Rob Gore On His Presidential Program ‘KAVI’, Willis Young, Anti-Violence Advocate Stabbed + More
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
What's up is way up with Angela Yee. I'm Angela
Yee on a Wealth Wednesday, and my Wealth Wednesday partner
Stacy Tisdale is here.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Happy Wealth Wednesdays. Well, you're so excited, you sit down
and enjoy the conversation that's about to come to you
with doctor Rob Core.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Thanks for having me today.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Listen, we just had a conversation. We went to the
same elementary school and so we were there at the
same time, for sure. Shout out to everybody from PS
two thirty five in Brooklyn. But I just found this out.
But as I've been reading your book Treating Violence, and
a lot of the different schools that you talk about
in neighborhoods are obviously ones I'm familiar with. So I
was like, I wonder you went to Bishop Blachlan, Philippe Schuyler.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Skyler and learning is alive at PS two thirty five.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I know that's right.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
It is all up in this house today.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
We're definitely here.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
But the reason why this is a Wealth Wednesday is
because when it comes to treating violence, you work in
the emergency room. A lot of what happens with our
youth can be traced back to trauma they've had as
a child. Things that I always hate to say things
are generational, but things do get passed down. A lot
(01:13):
of it have to do with the influences and how
we grew up and opportunities that we have our environments.
And so this is just something that I want to
make sure we talk about because it's such an important topic.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
You have an entirely different approach to trauma and violence
from your personal experience that it should be treated and
not incarcerated, and tell us a little bit about how
that all happened.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
So I've been an emergency physician this is year twenty
two since I finished medical school. And being somebody who
grew up in the community with people of color and
practicing medicine, emergency medicine and with populations who are also
of color, things start to resonate a little bit differently,
and we start seeing people coming into the hospital with
repeat injuries and repeat conditions. You have to start asking
(02:00):
and so why and when they are somehow connected to
you directly, whether it's a family member or a neighbor
or somebody that you've seen before, you really have to.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Start asking yourself why.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Because now this experience of what they've gone through has
become personal, and if there's a connection with you as
a care provider and that patient on a very different level,
they're going to ask you questions that a little bit
different than somebody who doesn't necessarily understand their culture and
understand their language and how.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
They move or even their community.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
And I started looking at a lot of the repeat
cases that were coming into the hospital. I did my
residency at Cook County Hospital on the West side of Chicago,
and my family is also from the West side of Chicago,
and so I always wonder when patients were coming in,
where they're going to be one of my cousins. If
I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time where
I lived on the South side of Chicago, Could I
be one of these patients who are coming in with
(02:50):
some sort of injury, And whether people I work with
be really excited because they got to do a procedure
on me, or do we start coming up with ways
to make sure that people didn't come back. And so
I began looking at violence and trauma through this through
a lens of public health unders meaning that if we
understand the risk factors, if we understand the conditions kind
of like our conversation earlier today, if we understand the
(03:11):
conditions in which people come from, if we can help
tweak those and modify or at least provide levels of
support for those conditions, and we can change the scope
about violence and particularly recurrent violence.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
There's an economic connection here. We were talking about that.
A lot of people don't connect the dots. I remember
did a big profile piece on the economics of riots
and trauma and violence, and a lot of that just
has to do with our socioeconomic condition one.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Hundred percent correct.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
So there's no surprise that the communities that have the
highest amounts of interpersonal violence are also those which are
the most impoverished. You might even see where there's a
sharp demarcation between those who have and those who don't
have a managing major amounts of economic disparities. And when
you can visually see that somebody has affluence and access
(03:57):
to resources one in one particular area and you can't
have access to that, that creates a dichotomy. These same
areas are also the areas, at least like in New
York City, are the areas where you have the highest
number of new HIV cases, the highest number of untreated hypertension,
untreated diabetes, any health condition possible, you're gonna wind up
(04:18):
seeing in those areas that are impoversed. It doesn't mean
that other communities don't experience this kind of stuff, but
there's a different kind of checks and balances. There's a
difference in distribution of wealth and distribution of resource, and
even just the accessibility of those resources ensure that your
well being is maintained.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
When you don't when you don't have.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Food, you don't know where you're going to live, when
you're when every aspect of your body is disrupted because
you are purely in survival mode and your nervous system
is disregulated, how can you function?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
You're not going to interpret things the same way.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
And because of all these conditions, things are just kind
of growing in way.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
It's not just you, it's your whole family. So if
your family is.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Disregulated because they don't have enough things for them to
be to be able to, how are you gonna function?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Your support system is out of whack.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
And this this cycle and these conditions kind of perpetuate
themselves purely because of that environment.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And you do look at things from that point of view,
and the book you talk about a situation where you
got jumped, and that's scary, like when you get jumped,
and then now you know I have to go still
walk to school, go wherever I have to go. That
person knows me it could happen again. And now you're thinking,
I got to walk with a weapon just in case
something happens. But then you also later on, we're able
(05:29):
to give grace because things could have went, you know,
a whole another way. So can you just talk about
that and the whole thinking behind. Okay, this happened to me,
but I can see where that person was coming from.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Also, you said something just now, you said when you
get jumped, And it's not like if you said when,
because we grew up here and you're gonna get You're
gonna get jumped, you're gonna get chased. And there are
many people from you know, people in some of my
colleagues who never had this experience at all. They've been
bullied before, but that's a very different kind of thing.
(06:01):
But to be in a space and you know, we
went to schools that there were a lot of major
support systems from our elementary school, both of are respective
junior high schools, and high schools had high amounts of support.
But what happens when you're not in that environment. The
environment's not as forgiving, and your job as a kid
(06:22):
growing up in Brooklyn or New York or any place
where has a reputation for being tough, you just got
to get home, you know, once you get in school.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I shouldn't say once you do. Some people, when they
get in school.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
They look at it as a safe space and a
place where they're given the ability to be brave and
to be able to talk about things that they're experiencing.
But not everybody has that opportunity. And if anything threatens
your life and well being, you go into protective mode.
And protective mode meets you have to stay alive, and
that's carrying weapons, that's joining a gang, that's you know
(06:57):
what we call back then they call them Posse's point
because of the Caribbean influence. But you just wanted to
surround yourself with people who could help protect you, to
ensure that your survivability was maintained. And you know, I
got jumped when I was like eleven years old. I
wasn't the first and my friends get jumped, but I
grew up across the street from from public housing in
Fort Green, and a lot of things happening in the
(07:18):
eighties and nineties. You know, people are trying to be tough,
people are trying to get money. And I got jumped
by two guys who were probably a little bit older
than me, and they stole my.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Bus pass and the dollar that I had in my pocket.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
And although there wasn't a whole lot of money, it's
terrifying to be in a place that you felt safe.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
And I was just the corner of my block.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Just leaving, right, I think I just left the bodega
and just turning the corner, and all of a.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Sudden, my entire world changed.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
And I started carrying razor blades and screwdrivers, and I
carried hammers.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I never carried guns at eleven years old.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
This is eleven, and I went to the nerdy school,
you know, this is we were this weird, you know,
Philippa Skyla Middle School for the gifted and talented. And
people don't assume that because you because of the vironment
that they kind of associate you with.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Get home.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
You still got to get home, and the neighborhoods haven't
completely changed. Once you're in your house, I felt safe well,
and once we're in our apartment, I felt safe. But
even for a lot of some of our peers, not
even some of them have felt safe in their own homes.
And so what does that do to your entire psyche?
You're always in this protective mode and you know, I
always always fight or flight, which causes your stress hormones
(08:26):
to go up. There are a series of studies to
talk about adverse childhood experiences and when you know, they
talk about stress hormones, and these things impact your immune system.
So if you're constantly stressed and fight or flight, you
don't fight off infection.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Well.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
But people who experience a lot of average childhood experiences
have increased they have earlier deaths, they are more prone
to develop autoimmune problems, they're more prone to develop heart disease,
and unfortunately, they're more prone to develop early death purely
because of this repeated trauma that they experience without having
any period to really process it.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So that's why you're really focused on, let's fix the trauma,
the trauma response which you don't feel. Incarceration is the
answer to no.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Incarceration is a containment model which doesn't allow for people
to access the proper amount of resources that are required
to regulate your nervous system and regulate your physical body.
There's no rehabilitation that takes place. We know of the
success stories that come out of the justice impacted system
of people who have been justice impacted, but we don't
(09:29):
hear the majority of the people who enter that system.
And if you look, if you consider how many people
who have been incarcerated who've also experienced deep seated trauma
that have never gotten an opportunity to be able to
process that stuff with somebody who's a trained professional that
understands their community, their environment, and.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
How to access those resources.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
For people who may not completely be open to that,
and families, you might have a very different situation, but
that's not the norm. And so we've got to start
looking at this stuff through a very protective lens, through
a very preventative lens, because prevention is a lot cheaper
than paying for emergencies.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
I mean, it is a and I think about like prison,
and we talk about this a lot, how it is
a business too, and so yeah, so a lot of
times when we talk about preventative methods, for some people,
they don't necessarily want that that's we hear all the pretty.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Much free labor building cells for black boys. Yea, like
when they're born.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Yeah, they start.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
I think the I think it's when they turn based
on their third grade reading scores is something that don't
quote me on that one, but I think it's based
on something that happens you under the age of eight,
and that's what they determine. So you already know there's
big business out there, and so how do we do
these things that are preventative and allow communities to really thrive?
You know, I speak about this a lot. Whenever I speak,
(10:49):
I talk about social determinants of health, which are the
things that impact our health and well being. And this
is anywhere from economic development like you speak about, you know,
regularly throughout your career and empowering other people to make
sure that there's a level of economic independence and development.
Those are protective factors to ensure that people at least
have access to certain resources to help fund things that
(11:10):
can help improve their well being. Having adequate, having more
than adequate, having really proficient and really supportive social systems
is another protective factor. But access to accessibility to education,
accessibility to economic development, accessibility to food and nutrition, all
things that can impact your well being, and when you
(11:33):
don't have those things. This kind of comes back to
this what we're speaking about before, the stress levels that
continue to go up, and we think about stress is like, oh,
I'm stressed, I just need to chill out. No, but
chronuct stress screws with you. It impacts every aspect of
your life and all the other people who are connected
to you. And you spoke a little bit earlier about
trauma that gets passed down. So if you're coming from
(11:55):
a household where your grandmother was physically abused, sexually used,
and mishandled and mistreated in so many ways that we
couldn't even fathom, what stuff gets passed on to to
their office, to their offspring, who's your who's your mother
or your caretaker, And if that person has also experienced
deep seated trauma and deep seated emotional and physical dysregulation.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
And then they have a child, what happens.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
I was on the phone with with an attorney.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Friend and they were speaking about a case.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
They were trying to find out how they can get
some sort of support for a young person that.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Had committed a crime.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
And when they told the background story of this young person. Uh,
the young person had experienced great deals of sexual trauma
as a as a young young child and not having
a great support system with the parent and with the
with the other care providers. It's not doesn't mean they
weren't present, but they just didn't have the tools because
(12:58):
there were other issues that had taken place in that
parent's household that would cause them to have a minimal
support system.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
And so now this kid is up for.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Charges and is not able to you know, it's like,
first of all, why did he even get to this
point to begin with, But if you look at the
background story and all the different series of events that
have taken place, it's not surprising. And so we're dealing
with a young person who has been a victim of
a failed system, really becoming from a deep seated trauma
(13:30):
that has been intergenerational.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Untreated, trauma untreated. And we see that in finances. We
talk a lot about financial abuse, which is a precursor
to ninety nine percent of domestic violence cases. And you
see so many people who are abusers were abused. You know,
people love how they were love. So it's like breaking
those cycles which you're not just having your average conversation here,
(13:53):
Doctor Gore was chosen as a Presidential Leadership Scholar and
created CAVE, which is supported.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
By the George W.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Bush and Clinton presidential Centers. Brag about KAVE.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
So actually one one quick correction correction, Uh so, I
was in.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
The Presidential Leadership scholars which is a it's like policy
school and business school and leadership development all all fused
into like a six month block, and that was supported
by the Clinton and Bush Presidential Libraries. KAVE yourself completely
independent of them and don't receive financial contributions from them.
But KAVE itself is a hospital school and community based
(14:32):
violence intervention and prevention program that I founded as a
way too or I say we founded because I engaged
you know, so many different people within the community to
provide this effort and provide these services, but really as
a way to help young people understand and process trauma
that they've experienced and and create resources so that violent
trauma that people have experienced doesn't become recurrent.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And that's Kings Against Violent and Violence Initiatives just stands.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
For and check us out of Cove Brooklyn dot org.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
You know, it's interesting because in reading this book, and
hearing some of the individual people that have been through
KAVE that you've helped. One story that you love is
your success story. It was an immigrant right that you
talk about in this book, that had gotten stabbed and
then ended up as in your care and then you
(15:23):
did bring in KAVE. And it's kind of like, is
it what you call it? Like an intervention?
Speaker 3 (15:28):
It's an intervention. Actually, even with Covin let me I
actually probably clarify a couple of things. So we were hospitals,
school and community based.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
The school and community based work to do more preventative work,
and some of the community work also works with people
who are very high risks who've been impacted by violence.
And so we actually provide some support services at y
Cough Houses and I Wanta's houses.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
I guess over in I don't even know what.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Section in Brooklyn that that would be called anymore because
everything's changed, but we provide support services for that communities
over there, and then we do the intervention work for
people who've been shot and stabbed and due to violence
who passed through King's County Hospital Center, which is where
I work as an emergency physician.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Yeah, and I think one of the important things. Is
a lot of times that happens and either you're scared
that it's going to happen again and people are still
looking for you, or you want to retaliate, because I
think initially people's first reaction is to want to get
these people who did that to you. And that's important
because that is definitely a cycle revengevent cycles. So yeah,
(16:31):
I want to talk about that for a second, because
it's really hard to talk somebody off the ledge when
you know, once they get out of here, the first
thing they're thinking is I'm going to get these people
that did this to me.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
So the intervention that we provide, you know, the first thing,
you know, I got to see the world through the
eyes of an emergency physician. I also see it through
the lens of a public health person. So the emergency
side means we've got to keep you alive, and we'll
do whatever means possible to make sure that you are
you at least able to breathe on your own independently
and walk out the doors of the hospital will get
wheeled out depending on the circumstances of the injury that
(17:04):
had taken place.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
The public health lenses.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
To ensure how do we make sure we create systems
and at least help support systems that ensure your overall
well being, going to allow you to thrive, your mental
health services, you're housing, accessibility to food, economic development, economic
it dependence, anything that's going to allow you to be
able to take care of yourself is independently or as
interdependently as possible, rather than just relying on a system
(17:27):
that is already overrun and is already.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Busting at the seams.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
With the issue regarding retaliation, when people come in who've
been injureddue to violence, about maybe forty to fifty percent
are going to repeat, you have repeat violent injuries within
a five year timeframe. Twenty to thirty percent are those
who are going to be maybe killed. The rate is
twenty to thirty percent for being killed after an incident
of violence has occurred.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Which is crazy just to think about it.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
And then because a lot of these folks are our people,
know we are our hospital and the community. We work
with major populations of color, black, brown, indigenous individuals, and
some poor whites, although those numbers are substantially lower, you
have to keep asking yourself why do these people keep
coming back with these things?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
And at first, it's almost why do these people?
Speaker 4 (18:19):
But because some of the folks that you know, I
work in a place where people from our neighborhood come
to the hospital, people I grew up with come to
the hospital. It's not a why do these people?
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Is why do our people? Because there's a deep seated connection.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
And once you personalize trauma, and once you personalize these connections,
the things that you want to implement are going to
be a little bit different. It's not just how can
I just provide a band aid approach? How do I
provide something that is going to be so transient that
it checks off a box but doesn't have that same
kind of impact. And so we've been looking at these
really comprehensive services to really engage all community partners, from
(18:54):
the people who are in the neighborhood and the communities
we serve, as well as the hospital institution. King's County
Hospital has been in a tremendous partner and has been supportive.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Of the efforts that we've been providing.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
They also recognize it as a hospital entity alone, they
can't do everything. We recognize as a community based organization,
we can't do everything, and so it's a matter of
diversifying the different resources that are around us from those
in the government, those who are who are public, those
who are private, as a way to really provide resources
that have an ability to build capacity within the communities
(19:25):
that are affected.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
What role would financial literacy play in that equation and
de escalating violence?
Speaker 4 (19:32):
Find Well, I feel like I'm cheating because I had
a conversation with you before.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
About just finance.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
I'm so glad you plugged that that in, and I
thank you for the book as well, But but you
mentioned that depression.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
This is what I told them. I have a financial
literacy foundation called Winning Plays and it was piloted in
high schools in New York, Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Dallas, Texas.
And it's while I was being piloted, I snuck in
the back of a classroom to watch a teacher teaching it.
The lesson about gender, I have the kids start by
looking at a case study of how a woman and
(20:11):
a man are treated differently when they go to a
car dealership. Easy for the kids to see when a
women are going to get higher rates, they're going to
get higher this because they think they don't know what
they're talking about. The male part. We start by studying
a Cambridge University study that found that men actually start
to undergo a physiological depression after they're unemployed for six
months chemical change, because they've been conditioned their whole lives
(20:35):
that they should provide and protect winners. So this boy
raises his hand and he says, maybe that's why my
father left. And it was interesting the length the dots,
and he said, well, if he can't do the only
thing he was supposed to do, maybe he figured we
were better off without him. And then a girl started mentioning,
like in different animal groups, when the male's taking resources away,
(20:56):
they leave. And the kids really saw the social connection
to that, which blew my mind. And it's stuck with
you a little bit.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
No, it's stuck with me in so many ways. So
if you aren't able to not even just focusing on
you can't take care of your family, if you can't
take care of yourself, and if you don't have certain
skill sets that are translatable and marketable to certain environments,
then you're going to do whatever possible to ensure that
you can maintain your life. And what happens with many
(21:27):
of our young men and some of our young women,
but more so young men. Is that if you don't
have if you don't have certain job skills, if you
can't market yourself a particular way, if you have if
you've been impacted by the justice system and can't be
high and aren't even allowed to be hired in a
particular way housing or get or get housing, then you're
(21:48):
going to do whatever is to take to survive.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
And a lot of this happens to be in ways
that may be.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Considered illegal in many different parts of the world, and
which just is kind of a fast way for you
to get in the justice system. If you're doing something illegal,
then you're going to have to figure out ways to
protect yourself because that black market is real. And if
you're competing with somebody else because of a market and
there's no kind of regulation for it, the opportunities of
you getting injured are a lot higher. You know, we
(22:15):
see so many young people who come in. They came
in because they were hustling, or the beef that they
had and altercation that they had that led them to
the hospital led them to come to us, you know,
purely was all kind of tied to some sort of
access to economics that allow them to take care of themselves.
I'm not sure there were other factors that took place,
but these are things that are impacting your health and
(22:36):
well being. But also if you can't be here because
you can't feed yourself, you can't feed your kids, your
sense of self worth is actually goes down the tubes,
which caused your system to become this regulated to increase.
You mentioned increasing depression, which affects your ability to process
and take care of your day to day responsibilities. A
lot of us will have these series of emotions from
(22:58):
depression to anxiety, feeling bewildered or feeling nervous.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
But once it becomes.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Pathologic and it can be harmful, once you can't take
care of your day to day responsibilities.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
And we're seeing so many people.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
Where their day to day responsibilities can't be taken care
of purely because of the economic situation that they're in,
which is which forces them to make I don't want
to say poor decisions, but the only decisions that they're
able to comprehend at that point that can allow.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Them to survive.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
People always talk about how it split second can change
your whole life and the whole trajectory, not that you
can ever come well some things people can't come back
from you. But I want to talk about the work
that you do as an er physician too, because it
has to be difficult to see the things that you
see every day and want to be able to do
whatever you can, even outside of being a physician, right
(23:53):
when you see so many different things happening and you're like,
I wish I could do more to help people, which
is why you started KAVE. But I want to talk
about how you're able to separate that and just you
do your job at the base.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
That's a great question because that wasn't always the case.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
I wasn't always able.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
To separate the work from the activism to my own
personal life. I think before I had a family, before
I got married, before I had a kid, before my
parents started aging, it was easy because I just had time.
You got youth on your side, You got time and energy,
and I could still stay up for long periods of time,
which is kind of a gift, and stay focused for
(24:32):
longer periods of time, which even a greater gift that's
been worked on very hard. But there was a point
where everything kind of came tumbling. And in the book,
I speak about one of my close friends Willis Willis
Young who call Young, who was one of our intervention
team members.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
He grew up in bedstyle.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
He lived on the block that I moved to in
twenty eleven, and he's one of the first people I met.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Even though he wasn't living there anymore.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
He was always on the block hanging out until we
developed his friendship almost mentor mentee. We had just launched
programming for Covey and I said, I said, you know,
we don't have any money, but I would love to
have you work with us, because I loved how you.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Engage with people.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
And you know, people in New York don't always speak to.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
You speak to people, but people.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Transient, you know, not don't look for long periods of time,
look to engage and just keep it, keep it moving.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
But he had this magic about how he interacted with people.
I said, when we get some money, I want to
I want to bring you on.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
I said, right now, we're just doing volunteer stuff, and
he said, I got some stuff going on, so I
can't really do that kind of work just yet because
I'm not ready for it.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
But we always had.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
These conversations and eventually he started coming in as a
volunteer and started really participating in the sessions. I thought
he was there's kind of as a support system for
the kids in our school based program, but he was
actually there. He was like, I'm learning stuff in these spaces.
And then once we got our first grant money about
two years later in twenty thirteen, he was one of
(26:03):
our first hirees and so his job he was a
violence intervention specialist in hospital responder, and his job was
to make sure that he intervened with people when they
when they were injured. He provided a lot of support system,
talking to them about, you know, just doing basic check
ins like yo.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Are you okay?
Speaker 4 (26:18):
I know what happened to you? I know this is
this is this is messed up. I want these language.
I'm not Shriver on sorts, curse on the air. But
he said, you know, he would do these check ins
and sometimes you know, because he lived in the sky
and he was also blood, he knew some of the
patients that were coming in.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
And so that was that that thing that what.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
I'm providing is a real benefit to people that are
in our circle because I know, I can speak the
language very different than the docks, than the nurses, and
I have the time to be able to do that,
and he was brilliant at that job. But a few
years later, on my birthday in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
My morning wake up call.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
I was off that day in the er, but my
morning wake up call was that he was stabbed multiple
times and taken to the emergency department, the same place
where he did the intervention work making sure that people
didn't retaliate, making sure that they got a support system
and had an advocate from someone who was a credible messenger.
But the same place he did these interventions was the
same place that he was brought in as a patient.
(27:13):
And he was tough, he was strong, he was muscular,
but after being stabbed so many different times and repeat
blood transfusions, you know, his body couldn't handle the stress
and he wound up dying two weeks later in the ICU,
the same place that he would also comfort people.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
And I never shut off.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
So I was the intersection and the liaison between people
on the block who knew and loved him and cared
for him, the people from the hospital who same thing knew,
loved and cared for the people from our organization who knew,
loved and cared for him, and I never took a break.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
I kept I didn't have time.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
I didn't grieve, even like on shifts, you know, we're
coming from overnight, you know, you know, I go check
on him coming, and even during ships, I check on
him in the upstairs in the ICU, you know, even
if it was like a couple of minutes.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
And I was constantly doing that.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
And when he died, I we had an organization because
we're still doing.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
This intervention work. And it wasn't until.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
I hit the day of his funeral, which was like
maybe a month or two months later, that everything just
kind of came crashing down. And I was working, I
was coming in for a shift. I was running late,
and I called the er. I said, look, i'm running late.
The nurse who picked up the phone with somebody that
I grew up with, you know, because Brooklyn is just
connected in that way, and she said, you're not gonna
(28:26):
believe who's here. It was the pay of the person
who came and shot multiple times. But he was the
brother of another person who I pronounced dead. And the
kid who I pronounced dead was a sixteen year old
kid who.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Was killed by the police. And so when I go
into the room.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
You know, I'm still I didn't sleep that day, you know,
because you know, adrenaline, you know, all these emotions are swirling.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
So I couldn't even rest before my overnight shift.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
That the funeral was that earlier, that that late morning,
early afternoon, and so I'm already tired, I'm already stressed,
I'm already somewhat disregulated.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
And I see this guy who shot multiple times.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Who's stable, and you know, eventually we kind of really
how we were connected because he met me when his
brother had passed. I think, yeah, he did meet me
when his brother passed. And then his mother came in,
who recognized me immediately. She said, I know who you are.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
You cut your locks, and that point I was like shit,
I was like, this is a you know, I didn't
want to happen.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Already know that it was all these feelings of guilt
and shame because we couldn't keep this kid alive. And
you know, but I told this mother that her sixteen
year old kid was killed, and I didn't even know
at the time that he was killed by law enforcement.
And eventually she looks at me, you know, she stopped
making eye contact with me and I understood completely why
(29:37):
I would.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Come in the room give her updates on what was
going on with her son.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Who was a patient who still needed to have a
bunch of diagnostic studies done because of his injuries.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
But she would ask questions, but she just look at
me like this, like how.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
We're sitting right now, and she would just look off
into the wall and she was she had like her
grandchild just kind of rocking back and forth and refused
to make eye contact.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
And then after I told her her son would stayble, we.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Were going to admit him, she looks at me and
she's said, did my son say anything to you before
he died? And like, my body just froze, because this
is a kid who was like, you know, who came
in alive and he was like mumbling, don't let me
die and stuff like that. And then you know, my
body is shaking. And then she says, why does this
keep happening to my family?
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Because she'd also lost another person, another family member.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
To gun violence not long before, but I think maybe
a month or two months before. And then here her
other son is lying on a stretcher who's been shot
multiple times, and I couldn't answer my body just snapped
cold sweat, you know, diaphoretic, you know, armpitch soaked, hyperventilating,
and I just had to run out of the room.
(30:42):
And I'm used to keeping I'm pretty calm, but I
couldn't regulate and i had to run to the bathroom
and I'm like, I'm having these dry heaves and I'm
having a panic attack.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
And I'm like, what the hell is this? I was like,
I don't get panic attacks. This is not me, you know. Yeah,
I've been nervous before, but I'm the one who's in control. Oh,
I'm the er doc. That's what we're taught. We keep
you know, we keep things in control.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
We're like green berets and like Navy seals of medicine,
and that's.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
What we do. But now I can't keep myself calm.
Speaker 4 (31:12):
And I had a bunch of I had a like
six or seven hours left on my shift, and so
I'm like, how do I.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Take care of all these other people come in?
Speaker 4 (31:18):
And we got the people coming with chest pain and
people coming with strokes, and.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
My body's shaking.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
But because of how we're taught to regulate and how
to articulate that we're good or not good. We don't
and so I just had to tense up my body.
So if you tense up your body and you stay
in motion, people can't see that you're shaking, and then
your confidence is maintained and they don't think anything is wrong.
And so when somebody thinks something is wrong, then everybody
starts to panic. And if you're in that leadership position,
(31:46):
you're not allowed. And so I was having panic attacks
and this was happening repeatedly, coming to the hospital, going home.
Every time I walk to the hospital was happening. I'm like,
how the hell can this happen? And I'm supposed to
be the person in control. Docs aren't supposed to get sick,
health care providers are not supposed to get sick, and
now here it is I'm the patient. And so I
started going back to therapy and learning. You know, one
(32:08):
I realized I need to do something because I'm not
going on any medication because just this is my ego
and check at least not as you know, hopefully not
having to.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Go on anything.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
And then learned about more regulating, and she told me that,
you know, you've been taking care of people for so
long and you haven't You've been taught to be empathetic,
but not really taught to be compassionate. And because of
the empathy, you're learning to connect with people through their
trauma and through their problems and creating these trauma bonds
(32:38):
rather than showing love and showing compassion and really being
able to navigate these spaces safely. I'm not saying that
you don't care, but really realizing that you have an
objective to do. And it's like, if you can express
emotion but you still have a job, you can't become
the problem. You can't be sowing ingrained that they've entered
your complete psyche to the point that it taking over
(33:00):
who you are. And then on top of that, you're
not giving yourself periods to recover. You can have trauma,
you can have injury, but you got to recover. So
you got to have these periods of reflection and processing it.
And so, you know, I do a lot of physical activity,
you know, judo, resilient jiu jitsu, and those are ways
to kind of help regulate and process a lot of
the trauma and the stress that I deal.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
With on a day to day basis. But it's intentional.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
I don't eat junk food, you know, And it's not like, oh,
I don't want to eat junk and I'm trying to
just you know, just trying to think I'm better than
than other people. It's like, No, if I eat a
bunch of crap, that means I can't sleep. If I
can't sleep, that means I can't be there for my
wife and my son. If I can't sleep properly, that means.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
I'm making mistakes. When I'm at working, we're dealing with
You're making life.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Sect You're making decisions in the matter of a second
that can impact somebody's family member or somebody else's life,
and I don't want that one well, I don't want
that on my conscious. You kind of take these these steps,
and you make these pacts with yourself and take these
oaths to be responsible and respectful and to care for people.
But you can't do that if you're a patient. And
(34:01):
so the delineation of wellness really being a lifestyle and
something that's a part of who you are and integrated
into every aspect of what you do has to be
paramount so that we can continue doing that stuff.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
That therapist that I got to keep doing the work.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Yeah, I mean, it's like what they always say, put
your oxygen mask on first, Yeah, and then you can
save everybody else. And that's what you have to do.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Last thing I want to touch on with you, what
kind of policy changes do you think need to happen
to support this different approach to rehabilitation and what can
we do as individuals.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
I think that that's a great question. There are two
things that come to mind.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
The first is, and this is more on a federal
and a state level, with regards to background checks for firearms.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
You know, I you know firearms.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
You know I Willis was stabbed, and so I don't
want people to think that old gun violence is the
only thing that you know, people should focus on. But
you know, firearms do kill more people than knives because
of the true because of the caliber of the weapon
and the rate in which something can be fired to
increase the likelihood of somebody dying. But policies to ensure
that background checks that are occurring around the United States,
(35:11):
you know, eradicating guns and firearms. That's a whole separate conversation,
but on a most basic level, making sure that the
laws regarding background checks or something that are universal, regardless
of how somebody purchased a gun, or the state, or
the or the or the country in which these things
have been purchased, it.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Has to be uniform and training that has to be loved.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
I love that making sure there's a deal of training,
because that's something I've never brought up before, but so
thank you.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Making sure there's levels.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Of training if you are going to have access to one,
making sure that the background checks are universal, regardless of
who and where they purchased it have to be important.
And then the other one is ensuring that people recognize
violence of the public health issue. If the if the
state department, if local, if city and local governments all
acknowledge that violence is a public health issue, then that
(36:00):
means they can be funding allocated to help improve those situations.
And for you know, you have a nonprofit. I know
you supported so many different community efforts and.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
This hasn't her place in Detroit.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Yeah, the housing, the housing.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Some of the housing is going to help, you.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Know which which is you know, I'm so happy about that,
and you know some of my my Detroit people also
very appreciative of.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
That kind of work.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
But it takes financial backing, right, And so you've got
to have the resource to be able to do that.
But you know, looking at things that impact funding can
really change the trajectory of somebody who's doing something very
small in grassroots.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Just because it's small and grassroots doesn't mean that it's
not effective.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
Matter of fact, I feel like they're more effective because
they're even more closely connected. But these institutions and these
organizations can't thrive unless there's a level of there's something
that's implemented to allow for some sort of sustainability.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
And the cash flow issue is a very.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Very important thing, and that's definitely something they've been working
on here because we talk about like police departments and
allocating some of that money towards intervention groups and people
who are in the community, people who already do the
works the work on a grassroots level, but they're not
getting the funding or money that they should be getting
because people should get paid to do those things, absolutely,
you know, And so I do think that is something
(37:15):
that that's why policy is important. That's why knowing who
your local officials are is important, and supporting different people
and making sure you let them know this is what
we need.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
If you can make a living wage being in a
helping profession, think of how communities are impacted. You know,
there's so many people in helping professions who are doing
nonprofit work, community work, education, social workers that get so
burned out because they can't make a living or proper
living wage to take care of themselves and their family.
Financial stress, you know, that financial stress.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Back back to what we're talking about.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
So if you're if you're doing you know, working and
helping profession because that's your calling, but you can't care
for your loved ones. That means you're doing extra overtime,
which means you can't spend time with them. And these
are things that I understood, but now as a parent
of a toddler, I realize this stuff even more importantly.
You have to be intentionally, you have to be completely
present when you're caring for somebody else in this capacity,
(38:04):
because there's so many outside influences that are there and
you don't want somebody else raising your child. But if
you can't, but survivability, that's so important. So we got
to have that survival mechanism in place. And so if
all the politicians out there and the people who are
engaged in policy, please make sure you fund these different
programs that are out there that are doing the incredible
work to allow for them to continue this work.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
And elections coming up between you and us, So everybody's
going to go to Amazon and they're going to get
your book Treating Violence and Emergency Room Doctors take on.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
A Deadly American Epidemic.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
You can get that on Amazon. Thank you for being
my glasses around.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Me all the time.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
And also, everybody, we have so many free resources on
Wealth Wednesdays to help you get that economic piece in place.
Go to Teamwealth Wednesdays dot com. Take that pledge, you
get weekly new letters. Follow Wealth Wednesdays on Instagram. There's
so much free information entrepreneurs. We have our Entrepreneurs group.
But between the book Wealth Wednesdays, I thank you for
(39:10):
giving us such a powerful, powerful segment during the health
something we haven't done before.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Say we appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Thanks doctor brab gre And I know how great it
has to be if something happens to have you as
the er physician at least, because you know it's not
too often that you'll see somebody that you can fail
connected to and that does help a lot as well.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Happy Wealth Wednesdays.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
Everybody thanks Wednesdays.
What's up is way up with Angela Yee. I'm Angela
Yee on a Wealth Wednesday, and my Wealth Wednesday partner
Stacy Tisdale is here.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Happy Wealth Wednesdays. Well, you're so excited, you sit down
and enjoy the conversation that's about to come to you
with doctor Rob Core.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Thanks for having me today.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Listen, we just had a conversation. We went to the
same elementary school and so we were there at the
same time, for sure. Shout out to everybody from PS
two thirty five in Brooklyn. But I just found this out.
But as I've been reading your book Treating Violence, and
a lot of the different schools that you talk about
in neighborhoods are obviously ones I'm familiar with. So I
was like, I wonder you went to Bishop Blachlan, Philippe Schuyler.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Skyler and learning is alive at PS two thirty five.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I know that's right.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
It is all up in this house today.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
We're definitely here.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
But the reason why this is a Wealth Wednesday is
because when it comes to treating violence, you work in
the emergency room. A lot of what happens with our
youth can be traced back to trauma they've had as
a child. Things that I always hate to say things
are generational, but things do get passed down. A lot
(01:13):
of it have to do with the influences and how
we grew up and opportunities that we have our environments.
And so this is just something that I want to
make sure we talk about because it's such an important topic.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
You have an entirely different approach to trauma and violence
from your personal experience that it should be treated and
not incarcerated, and tell us a little bit about how
that all happened.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
So I've been an emergency physician this is year twenty
two since I finished medical school. And being somebody who
grew up in the community with people of color and
practicing medicine, emergency medicine and with populations who are also
of color, things start to resonate a little bit differently,
and we start seeing people coming into the hospital with
repeat injuries and repeat conditions. You have to start asking
(02:00):
and so why and when they are somehow connected to
you directly, whether it's a family member or a neighbor
or somebody that you've seen before, you really have to.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Start asking yourself why.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Because now this experience of what they've gone through has
become personal, and if there's a connection with you as
a care provider and that patient on a very different level,
they're going to ask you questions that a little bit
different than somebody who doesn't necessarily understand their culture and
understand their language and how.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
They move or even their community.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
And I started looking at a lot of the repeat
cases that were coming into the hospital. I did my
residency at Cook County Hospital on the West side of Chicago,
and my family is also from the West side of Chicago,
and so I always wonder when patients were coming in,
where they're going to be one of my cousins. If
I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time where
I lived on the South side of Chicago, Could I
be one of these patients who are coming in with
(02:50):
some sort of injury, And whether people I work with
be really excited because they got to do a procedure
on me, or do we start coming up with ways
to make sure that people didn't come back. And so
I began looking at violence and trauma through this through
a lens of public health unders meaning that if we
understand the risk factors, if we understand the conditions kind
of like our conversation earlier today, if we understand the
(03:11):
conditions in which people come from, if we can help
tweak those and modify or at least provide levels of
support for those conditions, and we can change the scope
about violence and particularly recurrent violence.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
There's an economic connection here. We were talking about that.
A lot of people don't connect the dots. I remember
did a big profile piece on the economics of riots
and trauma and violence, and a lot of that just
has to do with our socioeconomic condition one.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Hundred percent correct.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
So there's no surprise that the communities that have the
highest amounts of interpersonal violence are also those which are
the most impoverished. You might even see where there's a
sharp demarcation between those who have and those who don't
have a managing major amounts of economic disparities. And when
you can visually see that somebody has affluence and access
(03:57):
to resources one in one particular area and you can't
have access to that, that creates a dichotomy. These same
areas are also the areas, at least like in New
York City, are the areas where you have the highest
number of new HIV cases, the highest number of untreated hypertension,
untreated diabetes, any health condition possible, you're gonna wind up
(04:18):
seeing in those areas that are impoversed. It doesn't mean
that other communities don't experience this kind of stuff, but
there's a different kind of checks and balances. There's a
difference in distribution of wealth and distribution of resource, and
even just the accessibility of those resources ensure that your
well being is maintained.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
When you don't when you don't have.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Food, you don't know where you're going to live, when
you're when every aspect of your body is disrupted because
you are purely in survival mode and your nervous system
is disregulated, how can you function?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
You're not going to interpret things the same way.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
And because of all these conditions, things are just kind
of growing in way.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
It's not just you, it's your whole family. So if
your family is.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Disregulated because they don't have enough things for them to
be to be able to, how are you gonna function?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Your support system is out of whack.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
And this this cycle and these conditions kind of perpetuate
themselves purely because of that environment.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And you do look at things from that point of view,
and the book you talk about a situation where you
got jumped, and that's scary, like when you get jumped,
and then now you know I have to go still
walk to school, go wherever I have to go. That
person knows me it could happen again. And now you're thinking,
I got to walk with a weapon just in case
something happens. But then you also later on, we're able
(05:29):
to give grace because things could have went, you know,
a whole another way. So can you just talk about
that and the whole thinking behind. Okay, this happened to me,
but I can see where that person was coming from.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Also, you said something just now, you said when you
get jumped, And it's not like if you said when,
because we grew up here and you're gonna get You're
gonna get jumped, you're gonna get chased. And there are
many people from you know, people in some of my
colleagues who never had this experience at all. They've been
bullied before, but that's a very different kind of thing.
(06:01):
But to be in a space and you know, we
went to schools that there were a lot of major
support systems from our elementary school, both of are respective
junior high schools, and high schools had high amounts of support.
But what happens when you're not in that environment. The
environment's not as forgiving, and your job as a kid
(06:22):
growing up in Brooklyn or New York or any place
where has a reputation for being tough, you just got
to get home, you know, once you get in school.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I shouldn't say once you do. Some people, when they
get in school.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
They look at it as a safe space and a
place where they're given the ability to be brave and
to be able to talk about things that they're experiencing.
But not everybody has that opportunity. And if anything threatens
your life and well being, you go into protective mode.
And protective mode meets you have to stay alive, and
that's carrying weapons, that's joining a gang, that's you know
(06:57):
what we call back then they call them Posse's point
because of the Caribbean influence. But you just wanted to
surround yourself with people who could help protect you, to
ensure that your survivability was maintained. And you know, I
got jumped when I was like eleven years old. I
wasn't the first and my friends get jumped, but I
grew up across the street from from public housing in
Fort Green, and a lot of things happening in the
(07:18):
eighties and nineties. You know, people are trying to be tough,
people are trying to get money. And I got jumped
by two guys who were probably a little bit older
than me, and they stole my.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Bus pass and the dollar that I had in my pocket.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
And although there wasn't a whole lot of money, it's
terrifying to be in a place that you felt safe.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
And I was just the corner of my block.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Just leaving, right, I think I just left the bodega
and just turning the corner, and all of a.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Sudden, my entire world changed.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
And I started carrying razor blades and screwdrivers, and I
carried hammers.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I never carried guns at eleven years old.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
This is eleven, and I went to the nerdy school,
you know, this is we were this weird, you know,
Philippa Skyla Middle School for the gifted and talented. And
people don't assume that because you because of the vironment
that they kind of associate you with.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Get home.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
You still got to get home, and the neighborhoods haven't
completely changed. Once you're in your house, I felt safe well,
and once we're in our apartment, I felt safe. But
even for a lot of some of our peers, not
even some of them have felt safe in their own homes.
And so what does that do to your entire psyche?
You're always in this protective mode and you know, I
always always fight or flight, which causes your stress hormones
(08:26):
to go up. There are a series of studies to
talk about adverse childhood experiences and when you know, they
talk about stress hormones, and these things impact your immune system.
So if you're constantly stressed and fight or flight, you
don't fight off infection.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Well.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
But people who experience a lot of average childhood experiences
have increased they have earlier deaths, they are more prone
to develop autoimmune problems, they're more prone to develop heart disease,
and unfortunately, they're more prone to develop early death purely
because of this repeated trauma that they experience without having
any period to really process it.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So that's why you're really focused on, let's fix the trauma,
the trauma response which you don't feel. Incarceration is the
answer to no.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Incarceration is a containment model which doesn't allow for people
to access the proper amount of resources that are required
to regulate your nervous system and regulate your physical body.
There's no rehabilitation that takes place. We know of the
success stories that come out of the justice impacted system
of people who have been justice impacted, but we don't
(09:29):
hear the majority of the people who enter that system.
And if you look, if you consider how many people
who have been incarcerated who've also experienced deep seated trauma
that have never gotten an opportunity to be able to
process that stuff with somebody who's a trained professional that
understands their community, their environment, and.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
How to access those resources.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
For people who may not completely be open to that,
and families, you might have a very different situation, but
that's not the norm. And so we've got to start
looking at this stuff through a very protective lens, through
a very preventative lens, because prevention is a lot cheaper
than paying for emergencies.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
I mean, it is a and I think about like prison,
and we talk about this a lot, how it is
a business too, and so yeah, so a lot of
times when we talk about preventative methods, for some people,
they don't necessarily want that that's we hear all the pretty.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Much free labor building cells for black boys. Yea, like
when they're born.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Yeah, they start.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
I think the I think it's when they turn based
on their third grade reading scores is something that don't
quote me on that one, but I think it's based
on something that happens you under the age of eight,
and that's what they determine. So you already know there's
big business out there, and so how do we do
these things that are preventative and allow communities to really thrive?
You know, I speak about this a lot. Whenever I speak,
(10:49):
I talk about social determinants of health, which are the
things that impact our health and well being. And this
is anywhere from economic development like you speak about, you know,
regularly throughout your career and empowering other people to make
sure that there's a level of economic independence and development.
Those are protective factors to ensure that people at least
have access to certain resources to help fund things that
(11:10):
can help improve their well being. Having adequate, having more
than adequate, having really proficient and really supportive social systems
is another protective factor. But access to accessibility to education,
accessibility to economic development, accessibility to food and nutrition, all
things that can impact your well being, and when you
(11:33):
don't have those things. This kind of comes back to
this what we're speaking about before, the stress levels that
continue to go up, and we think about stress is like, oh,
I'm stressed, I just need to chill out. No, but
chronuct stress screws with you. It impacts every aspect of
your life and all the other people who are connected
to you. And you spoke a little bit earlier about
trauma that gets passed down. So if you're coming from
(11:55):
a household where your grandmother was physically abused, sexually used,
and mishandled and mistreated in so many ways that we
couldn't even fathom, what stuff gets passed on to to
their office, to their offspring, who's your who's your mother
or your caretaker, And if that person has also experienced
deep seated trauma and deep seated emotional and physical dysregulation.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
And then they have a child, what happens.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
I was on the phone with with an attorney.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Friend and they were speaking about a case.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
They were trying to find out how they can get
some sort of support for a young person that.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Had committed a crime.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
And when they told the background story of this young person. Uh,
the young person had experienced great deals of sexual trauma
as a as a young young child and not having
a great support system with the parent and with the
with the other care providers. It's not doesn't mean they
weren't present, but they just didn't have the tools because
(12:58):
there were other issues that had taken place in that
parent's household that would cause them to have a minimal
support system.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
And so now this kid is up for.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Charges and is not able to you know, it's like,
first of all, why did he even get to this
point to begin with, But if you look at the
background story and all the different series of events that
have taken place, it's not surprising. And so we're dealing
with a young person who has been a victim of
a failed system, really becoming from a deep seated trauma
(13:30):
that has been intergenerational.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Untreated, trauma untreated. And we see that in finances. We
talk a lot about financial abuse, which is a precursor
to ninety nine percent of domestic violence cases. And you
see so many people who are abusers were abused. You know,
people love how they were love. So it's like breaking
those cycles which you're not just having your average conversation here,
(13:53):
Doctor Gore was chosen as a Presidential Leadership Scholar and
created CAVE, which is supported.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
By the George W.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Bush and Clinton presidential Centers. Brag about KAVE.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
So actually one one quick correction correction, Uh so, I
was in.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
The Presidential Leadership scholars which is a it's like policy
school and business school and leadership development all all fused
into like a six month block, and that was supported
by the Clinton and Bush Presidential Libraries. KAVE yourself completely
independent of them and don't receive financial contributions from them.
But KAVE itself is a hospital school and community based
(14:32):
violence intervention and prevention program that I founded as a
way too or I say we founded because I engaged
you know, so many different people within the community to
provide this effort and provide these services, but really as
a way to help young people understand and process trauma
that they've experienced and and create resources so that violent
trauma that people have experienced doesn't become recurrent.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And that's Kings Against Violent and Violence Initiatives just stands.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
For and check us out of Cove Brooklyn dot org.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
You know, it's interesting because in reading this book, and
hearing some of the individual people that have been through
KAVE that you've helped. One story that you love is
your success story. It was an immigrant right that you
talk about in this book, that had gotten stabbed and
then ended up as in your care and then you
(15:23):
did bring in KAVE. And it's kind of like, is
it what you call it? Like an intervention?
Speaker 3 (15:28):
It's an intervention. Actually, even with Covin let me I
actually probably clarify a couple of things. So we were hospitals,
school and community based.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
The school and community based work to do more preventative work,
and some of the community work also works with people
who are very high risks who've been impacted by violence.
And so we actually provide some support services at y
Cough Houses and I Wanta's houses.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
I guess over in I don't even know what.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Section in Brooklyn that that would be called anymore because
everything's changed, but we provide support services for that communities
over there, and then we do the intervention work for
people who've been shot and stabbed and due to violence
who passed through King's County Hospital Center, which is where
I work as an emergency physician.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Yeah, and I think one of the important things. Is
a lot of times that happens and either you're scared
that it's going to happen again and people are still
looking for you, or you want to retaliate, because I
think initially people's first reaction is to want to get
these people who did that to you. And that's important
because that is definitely a cycle revengevent cycles. So yeah,
(16:31):
I want to talk about that for a second, because
it's really hard to talk somebody off the ledge when
you know, once they get out of here, the first
thing they're thinking is I'm going to get these people
that did this to me.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
So the intervention that we provide, you know, the first thing,
you know, I got to see the world through the
eyes of an emergency physician. I also see it through
the lens of a public health person. So the emergency
side means we've got to keep you alive, and we'll
do whatever means possible to make sure that you are
you at least able to breathe on your own independently
and walk out the doors of the hospital will get
wheeled out depending on the circumstances of the injury that
(17:04):
had taken place.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
The public health lenses.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
To ensure how do we make sure we create systems
and at least help support systems that ensure your overall
well being, going to allow you to thrive, your mental
health services, you're housing, accessibility to food, economic development, economic
it dependence, anything that's going to allow you to be
able to take care of yourself is independently or as
interdependently as possible, rather than just relying on a system
(17:27):
that is already overrun and is already.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Busting at the seams.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
With the issue regarding retaliation, when people come in who've
been injureddue to violence, about maybe forty to fifty percent
are going to repeat, you have repeat violent injuries within
a five year timeframe. Twenty to thirty percent are those
who are going to be maybe killed. The rate is
twenty to thirty percent for being killed after an incident
of violence has occurred.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Which is crazy just to think about it.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
And then because a lot of these folks are our people,
know we are our hospital and the community. We work
with major populations of color, black, brown, indigenous individuals, and
some poor whites, although those numbers are substantially lower, you
have to keep asking yourself why do these people keep
coming back with these things?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
And at first, it's almost why do these people?
Speaker 4 (18:19):
But because some of the folks that you know, I
work in a place where people from our neighborhood come
to the hospital, people I grew up with come to
the hospital. It's not a why do these people?
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Is why do our people? Because there's a deep seated connection.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
And once you personalize trauma, and once you personalize these connections,
the things that you want to implement are going to
be a little bit different. It's not just how can
I just provide a band aid approach? How do I
provide something that is going to be so transient that
it checks off a box but doesn't have that same
kind of impact. And so we've been looking at these
really comprehensive services to really engage all community partners, from
(18:54):
the people who are in the neighborhood and the communities
we serve, as well as the hospital institution. King's County
Hospital has been in a tremendous partner and has been supportive.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Of the efforts that we've been providing.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
They also recognize it as a hospital entity alone, they
can't do everything. We recognize as a community based organization,
we can't do everything, and so it's a matter of
diversifying the different resources that are around us from those
in the government, those who are who are public, those
who are private, as a way to really provide resources
that have an ability to build capacity within the communities
(19:25):
that are affected.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
What role would financial literacy play in that equation and
de escalating violence?
Speaker 4 (19:32):
Find Well, I feel like I'm cheating because I had
a conversation with you before.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
About just finance.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
I'm so glad you plugged that that in, and I
thank you for the book as well, But but you
mentioned that depression.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
This is what I told them. I have a financial
literacy foundation called Winning Plays and it was piloted in
high schools in New York, Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Dallas, Texas.
And it's while I was being piloted, I snuck in
the back of a classroom to watch a teacher teaching it.
The lesson about gender, I have the kids start by
looking at a case study of how a woman and
(20:11):
a man are treated differently when they go to a
car dealership. Easy for the kids to see when a
women are going to get higher rates, they're going to
get higher this because they think they don't know what
they're talking about. The male part. We start by studying
a Cambridge University study that found that men actually start
to undergo a physiological depression after they're unemployed for six
months chemical change, because they've been conditioned their whole lives
(20:35):
that they should provide and protect winners. So this boy
raises his hand and he says, maybe that's why my
father left. And it was interesting the length the dots,
and he said, well, if he can't do the only
thing he was supposed to do, maybe he figured we
were better off without him. And then a girl started mentioning,
like in different animal groups, when the male's taking resources away,
(20:56):
they leave. And the kids really saw the social connection
to that, which blew my mind. And it's stuck with
you a little bit.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
No, it's stuck with me in so many ways. So
if you aren't able to not even just focusing on
you can't take care of your family, if you can't
take care of yourself, and if you don't have certain
skill sets that are translatable and marketable to certain environments,
then you're going to do whatever possible to ensure that
you can maintain your life. And what happens with many
(21:27):
of our young men and some of our young women,
but more so young men. Is that if you don't
have if you don't have certain job skills, if you
can't market yourself a particular way, if you have if
you've been impacted by the justice system and can't be
high and aren't even allowed to be hired in a
particular way housing or get or get housing, then you're
(21:48):
going to do whatever is to take to survive.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
And a lot of this happens to be in ways
that may be.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Considered illegal in many different parts of the world, and
which just is kind of a fast way for you
to get in the justice system. If you're doing something illegal,
then you're going to have to figure out ways to
protect yourself because that black market is real. And if
you're competing with somebody else because of a market and
there's no kind of regulation for it, the opportunities of
you getting injured are a lot higher. You know, we
(22:15):
see so many young people who come in. They came
in because they were hustling, or the beef that they
had and altercation that they had that led them to
the hospital led them to come to us, you know,
purely was all kind of tied to some sort of
access to economics that allow them to take care of themselves.
I'm not sure there were other factors that took place,
but these are things that are impacting your health and
(22:36):
well being. But also if you can't be here because
you can't feed yourself, you can't feed your kids, your
sense of self worth is actually goes down the tubes,
which caused your system to become this regulated to increase.
You mentioned increasing depression, which affects your ability to process
and take care of your day to day responsibilities. A
lot of us will have these series of emotions from
(22:58):
depression to anxiety, feeling bewildered or feeling nervous.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
But once it becomes.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Pathologic and it can be harmful, once you can't take
care of your day to day responsibilities.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
And we're seeing so many people.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
Where their day to day responsibilities can't be taken care
of purely because of the economic situation that they're in,
which is which forces them to make I don't want
to say poor decisions, but the only decisions that they're
able to comprehend at that point that can allow.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Them to survive.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
People always talk about how it split second can change
your whole life and the whole trajectory, not that you
can ever come well some things people can't come back
from you. But I want to talk about the work
that you do as an er physician too, because it
has to be difficult to see the things that you
see every day and want to be able to do
whatever you can, even outside of being a physician, right
(23:53):
when you see so many different things happening and you're like,
I wish I could do more to help people, which
is why you started KAVE. But I want to talk
about how you're able to separate that and just you
do your job at the base.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
That's a great question because that wasn't always the case.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
I wasn't always able.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
To separate the work from the activism to my own
personal life. I think before I had a family, before
I got married, before I had a kid, before my
parents started aging, it was easy because I just had time.
You got youth on your side, You got time and energy,
and I could still stay up for long periods of time,
which is kind of a gift, and stay focused for
(24:32):
longer periods of time, which even a greater gift that's
been worked on very hard. But there was a point
where everything kind of came tumbling. And in the book,
I speak about one of my close friends Willis Willis
Young who call Young, who was one of our intervention
team members.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
He grew up in bedstyle.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
He lived on the block that I moved to in
twenty eleven, and he's one of the first people I met.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Even though he wasn't living there anymore.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
He was always on the block hanging out until we
developed his friendship almost mentor mentee. We had just launched
programming for Covey and I said, I said, you know,
we don't have any money, but I would love to
have you work with us, because I loved how you.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Engage with people.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
And you know, people in New York don't always speak to.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
You speak to people, but people.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Transient, you know, not don't look for long periods of time,
look to engage and just keep it, keep it moving.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
But he had this magic about how he interacted with people.
I said, when we get some money, I want to
I want to bring you on.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
I said, right now, we're just doing volunteer stuff, and
he said, I got some stuff going on, so I
can't really do that kind of work just yet because
I'm not ready for it.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
But we always had.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
These conversations and eventually he started coming in as a
volunteer and started really participating in the sessions. I thought
he was there's kind of as a support system for
the kids in our school based program, but he was
actually there. He was like, I'm learning stuff in these spaces.
And then once we got our first grant money about
two years later in twenty thirteen, he was one of
(26:03):
our first hirees and so his job he was a
violence intervention specialist in hospital responder, and his job was
to make sure that he intervened with people when they
when they were injured. He provided a lot of support system,
talking to them about, you know, just doing basic check
ins like yo.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Are you okay?
Speaker 4 (26:18):
I know what happened to you? I know this is
this is this is messed up. I want these language.
I'm not Shriver on sorts, curse on the air. But
he said, you know, he would do these check ins
and sometimes you know, because he lived in the sky
and he was also blood, he knew some of the
patients that were coming in.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
And so that was that that thing that what.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
I'm providing is a real benefit to people that are
in our circle because I know, I can speak the
language very different than the docks, than the nurses, and
I have the time to be able to do that,
and he was brilliant at that job. But a few
years later, on my birthday in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
My morning wake up call.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
I was off that day in the er, but my
morning wake up call was that he was stabbed multiple
times and taken to the emergency department, the same place
where he did the intervention work making sure that people
didn't retaliate, making sure that they got a support system
and had an advocate from someone who was a credible messenger.
But the same place he did these interventions was the
same place that he was brought in as a patient.
(27:13):
And he was tough, he was strong, he was muscular,
but after being stabbed so many different times and repeat
blood transfusions, you know, his body couldn't handle the stress
and he wound up dying two weeks later in the ICU,
the same place that he would also comfort people.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
And I never shut off.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
So I was the intersection and the liaison between people
on the block who knew and loved him and cared
for him, the people from the hospital who same thing knew,
loved and cared for the people from our organization who knew,
loved and cared for him, and I never took a break.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
I kept I didn't have time.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
I didn't grieve, even like on shifts, you know, we're
coming from overnight, you know, you know, I go check
on him coming, and even during ships, I check on
him in the upstairs in the ICU, you know, even
if it was like a couple of minutes.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
And I was constantly doing that.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
And when he died, I we had an organization because
we're still doing.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
This intervention work. And it wasn't until.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
I hit the day of his funeral, which was like
maybe a month or two months later, that everything just
kind of came crashing down. And I was working, I
was coming in for a shift. I was running late,
and I called the er. I said, look, i'm running late.
The nurse who picked up the phone with somebody that
I grew up with, you know, because Brooklyn is just
connected in that way, and she said, you're not gonna
(28:26):
believe who's here. It was the pay of the person
who came and shot multiple times. But he was the
brother of another person who I pronounced dead. And the
kid who I pronounced dead was a sixteen year old
kid who.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Was killed by the police. And so when I go
into the room.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
You know, I'm still I didn't sleep that day, you know,
because you know, adrenaline, you know, all these emotions are swirling.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
So I couldn't even rest before my overnight shift.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
That the funeral was that earlier, that that late morning,
early afternoon, and so I'm already tired, I'm already stressed,
I'm already somewhat disregulated.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
And I see this guy who shot multiple times.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Who's stable, and you know, eventually we kind of really
how we were connected because he met me when his
brother had passed. I think, yeah, he did meet me
when his brother passed. And then his mother came in,
who recognized me immediately. She said, I know who you are.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
You cut your locks, and that point I was like shit,
I was like, this is a you know, I didn't
want to happen.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Already know that it was all these feelings of guilt
and shame because we couldn't keep this kid alive. And
you know, but I told this mother that her sixteen
year old kid was killed, and I didn't even know
at the time that he was killed by law enforcement.
And eventually she looks at me, you know, she stopped
making eye contact with me and I understood completely why
(29:37):
I would.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Come in the room give her updates on what was
going on with her son.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Who was a patient who still needed to have a
bunch of diagnostic studies done because of his injuries.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
But she would ask questions, but she just look at
me like this, like how.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
We're sitting right now, and she would just look off
into the wall and she was she had like her
grandchild just kind of rocking back and forth and refused
to make eye contact.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
And then after I told her her son would stayble, we.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Were going to admit him, she looks at me and
she's said, did my son say anything to you before
he died? And like, my body just froze, because this
is a kid who was like, you know, who came
in alive and he was like mumbling, don't let me
die and stuff like that. And then you know, my
body is shaking. And then she says, why does this
keep happening to my family?
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Because she'd also lost another person, another family member.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
To gun violence not long before, but I think maybe
a month or two months before. And then here her
other son is lying on a stretcher who's been shot
multiple times, and I couldn't answer my body just snapped
cold sweat, you know, diaphoretic, you know, armpitch soaked, hyperventilating,
and I just had to run out of the room.
(30:42):
And I'm used to keeping I'm pretty calm, but I
couldn't regulate and i had to run to the bathroom
and I'm like, I'm having these dry heaves and I'm
having a panic attack.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
And I'm like, what the hell is this? I was like,
I don't get panic attacks. This is not me, you know. Yeah,
I've been nervous before, but I'm the one who's in control. Oh,
I'm the er doc. That's what we're taught. We keep
you know, we keep things in control.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
We're like green berets and like Navy seals of medicine,
and that's.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
What we do. But now I can't keep myself calm.
Speaker 4 (31:12):
And I had a bunch of I had a like
six or seven hours left on my shift, and so
I'm like, how do I.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Take care of all these other people come in?
Speaker 4 (31:18):
And we got the people coming with chest pain and
people coming with strokes, and.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
My body's shaking.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
But because of how we're taught to regulate and how
to articulate that we're good or not good. We don't
and so I just had to tense up my body.
So if you tense up your body and you stay
in motion, people can't see that you're shaking, and then
your confidence is maintained and they don't think anything is wrong.
And so when somebody thinks something is wrong, then everybody
starts to panic. And if you're in that leadership position,
(31:46):
you're not allowed. And so I was having panic attacks
and this was happening repeatedly, coming to the hospital, going home.
Every time I walk to the hospital was happening. I'm like,
how the hell can this happen? And I'm supposed to
be the person in control. Docs aren't supposed to get sick,
health care providers are not supposed to get sick, and
now here it is I'm the patient. And so I
started going back to therapy and learning. You know, one
(32:08):
I realized I need to do something because I'm not
going on any medication because just this is my ego
and check at least not as you know, hopefully not
having to.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Go on anything.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
And then learned about more regulating, and she told me that,
you know, you've been taking care of people for so
long and you haven't You've been taught to be empathetic,
but not really taught to be compassionate. And because of
the empathy, you're learning to connect with people through their
trauma and through their problems and creating these trauma bonds
(32:38):
rather than showing love and showing compassion and really being
able to navigate these spaces safely. I'm not saying that
you don't care, but really realizing that you have an
objective to do. And it's like, if you can express
emotion but you still have a job, you can't become
the problem. You can't be sowing ingrained that they've entered
your complete psyche to the point that it taking over
(33:00):
who you are. And then on top of that, you're
not giving yourself periods to recover. You can have trauma,
you can have injury, but you got to recover. So
you got to have these periods of reflection and processing it.
And so, you know, I do a lot of physical activity,
you know, judo, resilient jiu jitsu, and those are ways
to kind of help regulate and process a lot of
the trauma and the stress that I deal.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
With on a day to day basis. But it's intentional.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
I don't eat junk food, you know, And it's not like, oh,
I don't want to eat junk and I'm trying to
just you know, just trying to think I'm better than
than other people. It's like, No, if I eat a
bunch of crap, that means I can't sleep. If I
can't sleep, that means I can't be there for my
wife and my son. If I can't sleep properly, that means.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
I'm making mistakes. When I'm at working, we're dealing with
You're making life.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Sect You're making decisions in the matter of a second
that can impact somebody's family member or somebody else's life,
and I don't want that one well, I don't want
that on my conscious. You kind of take these these steps,
and you make these pacts with yourself and take these
oaths to be responsible and respectful and to care for people.
But you can't do that if you're a patient. And
(34:01):
so the delineation of wellness really being a lifestyle and
something that's a part of who you are and integrated
into every aspect of what you do has to be
paramount so that we can continue doing that stuff.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
That therapist that I got to keep doing the work.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Yeah, I mean, it's like what they always say, put
your oxygen mask on first, Yeah, and then you can
save everybody else. And that's what you have to do.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Last thing I want to touch on with you, what
kind of policy changes do you think need to happen
to support this different approach to rehabilitation and what can
we do as individuals.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
I think that that's a great question. There are two
things that come to mind.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
The first is, and this is more on a federal
and a state level, with regards to background checks for firearms.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
You know, I you know firearms.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
You know I Willis was stabbed, and so I don't
want people to think that old gun violence is the
only thing that you know, people should focus on. But
you know, firearms do kill more people than knives because
of the true because of the caliber of the weapon
and the rate in which something can be fired to
increase the likelihood of somebody dying. But policies to ensure
that background checks that are occurring around the United States,
(35:11):
you know, eradicating guns and firearms. That's a whole separate conversation,
but on a most basic level, making sure that the
laws regarding background checks or something that are universal, regardless
of how somebody purchased a gun, or the state, or
the or the or the country in which these things
have been purchased, it.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Has to be uniform and training that has to be loved.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
I love that making sure there's a deal of training,
because that's something I've never brought up before, but so
thank you.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Making sure there's levels.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Of training if you are going to have access to one,
making sure that the background checks are universal, regardless of
who and where they purchased it have to be important.
And then the other one is ensuring that people recognize
violence of the public health issue. If the if the
state department, if local, if city and local governments all
acknowledge that violence is a public health issue, then that
(36:00):
means they can be funding allocated to help improve those situations.
And for you know, you have a nonprofit. I know
you supported so many different community efforts and.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
This hasn't her place in Detroit.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Yeah, the housing, the housing.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Some of the housing is going to help, you.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Know which which is you know, I'm so happy about that,
and you know some of my my Detroit people also
very appreciative of.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
That kind of work.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
But it takes financial backing, right, And so you've got
to have the resource to be able to do that.
But you know, looking at things that impact funding can
really change the trajectory of somebody who's doing something very
small in grassroots.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Just because it's small and grassroots doesn't mean that it's
not effective.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
Matter of fact, I feel like they're more effective because
they're even more closely connected. But these institutions and these
organizations can't thrive unless there's a level of there's something
that's implemented to allow for some sort of sustainability.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
And the cash flow issue is a very.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Very important thing, and that's definitely something they've been working
on here because we talk about like police departments and
allocating some of that money towards intervention groups and people
who are in the community, people who already do the
works the work on a grassroots level, but they're not
getting the funding or money that they should be getting
because people should get paid to do those things, absolutely,
you know, And so I do think that is something
(37:15):
that that's why policy is important. That's why knowing who
your local officials are is important, and supporting different people
and making sure you let them know this is what
we need.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
If you can make a living wage being in a
helping profession, think of how communities are impacted. You know,
there's so many people in helping professions who are doing
nonprofit work, community work, education, social workers that get so
burned out because they can't make a living or proper
living wage to take care of themselves and their family.
Financial stress, you know, that financial stress.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Back back to what we're talking about.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
So if you're if you're doing you know, working and
helping profession because that's your calling, but you can't care
for your loved ones. That means you're doing extra overtime,
which means you can't spend time with them. And these
are things that I understood, but now as a parent
of a toddler, I realize this stuff even more importantly.
You have to be intentionally, you have to be completely
present when you're caring for somebody else in this capacity,
(38:04):
because there's so many outside influences that are there and
you don't want somebody else raising your child. But if
you can't, but survivability, that's so important. So we got
to have that survival mechanism in place. And so if
all the politicians out there and the people who are
engaged in policy, please make sure you fund these different
programs that are out there that are doing the incredible
work to allow for them to continue this work.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
And elections coming up between you and us, So everybody's
going to go to Amazon and they're going to get
your book Treating Violence and Emergency Room Doctors take on.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
A Deadly American Epidemic.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
You can get that on Amazon. Thank you for being
my glasses around.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Me all the time.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
And also, everybody, we have so many free resources on
Wealth Wednesdays to help you get that economic piece in place.
Go to Teamwealth Wednesdays dot com. Take that pledge, you
get weekly new letters. Follow Wealth Wednesdays on Instagram. There's
so much free information entrepreneurs. We have our Entrepreneurs group.
But between the book Wealth Wednesdays, I thank you for
(39:10):
giving us such a powerful, powerful segment during the health
something we haven't done before.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Say we appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Thanks doctor brab gre And I know how great it
has to be if something happens to have you as
the er physician at least, because you know it's not
too often that you'll see somebody that you can fail
connected to and that does help a lot as well.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Happy Wealth Wednesdays.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
Everybody thanks Wednesdays.
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