Meaningful Encounters
Volunteering at Mott as an undergrad helped Bob Fraumann find comfort with his calling
As Bob Fraumann so aptly puts it, “My freshman year was a good year to be here.” That was 1997-98, and he was a linebacker on the University of Michigan football team that won the national championship.
But his sophomore year had quite an impact, too. That was when he joined the contingent of athletes organized by Michigan from the Heart that visits patients at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital on Thursday nights.
“I took my time,” says Fraumann, who earned his M.D. from the U-M in 2009 and is now a resident in the Department of Anesthesiology. “It kind of freaked me out a little bit. I was intimidated and a little apprehensive about going up there.” He was majoring in microbiology and already had medical school in his plans, but “this was my first experience volunteering with patients and children, the first time I’d actually been involved with the hospital system. You look at medical school applicants now, and a lot of people have volunteered in high school even. There wasn’t that impetus then.”
Michigan from the Heart sees to it that the athletes don’t go in cold. “They get you very comfortable with it, teach you what to say and how to work with the kids,” Fraumann says. “Also, my mentor’s advice consistently has been to give back to the thing that you love. I wanted to give back to the university.”
And there have been lasting benefits for him as well as for the kids whose lives he brightened.
“Those were my initial patient encounters,” Fraumann says. “You learn how to talk to people; empathy, sympathy, all your emotions get wound into seeing pediatric patients. I didn’t know this then, but you learn how to deal with the worst moment in people’s lives and try to make them happy for a moment. It really showed me that even the sickest of patients need to laugh, need to smile. I was given the opportunity to see this for the first time volunteering with Michigan from the Heart.”
Another important encounter for Fraumann happened toward the end of that sophomore year, when he met an English major named Katie Dykhouse while studying one day in the Law Quad. One of the things they found they had in common was Michigan from the Heart; she was a basketball player who volunteered with the program.
Five years later, they were married. She’s now Katie Fraumann, director of development and campaign strategy for the U-M Athletic Department. “We actually went over to Mott together a few times,” she recalls. “Some of his teammates and some of my teammates would take the commuter bus together.
“Those smiles are what brought me back every week,” she adds. “Being able to experience that as a student-athlete helped round out my experience here, and for that I am forever grateful.” —JM