At the recent Bank of America Chicago Marathon on October 13, students from National University were involved in several different ways.

DC interns from the NUHS Whole Health Center – Chicago provided post-race stretching and manual therapy to marathon participants from the Chicago Diabetes Project. The goal of the Project’s runners, dubbed “Team Cellmates,” is to let diabetics live without fear of blindness, stroke, heart attack, kidney failure or loss of a limb. All of money raised by Team Cellmates goes directly toward funding clinical trials and future research.

NUHS interns at the marathon working with the Chicago Diabetes Project included: Michael Widmann and Steve Stachura (left), Jeffrey Jones (right), Chuck Nemeh, Peter Neofotistos, Adam Mozdzien, Brad Backhaus, Tameka Lewis, Candace Gesicki, Tulia Rubero.

“Since I have many family members that have diabetes, I loved the opportunity to contribute to the Chicago Diabetes Project’s mission,” says Dr. April Miller, NUHS clinician who supervised the Chicago interns. “What makes this experience so great is that most of the participants were diabetics that were helped by the organization.”

Meanwhile, two 7^th trimester students, Mark Riggs and Tiji Vettikatel, had a unique opportunity to work under Dr. George Chiampas, medical director of the Chicago Marathon, and other physicians, in one of the marathon’s two medical tents.

“I was taking vitals, as well as cardiac and pulmonary signs of runners who came in for help. As the day wore on, people started rolling in and kept on coming. It was very challenging,” says Tiji Vettikatel. “I learned how a sports MD makes on the spot decisions and how ER triage works.”

Being so close to Chicago, National University students have many great outreach and hands-on sports medicine opportunities during their clinical internships, including world-class events such as the Chicago Marathon.

In addition to student volunteer work, an impressive number of NUHS students ran in this year’s event, including: Dave Herling, Kyle Berlin, Sean Gregory, Karl Huebner, Tyler Lomnicki, Sunni Olding, Christine Schoenek, and Craig Evans. “We’re proud that these students are so committed to their own health and progress as athletes, that they were able to train for and run in a marathon even while working so hard in their academic programs,” says NUHS President Dr. Joe Stiefel.