Photo by Peter Jakubowski

Julie Katrichis learned nursing from the inside out.

“I had an interest in nursing, but it definitely solidified when I got sick,” says Katrichis, a May 2009 graduate of UWM’s College of Nursing. “I met some really great nurses and the light bulb went on. This is where I’m meant to be.”

Katrichis, 24, left UWM for nearly two years to battle Crohn’s Disease, a chronic inflammatory disease of the digestive system. She’d been diagnosed with the disease in her teens, but hid her condition from friends and faculty when she started college.

Missed classes affected her grades, and eventually the disease could no longer be ignored. At the start of her junior year, at age 20, she was forced to leave school and undergo multiple hospitalizations, surgeries and complications.

“I was scared and vulnerable. It was the most difficult situation I’d ever faced.”

When Katrichis returned to UWM in 2006, her focus and perspective had changed.

A serious illness, she says, “forces you to be alone with yourself. You figure out what’s important to you.” She brought her grades up to straight As and was accepted into the College of Nursing. “I grew to redefine and discover my worth within the field of nursing.”

Katrichis is now a spokeswoman both locally and nationally for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America, and volunteers with other organizations involved with chronic diseases. She volunteers as a camp counselor for chronically ill young people and at a center for HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases. This summer, she’s going to a national meeting in Atlanta to speak about patient advocacy. 

Having battled Crohn’s gives her a unique view of the health care system.

“It’s definitely impacted the nursing care I provide my patients. What I’ve learned from being on the other side is invaluable. I want to make an impact like a lot of my nurses did for me.”

Her UWM undergraduate experiences also got Katrichis involved in research, and she hopes to eventually combine medical research with clinical patient care. As an undergraduate, she worked at the Medical College of Wisconsin with Jeanne Hewitt, associate professor of nursing, on a national children’s environmental health study, and hopes to continue to volunteer with that project. At the recommendation of nursing faculty member Jennifer Runquist, she worked as a research assistant on a national children’s asthma study at the Center for Urban Population Health. 

Her own experiences have given her a new perspective, she says.

“As a result of my humbling experience with this disease, I have met some extraordinary people who’ve helped make me into the person I am today. I felt as if I was torn down only to be rebuilt stronger and wiser.”