervous system. Still, it was the caring side of hospital staff and doctors tending to her father that impressed her and laid the foundation for how she feels she will conduct herself as a physician.
When she was 10, she went to a summer camp for children of parents with MS. Wojciechowski had been fascinated by the activities of the hospitals she attended with her father, but the physicians who visited the summer camp were there to explain the science underlying a potentially frightening disease in terms children could understand.
“I wanted to be able to help people who were afraid or upset,” she said. “I wanted to be able to explain to them what was happening and create this partnership that I think is so unique within medicine, to be able to say, ‘This is what’s happening, and this is our plan, how we will be moving forward.’”
“I saw how caring people were and I decided I want to be like that. I want to care for people and make them feel not afraid when they are afraid,” she said.
Wojciechowski co-founded the school’s Disability Advocacy Team, a vertical interest group that reviews medical school curriculum and suggests revisions to better educate physicians on disability and chronic illness. The team also organized academic and peer support resources for Medical Campus students with disabilities. She served as co-chair for Socially Responsible Surgery, which is focused on addressing social determinants of health by screening post-operative patients and providing necessary resources for a successful discharge.