As a teenager, Jameel Alausa loved playing basketball for the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. But his teachers and family had a different mindset: You can’t play sports and do well in school, so pick one.
“I was always at odds with them on this,” said Alausa, 25, whose parents emigrated from Nigeria. “I thought I could do both.”
Alausa persevered and balanced both pursuits, ultimately playing for Yale University while earning a degree in economics. As his educational career blossomed, leading him to the Pritzker School of Medicine, he watched others struggle when their basketball dreams ended without a backup career plan.
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“A lot of my teammates and friends saw basketball as their only outlet to success, and when they weren’t able to reach the NBA, they were severely impacted,” said Alausa, who is now a second-year student at Pritzker. “Some of them ended up engaging in activities that unfortunately led to them passing away or going to jail.”
Those scenarios set Alausa and a group of college and former professional athletes studying medicine off on a mission to provide underserved students with exposure to medical careers and mentoring.
Their organization, Sneakers to Scrubs, aims to increase the number of Black men in the field by tapping into a deep well of potential: the youth football and basketball teams on the south and west sides of Chicago.
‘We’ve walked the same path’
Dressed in scrubs, the group’s volunteers visit schools and sports leagues to conduct training sessions on topics like concussion awareness and first aid, and to discuss a wide range of careers in medicine — a field their audiences may not have considered for many reasons.
“Someday, the ball stops bouncing for everyone, so student-athletes have to ask themselves what’s next,” said 24-year-old Solomon Egbe, a second-year Pritzker student and former Harvard University football player.
With Alausa, he manages Sneakers to Scrubs alongside Marcus Allen, also a second-year Pritzker student, and Lord Hyeamang, who is in his second year at Rush Medical College.
“The magic really happens when we put medicine as a career option in front of students who had never considered it before or thought it was a field not accessible to them,” Egbe said. “As former athletes and men of color, we can relate to their experiences and challenges they may be facing now or in the future — we’ve walked that same path.”
The path might appear less traveled. Although Black people make up roughly 12% of the country’s population, only 5.7% of its doctors are Black, according to 2022 data from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Sneakers to Scrubs efforts also highlight the potential of other roles, including nurses, therapists, technicians and support staff. Since launching last November, leaders have participated in about 60 events and reached 1,500 students via mentoring, career-focused summer camps, job shadowing and more.
The organization, which is applying for nonprofit status, focuses on three groups: middle school athletes interested in medicine; high school athletes seeking exposure to medical and health jobs; and college athletes in need of mentoring as they enter medical school.
For Iben King, who earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a master’s degree in health administration while playing football at McKendree University in Lebanon, Illinois, the support from Sneakers to Scrubs is invaluable.
“They offer me help for my MCATs,” said King, 25, a South Side native who hopes to become an orthopaedic surgeon. “They check in on me and if I text them or call them, I hear back from them by the end of the day.” Staying true to the group’s mission, King has also volunteered at Sneakers to Scrubs events focused on CPR and wound care.
That work, he said, “is making me a better doctor already.”
Coaching and commitment
To widen its reach, Sneakers to Scrubs collaborates with a network of nonprofit partners.
They include Project Love Chicago, which provides academic and job support, and the youth- focused MedCEEP (Medical Careers Exposure and Emergency Preparedness) founded by Abdullah Pratt, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Faculty Director for Community Engagement at Pritzker, and an emergency medicine physician at the University of Chicago Medicine.
“We see ourselves as the bridge,” Alausa said. “We’ve been able to form an ecosystem.”
In July, the three organizations joined forces with UChicago Medicine’s Urban Health Initiative and the Southside Free Clinic to host a two-day violence prevention and health fair. Held at the Gerald Ratner Athletics Center at UChicago, the event featured basketball and football games, a basketball skills clinic, free school supplies and sports physicals.
Despite living nearby, many participating students had never set foot on campus, where UChicago Medicine’s Level 1 Adult Trauma Center is located.
The divide was brought home by the attendance of 14-year-old Shane Butler, a football player who once participated in a MedCEEP first aid class and used the tourniquet skills he learned to save his own life when he accidentally shot himself in the leg after picking up a gun at a friend’s house.
Sneakers to Scrubs has been supporting the teen during his recovery, Alausa said, noting that the connection won’t end when the healing does. The group’s next step: providing Butler with mentorship and career exploration opportunities.
