February 21, 2022 • 29 mins
Ryan Gorman hosts an iHeartRadio nationwide special featuring Ginger Zee, ABC News Chief Meteorologist and Author of the new book A Little Closer to Home: How I Found the Calm After the Storm. Ginger opens up about her mental health struggles and offers advice for those dealing with the same issues. Also, Founder & CEO of Byja Clinic, Dr. Byron Jasper, joined the show to discuss the latest information on COVID-19 and the vaccines.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to I Heart Radio Communities, a public affair special
focusing on the biggest issues impacting you this week. Here's
Ryan Gorman. Thanks for joining us here on I Hear
Radio Communities. I'm Ryan Gorman, and we have some important
conversations lined up for you. In a moment, I'll talk
to ABC News Chief Meteorologist Ginger Z, who has a
(00:21):
new book out detailing her mental health struggles. Then I'll
talk to Dr Byron Jasper, founder and CEO of BAI
Jack Clinic in Baton Rouge about the state of the
pandemic and the COVID nineteen vaccines. Right now, to get
things started, I'm joined by ginger Z, ABC News chief
meteorologist and author of the new book A Little Closer
to Home How I Found the Calm after the Storm.
(00:43):
Ginger thanks so much for coming on the show. And
before we get into this new book, I want to
go back to your previous book, the New York Times
bestseller Natural Disaster, where you really open up for the
first time about your life and the struggles you've dealt with.
How difficult was it to write that book and revealed
to the world the serious challenges and mental health issues
(01:05):
you've gone through, especially as such a well known public figure.
What drove you to write all of that down and
then go and publish it? Well, thank you Ryan for
having me. And yeah, that first book was scary, you know,
I have to be honest. It was even though I
knew I wanted to do it, after I had been
(01:25):
kind of coaxed into doing I didn't go out thinking
about right, I wanted to write a baby book about
whether And then I started talking and somehow this conversation
she's good. She somehow eventually got to know me well
enough that I was telling her stories about my life.
And then I started She said, just speak, just try writing,
and I did. And she's like, this is a book,
this is a book about mental health. And I was
(01:45):
like it is wow. And I almost didn't have time
until right before it went to print. And I remember
mid two am, I'm waking up in a cold, split
awake my husband up. I was like, we should stop them.
Nobody's going to hire me after they learned this. I'm
gonna be that girl law. And he said, if you
weren't worried, if you weren't going to make a dent,
if you weren't going to upset some people or some
(02:07):
people would judge you, then the book isn't worth it.
It's not just another nice book with another nice lady
with her hands crossed, you know, her arms crossed like
a senior photo with a past house letter on this
one's going to do something. And as soon as he
said that, I knew he was right. You know, he's
pretty wise, and I saw it works beyond. I was
(02:28):
able to connect with people, thousands of people that have
told me everything from you know, they helped pull them
out of kind of a dark spiral, or are they
were reminded that they could get help to You saved
my life, or I'm a mother of three and if
I hadn't seen that you went to the hospital, I
wouldn't have gone and my girls wouldn't have a mother.
(02:48):
Like stuff like that started happening, and it was just
so surprising in the best way that that that my
words had had such purpose um in the world. You
find that people were surprised about your life story once
they read what you wrote in that first book, because again,
(03:10):
we know you as the chief meteorologist on ABC and
Good Morning America, and there's this certain image that I
think people can get in their head about somebody when
they watched them every morning. Were people surprised about your story?
They were surprised, but they were more surprised with how
similar we were. Almost every email I got or d
(03:32):
M or any of the messages, but I still get
today from that first book start with, oh my gosh,
I'm a natural disaster too. I felt like I was
reading my own story. And to be able to read
that thousands of times over, not only do I know
it the code, but it was healing for me to realize, Wow,
I'm not unique. You know, we are not. We are
(03:52):
all really in this together. And that's when I also
knew that I could write more because I kept digging
and I have done the really hard work and the
and the maintenance that I think it takes to keep
healing um that other people might not even be aware
that it's part of a life long journey. It's just
like physical health. You don't just go get in six
shape in one year and get a personal trainer and
(04:13):
eat right and then stop. It might be easier, but
you've got to maintain as you go through so that
you can learn how to do trauma better, so you
can learn all those things, and that's what the second
book really became about, was the realistic set of I
got to change my habits of life. I had to
put mental health first. And that's what Billy the last
three years I focused on, and that I share a
lot in this book. I'm joined by ABC News Chief
(04:35):
meteorologist Ging Jersey. She's author of the New York Times
bestseller Natural Disaster. In the new book, A little closer
to home, how I found the calm after the storm.
So you open up even more in this new book.
Was there any part of you that said, you know
what I did the first one, I shared my story,
I'm done put myself out there, or or you were
(04:55):
ready to dive back in because you saw what an
impact the first book had on so many people all
across the country. I not only saw the impact, but
I was like, they got that much out of what
I shared, Oh honey, you don't know what um and
I I had also learned a lot more. I was
also seeing the Me Too movement happen and seeing the
(05:15):
power behind a societal shift in how men and women
who were shedding their shame of sharing the worst thing
that had happened to them was so powerful, and that
you know, one testimony specifically of hearing someone's sexual assault
in my I f c the thing we were in
our ear when I was on the set of Good
(05:36):
Morning America. It almost drilled into my brain and went
into my heart of trauma. Bopened it up and said, hey, lady,
here's something you haven't dealt with enough. How about you
open that back up and share with people how we
can go back into trauma. And and I learned in
that process that we can't delete it. I was very
I was an expert at saying, well, that didn't happen,
(05:57):
and then moving on, I just really didn't happen. Have
to do that. Trauma doesn't believe you have to process it,
whether that's a year later or five years, depending on
how you process right. Not everybody's the same, hopefully sooner
than later. And you can't do it alone. And those
two themes were really important to going into this book.
And we're talking about you opening up in these books,
(06:17):
but for those who aren't familiar with your story, can
you share just a little bit about what you touch
on in these books? Yeah, because the first book, you know,
I do talk about my hospitalization and I think that's important.
I even think sometimes when I hear the suicide hotline given,
I'm like, well that's I mean, it's good, but I
want to do and I'm pitching stories now of what
(06:38):
does that look like? What are you going to hear
when you call that number? How are they going to
help you? Let's give people a little bit more education
on what you get when you go there, when you
go to the emergency room. Um, and sharing my experiences,
while they may not be the same as every other person,
I think it's powerful because it gives people a little
vision of Okay, somebody else did this, Maybe that's something
(07:00):
I can try or do. Maybe that's a safe place
for me right now if I'm having suicidal ideation. So
I talk about my suicide attempt. I talked about RX here,
I talk about rape, the trauma of it and the
avoidance of it, and the and the thing that I
don't know that we talk enough about in the book
or that I haven't talked about in interviews enough is
(07:22):
what rape and assault can do for a lifetime to
a person, about the intimacy that it changes about how
you view intimacy, and you talk about like the maintenance
of the hard work. I am still in the hard
work process of healing from that, and I think that's
something that I like being realistic about and being honest about,
and that has had a lot of connection for people.
(07:43):
I've gotten a lot of messages from this last book
about that I talked about abortion in a non political way,
which is you know that it is, but I think
I achieved it, and I hope that it gets to
a point where my purpose of sharing that story is
about trauma. It's about how for me it was trauma,
(08:05):
but also about how I never see in an abortion
headline anything about education, prevention or equality. I have two
little boys. How should they be able to protect themselves?
Why have we not created a male birth control? Why
have we not right? There are a lot of questions
that go well beyond the point of making that choice
(08:26):
that we never addressed in that conversation, and so I
wanted that to be part of the book as well.
And then the most exciting part to me is the
fusion of my identity. And that's something that no matter
what you have, whether you have mental health, illness issues,
um challenges, everybody has to do. We have to do
(08:46):
it for ourselves and for others, because we as a
society very very easily put labels on each other. A
lot of times we believe those labels, or we label ourselves,
and then we hold those labels till the end of time.
And so I've been able to get to this really
healthy places. I think of it as a fuse box
that was really wrecked, like someone has come in and
wriskle wires out and it was all over the place.
(09:07):
It's been not only fixed now, but I'm able to
turn those lights on and those fuses on, and now
I'm split right, and it feels like I want people
to know you can get here too. I'm joined by
Jing Jersey, chief meteorologist for ABC News and author of
the new book A Little Closer to Home. How I
found the calm after the storm. Were you the type
of person that was able to kind of compartmentalize, um,
(09:31):
what you were going through in your personal life because
you have such a public life that you live. You're
in front of the camera every day. Were you able
to kind of flip that switch and once you got
to work and the camera was turned on, you were
able to just do your thing or was that something
that that you were dealing with even while you're in
the middle of doing something like that. I got lucky,
(09:53):
I think most of the time to my career a
lot of the I think of a lot of moments
in Chicago, specifically when I works there, that I was
abusing alcohol even wall at work, and I am that,
you know, I can't feel shame or guilt about it,
because I was sick and I needed help and I
was hiding it, and you know, it was a band
(10:14):
aid for me. But I just got lucky. I think
that that I thought I was departmentalizing it what I wasn't,
you know, it was pretty obvious and and the and
the wild part to me now though, is even I
think about my makeup artists in Chicago, and I remember
a couple of times where I would come back. I
worked a double shift on weekends, and so that meant
I was down around eleven AM, and I would come
(10:35):
back maybe at two, you know, to do the five PM,
and I will have drink a bottle of wine from
eleven to two, taking a nap, maybe maybe taking my
dog out. Whatever it was. So it's really not great.
And she would smell it at me and I would
lie and I would say, Oh, She's like, wow, do
you have some drinks? And I'm like, yeah, I went
to brunch with friends. Like I always had a new story.
(10:57):
I always had some sort of life. So it's not
it wasn't up to her. And know, she was already
doing the due diligence of recognizing what she smelled. But
when I told her that what was, she supposed to
keep questioning me. And I think that all became part
of the spiral, lying to myself, lying to other people,
and then being so alone and isolated, thinking that I
(11:17):
had to keep that that was. That was heavy and
so yes, I think I compartmentalized, but poorly. Well, I'm
so glad you wrote these books and you're sharing all
of this with the world, because, as you know from
your first book, there are so many people who can
relate to what you're talking about in these books. And again,
Ginger z, ABC News chief meteorologist is author of the
(11:38):
new book, A Little Closer to Home How I Found
the Calm after the Storm. Ginger really appreciate the time.
Thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing
all that you did. Thank you, Ryan, enjoy the rest
of your day, all right. And finally, I'm joined now
by Dr Byron Jasper, founder and CEO of by Jack
Clinic in Baton Rouge, to talk about the state of
(11:58):
the pandemic and the COVID nineteen vaccines. Dr Jasper, thanks
so much for taking a few minutes to come on
the show. And let's start with where we stand right now.
COVID cases decreasing across the United States, and I think
for some they're wondering, with that being the case, does
it still make sense to get vaccinated. Absolutely. I would
(12:21):
say vaccines are a huge reason why those numbers are
actually going down in the United States. A lot of
people may happen to think that it just happened based
off of happenstance, or it just came to fruition because
people were basically being their normal, healthy, sanitary selves. But
we actually know in the medical field that the vaccines
(12:44):
have been quintisential in all of the things that are
leading to decreases in hospitalizations, decreases in depth, decreases in
people getting sick and actually transmitting it to other people
in such high numbers, decreases in people at actually being
able to be around other people with the fears that hey,
(13:04):
you know, what I'm going to end up giving this
to somebody, so I may just have to stay home.
All of that being said, if you think about where
we were prior to vaccines, you would see that we've
actually gotten a lot further when vaccines became available. So
I think vaccines need a lot of credit. I'm a
huge advocate for getting vaccinated, and I do think that
even though we're on the decline when it comes to
(13:25):
the rate of infection, we should not go without vaccination
and should get vaccination. As to credit where it's due,
what do people need to know about getting boosted? Who's
eligible to receive a booster, and why exactly is it
important to get a COVID NINETEAM booster if you're fully vaccinated. Yeah,
so boosters are really really helpful. And I actually had
(13:48):
this conversation with the patient not too long ago. The
question was very plainly, can you explain to me what
a booster is and why should I get one? And
to make it as simple as possible. I love analogies
of a Big the Kid for giving things in ways
that people hopefully can receive it a lot better and
not make it so so technical. A booster is basically
your immune system. Getting a boost is the most basic
(14:11):
way I can say it. If you are literally starting
in one spot and you want to get to another spot,
a little bit fast or a boost will help you.
Or if you're thinking about it in a sense that
you were at a certain level and you're starting to
fade a little bit. You need a little pick me up,
so you take a boost of coffee or a boost
of caffeine, and that gives you a little bit more
(14:31):
to where you were in the past. So the booster
when it comes to vaccines, it's the same thing. It's
basically us giving you another round of something that uh
a virus, bacteria, fungus, whatever the vaccine is, and it's
boosting the immune system so it responds adequately compared to
where it was when we first gave the vaccine. So
it's nothing different. It may be a slight difference in
(14:53):
the amount, the dose may be different, the number of
vaccines or shots may be different, but the actual response
it's the same. It's begging your it's making your immune
system better. And to answer the second part of the question,
who should get a booster shot, it's pretty much anyone
over the age of twelve if you've had a COVID
vaccination pass. If you haven't been vaccinated, we want you
to get the original series, and then once you have
(15:15):
achieved that actual original series of being vaccinated fully, we
then want you to go back and get boosted to
make sure that that community does not get to a
low level where it's no longer effective. So sometimes that
can be anywhere from five months from certain vaccines. Sometimes
it's as little as two months. It depends on the
vaccine that we're talking about, but specifically the Fiser vaccine
(15:36):
and then the Darta vaccine, which we've seen be the
most effective options in America. It's usually five months after
you've completed the first series, and once so five months
have passed, you go ahead and get another booster, and
then you're back to where we started. Those immune systems
are working very powerfully, and everybody is going to be
the better off because we're now fully protected. Now, with
(15:57):
so many people having been affected by this latest variant
O maicron, does it still make sense to get a
booster or would natural immunity cover them? So? I think
natural immunity is very tough because a lot of people
here that well, well, look I had COVID before, I'm
naturally immune, and if I say, well, tell me what
(16:17):
that means, then their mind, that means that they can't
ever get COVID again. And that's actually the polar opposite.
It really doesn't work that way. It really and truthfully
is if you had the virus before, you are susceptible
to getting it again. So natural immunity takes a long
time to develop, and even with natural immunity, there is
still a chink in the armor. If you will, you
(16:38):
could still potentially get COVID again with natural immunity, whereas
when you have what we call man made immunity with vaccinations,
the likelihood of you getting COVID a first time and
or a second time is a lot lower. So if
you're kind of comparing the two, natural immunity is better
than nothing, right, but man made immunity vaccines have actually
(16:59):
proven to be more effective the natural immunity. There's research
that has been done to see if those people who
have had COVID in the past compared to those that
have vaccines actually do better, and the science has shown
that those who have been vaccinated performed better in terms
of the rate of hospitalization. The rate of death and
the rate of just basically getting COVID. So all of
(17:19):
that being fit Mannade immunity has actually proven to be better,
and because of that, we want to keep going to
the idea that vaccines are necessary. I'm Ryan Gorman, joined
right now by Dr Byron Jasper, founder and CEO of
Bai Jack Clinic in Baton Rouge. When it comes to boosters,
how should people decide which booster shot to get? Is
(17:40):
one better than the others? Yeah, so I think the
idea of booster shots, it's tough because sometimes we just think, look,
I want to always get the best one. So the
first thing I tell people that you get what you
can get, especially if you're in a place where it's
just tough to get access to one booster compared to another.
From the actual science side, Visor and Maderna have proven
(18:01):
to be the most effective. They're in the high nine
d percentile of the effectiveness of the actual boosters and
the vaccine. And because of that, those are the two
that I kind of guide people towards, just based on
the science, not based on a preference of one versus
the other. And if a person says, look, I started
with Fiser should I switch over for me? I tell them, looks,
(18:21):
do what you can. If you say, look, I've got Visor,
but looks they're really running short over here, and I'd
rather get Visor another time. But if they take another
six seven months, I'm like, look, just go get some Maderna.
Be happy. We'll be fine with it. And then it's
the same thing if Maderna had been available in the
past and now Viser is available. Mixing and matching so
far has been shown to actually work. All things being said,
(18:43):
as long as you're getting that booster shot and doing
it in the way in the time that we're actually
asking people to do, in the most effective means, then
I think we're gonna be fine. So mixing and matching
it's not a bad idea. You don't have to do that,
But if you want to do it, or you have
to do it because of the availability is actually not
quite there, then I think that's fine as well. And
(19:05):
we mentioned earlier the case count across the United States
right now with this bomicron variant is coming down, But
is it possible that other variants could soon emerge. I
think it can, and I think we've actually seen in
the news that there are other variants that are out there.
It's just that they're not as prominent, they're not as virulent,
(19:27):
they're not as transmissible. So all of that being said,
what we're starting to see is that people will often say,
you know what, I think that this variant is a
big deal and I'm going to really take it seriously,
and some people are actually doing the opposite. So all
of that being said, I tell people, look, variants are there.
Their variables are variations of the original virus. They happen
(19:50):
all the time. We have a lot of variants of
a lot of things, like the blue virus, we just
don't realize that they're variants because we just call it
the flue. In COVID, we're getting a little bit more
attention to trains because those are a little bit more
path logic, and because of that, they're going to be around.
So as they actually start to uh show up, I
think we definitely are going to hear more about them,
(20:12):
and they're not necessarily going away. And even if we
don't hear about them, we still want to be as
effective in terms of vaccinating, in terms of socially distancing, masking,
washing our hands, all the things that we have seen
that has helped us get to this point of being
starting to go in the right direction. I'm Ryan Gorman,
joined by Dr. Byron Jasper, Founder and chief executive officer
(20:32):
of by Jack Clinic. You alluded to vaccine access a
moment ago. Have you seen any improvement with vaccine access
and vaccination rates in black neighborhoods and communities across the country.
I say, very plainly, it's here, miss It depends on
the neighborhood, depends on the local government, it depends on
(20:54):
the resources, and it's unfortunate. It really is something that
I really a lot on in my community, but also
just trying to advocate for more equality and more equity,
which some people don't realize those are two different things.
But the idea is that every neighborhood is not created
in the same likeness of every neighborhood. So uh, black
(21:16):
people and black neighborhoods are not monolithic, meaning that if
you do one thing in one neighborhood is going to
work in the other neighbors But if you do one
thing in one uh demographic, it's going to work in another.
You sometimes have to get creative, so UM. I actually
attended an actual grand grounds and in uh the actual
medical field. Grandgrounds is kind of when someone gives a
presentation to other colleagues in the medical field. And one
(21:39):
of the analogies, as I mentioned I love analogies that A. O. B. G.
Y M gave to me was she used the term
we need to roll the dice. And what she meant was,
when we roll the dice, you always get a different combination,
usually of numbers when the dice actually finished rolling. And
what she was trying to get at was very plainly
that you don't want to do the same thing in
(22:00):
every neighborhood unless you know it really works. Sometimes you
have to get creative. So in neighborhood ay, you may
do this, and neighborhood be you may do this, and
neighborhood too, you may do this, and neighborhood or see,
you may do this. And the point is there's so
many different things that we can do to get access
to vaccines, to better health care. We need to stop
thinking about the actual four walls that we are actually
(22:21):
put in in the medical field within the United States
and work on doing things that are actually working for
a certain neighborhood, certain people, certain demographics, and one of
the things that I will advocate for and undoubtedly loudly
and proudly is getting people into primary care, especially those
people that are often disenfranchised by the medical system. Black
and brown people are often those people who are last
(22:44):
to get healthcare but the first to get sick. And
if that's the case, we should think more creatively of
how to deliver these vaccines and these actual health uh
health solutions to those actual demographics so we don't have
the issues of health disparities that we see so often
and it just becomes the norm. And I'll say very
(23:04):
plainly to wrap it up, is that health disparity should
not be a thing. It should not take until two
for us to say our one or twenty twenties to say,
you know what, this is a problem. We should find
a way to do something about this. If it's something
that's been there and it's not working, we need to
try something else. And I think the ideas we work
on sick care a lot bick care, meaning hey, we
(23:24):
want patients to go in and get treated when they
get thick. If we focus more on the primary care,
the preventative care, I think things would shift in a
better fashion. But again, not a one size fits all.
We just need to figure out different ways to get
different care to different people and do it in an
equitable way. Continuing real quick with this issue in particular,
COVID cases among Black Americans now occurring at about the
(23:44):
same rate as among white Americans, but hospitalizations among Blacks
are two and a half times higher and deaths are
nearly two times higher than white Americans. What health issues
in the black community put them at higher risk? Especially
when we see these different variants begin to emerge. Yeah,
(24:06):
the trinity of healthcare are let me back up. The
trinity of actual health related issues in the black community
that I see that are often at the top of
the list are usually high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol,
and to be more specific, uncontrolled high blood pressure, uncontrolled diabetes,
and uncontrolled high cholesterol. Those things are the culprits that
(24:31):
often times will cause the black families, the black fathers,
the black mothers, the grandmothers to be in the hospital
very quickly for a number of issues. And COVID just
came along and made it actually a lot worse and
a lot more prominent. But the idea is not new
that black women, black men are often those that have
the worst healthcare outcomes. But for some reason, we're often
(24:54):
really shocked when we see the numbers, like you just mentioned,
two point five times more likely to die than a
white American. That is not something that should be shocking
if it's been going on for forty some odd years,
but it's just shocking when you hear it. And it's
possibly that it's in your face now because COVID is everywhere.
So I back up to go to the idea that
(25:15):
we need to find ways to treat these people and
meet them where they're at and get creative. And the
idea that we often have is that we'll hear a
lot of people come on and say, the black community,
you need to go get vaccinated, and then my first
question is, well, who's giving the message, and it's usually somebody.
They have no idea who this person is. It's a doctor,
(25:36):
it's a health care professional, and that person is nowhere
near the community that they're speaking to. They may be
passing through, they may be prominent in the news world,
but they are not in that community. So when you
go and find a black doctor who works in the community,
who's from the community and has a focus in the community,
they're more likely to receive the information in a little
(25:56):
bit different fashion than someone who they've never met before.
Again bringing me back to analogies. My thing is that
if you have a financial advisor who you've never met
before telling you you give me all your money and
I'll make you rich, I'm pretty sure you're gonna say,
let me clutch my wallets a little bit more closely
than somebody who's never ever you know, somebody who you
(26:16):
actually know. But if you have a financial planet relationship
with for three, four or five decades and they tell
you put your money here, I'm pretty sure you'll be
all right. More than likely you'll say, hey, i've known
this financial planner for a while. I think it's a
good idea to listen to them, because he or she
hasn't let me wrong yet. But in the medical field
it's the exact opposite. It really explores me that a
lot of people don't say, you know what, maybe I
(26:38):
should get a primary care doctor who works in the community,
who looks like black people and says, you know what,
this person may be a better messenger than so and
so who's on the national news who comes in and
just drops this random fifteen minute plug or fifteen minutes
segment on how vaccines are breaks. So my my biggest outcry,
if you will, and I've been saying this of the
(27:00):
better part of a year and a half to two years,
is that we need more focused on primary care. I
am a primary care position, so yes, I have a bias,
but I also know what works for me, and I
know what works for my patients. I have patients who
literally will call me at the drop of a hat
and say, before I do anything medically related, I call
you first, Dr Jeffery because I trust you, and that
feeling is something you can't Boy, you can't make people
(27:22):
trust you by just telling them to do stuff, So
that relationship is the first thing. So how do we
stop the two point five times higher death rate in
Black Americans when it comes to health care? How about
we get more black positions, black immersed practitioners, black position assistance,
and the list goes on and on. But again, for
some reason, we don't think simple things for simple solutions.
(27:46):
Are simple problems have simple solutions? Uh? You know, I
can go on and on about this, and a lot
of times I do, and I apologize if I'm getting lengthy,
But I really and truthfully don't understand why we haven't
figured out the enigma of how do we get more
black people be healthy, maybe get more black doctors. Doesn't
sound really really difficult to me, But for some reason
people just think, well, you know what, let's just go
(28:07):
ahead and throw more money. Yet, let's put a clinic here,
and let's do that. I mean, all those are great,
but if the people in the clinic don't speak the
same language, it makes no sense. Another quick analogy. If
you literally go to a place and everyone in the
building speaks Spanish and no one actually, uh in that
community spoke Spanish, how will how well would healthcare be delivered?
(28:29):
At that point, it's probably not going to go to well,
it's not saying it can't happen. But all of the
people in the building that our clinicians speak Spanish, and
no one in the community speaks Spanish, I think you're
gonna say, well, we probably can get this done, but
it could be done a lot better. So if everyone
in the community spoke Spanish and everyone in the clinic
spoke Spanish, all of a sudden, the community and the
clinic work a lot better. So when black people see
(28:51):
black doctors, their healthcare solutions are a lot better, the
communications better, the trust is better, They're more likely to
return the business. And it's actually proven. Research has show
that the the actual outcomes are exclusively better when there
are more people that looked like the actual patient. So,
all things being said, in the very robust and long
(29:11):
winded answer that I can give, if that we need
a more robust focus on primary care, and the primary
care hopefully can be delivered by people that looked like
the actual patient, so those health care disparities are actually
addressed in a more effective way. Dr Byron Jasper, founder
and CEO of Bai Jack Clinic in Baton Rouge, with
some great information for us on COVID nineteen and the vaccines.
(29:35):
Dr Jasper, thanks so much for coming on the show.
We appreciate it, Yes, sir, thank you for having me.
I appreciate it all right, And that'll do it for
this edition of I Hear Radio Communities. I'm your host.
Ryan Gorman will be back, same time, same place, next weekend.
Stay safe,
Welcome to I Heart Radio Communities, a public affair special
focusing on the biggest issues impacting you this week. Here's
Ryan Gorman. Thanks for joining us here on I Hear
Radio Communities. I'm Ryan Gorman, and we have some important
conversations lined up for you. In a moment, I'll talk
to ABC News Chief Meteorologist Ginger Z, who has a
(00:21):
new book out detailing her mental health struggles. Then I'll
talk to Dr Byron Jasper, founder and CEO of BAI
Jack Clinic in Baton Rouge about the state of the
pandemic and the COVID nineteen vaccines. Right now, to get
things started, I'm joined by ginger Z, ABC News chief
meteorologist and author of the new book A Little Closer
to Home How I Found the Calm after the Storm.
(00:43):
Ginger thanks so much for coming on the show. And
before we get into this new book, I want to
go back to your previous book, the New York Times
bestseller Natural Disaster, where you really open up for the
first time about your life and the struggles you've dealt with.
How difficult was it to write that book and revealed
to the world the serious challenges and mental health issues
(01:05):
you've gone through, especially as such a well known public figure.
What drove you to write all of that down and
then go and publish it? Well, thank you Ryan for
having me. And yeah, that first book was scary, you know,
I have to be honest. It was even though I
knew I wanted to do it, after I had been
(01:25):
kind of coaxed into doing I didn't go out thinking
about right, I wanted to write a baby book about
whether And then I started talking and somehow this conversation
she's good. She somehow eventually got to know me well
enough that I was telling her stories about my life.
And then I started She said, just speak, just try writing,
and I did. And she's like, this is a book,
this is a book about mental health. And I was
(01:45):
like it is wow. And I almost didn't have time
until right before it went to print. And I remember
mid two am, I'm waking up in a cold, split
awake my husband up. I was like, we should stop them.
Nobody's going to hire me after they learned this. I'm
gonna be that girl law. And he said, if you
weren't worried, if you weren't going to make a dent,
if you weren't going to upset some people or some
(02:07):
people would judge you, then the book isn't worth it.
It's not just another nice book with another nice lady
with her hands crossed, you know, her arms crossed like
a senior photo with a past house letter on this
one's going to do something. And as soon as he
said that, I knew he was right. You know, he's
pretty wise, and I saw it works beyond. I was
(02:28):
able to connect with people, thousands of people that have
told me everything from you know, they helped pull them
out of kind of a dark spiral, or are they
were reminded that they could get help to You saved
my life, or I'm a mother of three and if
I hadn't seen that you went to the hospital, I
wouldn't have gone and my girls wouldn't have a mother.
(02:48):
Like stuff like that started happening, and it was just
so surprising in the best way that that that my
words had had such purpose um in the world. You
find that people were surprised about your life story once
they read what you wrote in that first book, because again,
(03:10):
we know you as the chief meteorologist on ABC and
Good Morning America, and there's this certain image that I
think people can get in their head about somebody when
they watched them every morning. Were people surprised about your story?
They were surprised, but they were more surprised with how
similar we were. Almost every email I got or d
(03:32):
M or any of the messages, but I still get
today from that first book start with, oh my gosh,
I'm a natural disaster too. I felt like I was
reading my own story. And to be able to read
that thousands of times over, not only do I know
it the code, but it was healing for me to realize, Wow,
I'm not unique. You know, we are not. We are
(03:52):
all really in this together. And that's when I also
knew that I could write more because I kept digging
and I have done the really hard work and the
and the maintenance that I think it takes to keep
healing um that other people might not even be aware
that it's part of a life long journey. It's just
like physical health. You don't just go get in six
shape in one year and get a personal trainer and
(04:13):
eat right and then stop. It might be easier, but
you've got to maintain as you go through so that
you can learn how to do trauma better, so you
can learn all those things, and that's what the second
book really became about, was the realistic set of I
got to change my habits of life. I had to
put mental health first. And that's what Billy the last
three years I focused on, and that I share a
lot in this book. I'm joined by ABC News Chief
(04:35):
meteorologist Ging Jersey. She's author of the New York Times
bestseller Natural Disaster. In the new book, A little closer
to home, how I found the calm after the storm.
So you open up even more in this new book.
Was there any part of you that said, you know
what I did the first one, I shared my story,
I'm done put myself out there, or or you were
(04:55):
ready to dive back in because you saw what an
impact the first book had on so many people all
across the country. I not only saw the impact, but
I was like, they got that much out of what
I shared, Oh honey, you don't know what um and
I I had also learned a lot more. I was
also seeing the Me Too movement happen and seeing the
(05:15):
power behind a societal shift in how men and women
who were shedding their shame of sharing the worst thing
that had happened to them was so powerful, and that
you know, one testimony specifically of hearing someone's sexual assault
in my I f c the thing we were in
our ear when I was on the set of Good
(05:36):
Morning America. It almost drilled into my brain and went
into my heart of trauma. Bopened it up and said, hey, lady,
here's something you haven't dealt with enough. How about you
open that back up and share with people how we
can go back into trauma. And and I learned in
that process that we can't delete it. I was very
I was an expert at saying, well, that didn't happen,
(05:57):
and then moving on, I just really didn't happen. Have
to do that. Trauma doesn't believe you have to process it,
whether that's a year later or five years, depending on
how you process right. Not everybody's the same, hopefully sooner
than later. And you can't do it alone. And those
two themes were really important to going into this book.
And we're talking about you opening up in these books,
(06:17):
but for those who aren't familiar with your story, can
you share just a little bit about what you touch
on in these books? Yeah, because the first book, you know,
I do talk about my hospitalization and I think that's important.
I even think sometimes when I hear the suicide hotline given,
I'm like, well that's I mean, it's good, but I
want to do and I'm pitching stories now of what
(06:38):
does that look like? What are you going to hear
when you call that number? How are they going to
help you? Let's give people a little bit more education
on what you get when you go there, when you
go to the emergency room. Um, and sharing my experiences,
while they may not be the same as every other person,
I think it's powerful because it gives people a little
vision of Okay, somebody else did this, Maybe that's something
(07:00):
I can try or do. Maybe that's a safe place
for me right now if I'm having suicidal ideation. So
I talk about my suicide attempt. I talked about RX here,
I talk about rape, the trauma of it and the
avoidance of it, and the and the thing that I
don't know that we talk enough about in the book
or that I haven't talked about in interviews enough is
(07:22):
what rape and assault can do for a lifetime to
a person, about the intimacy that it changes about how
you view intimacy, and you talk about like the maintenance
of the hard work. I am still in the hard
work process of healing from that, and I think that's
something that I like being realistic about and being honest about,
and that has had a lot of connection for people.
(07:43):
I've gotten a lot of messages from this last book
about that I talked about abortion in a non political way,
which is you know that it is, but I think
I achieved it, and I hope that it gets to
a point where my purpose of sharing that story is
about trauma. It's about how for me it was trauma,
(08:05):
but also about how I never see in an abortion
headline anything about education, prevention or equality. I have two
little boys. How should they be able to protect themselves?
Why have we not created a male birth control? Why
have we not right? There are a lot of questions
that go well beyond the point of making that choice
(08:26):
that we never addressed in that conversation, and so I
wanted that to be part of the book as well.
And then the most exciting part to me is the
fusion of my identity. And that's something that no matter
what you have, whether you have mental health, illness issues,
um challenges, everybody has to do. We have to do
(08:46):
it for ourselves and for others, because we as a
society very very easily put labels on each other. A
lot of times we believe those labels, or we label ourselves,
and then we hold those labels till the end of time.
And so I've been able to get to this really
healthy places. I think of it as a fuse box
that was really wrecked, like someone has come in and
wriskle wires out and it was all over the place.
(09:07):
It's been not only fixed now, but I'm able to
turn those lights on and those fuses on, and now
I'm split right, and it feels like I want people
to know you can get here too. I'm joined by
Jing Jersey, chief meteorologist for ABC News and author of
the new book A Little Closer to Home. How I
found the calm after the storm. Were you the type
of person that was able to kind of compartmentalize, um,
(09:31):
what you were going through in your personal life because
you have such a public life that you live. You're
in front of the camera every day. Were you able
to kind of flip that switch and once you got
to work and the camera was turned on, you were
able to just do your thing or was that something
that that you were dealing with even while you're in
the middle of doing something like that. I got lucky,
(09:53):
I think most of the time to my career a
lot of the I think of a lot of moments
in Chicago, specifically when I works there, that I was
abusing alcohol even wall at work, and I am that,
you know, I can't feel shame or guilt about it,
because I was sick and I needed help and I
was hiding it, and you know, it was a band
(10:14):
aid for me. But I just got lucky. I think
that that I thought I was departmentalizing it what I wasn't,
you know, it was pretty obvious and and the and
the wild part to me now though, is even I
think about my makeup artists in Chicago, and I remember
a couple of times where I would come back. I
worked a double shift on weekends, and so that meant
I was down around eleven AM, and I would come
(10:35):
back maybe at two, you know, to do the five PM,
and I will have drink a bottle of wine from
eleven to two, taking a nap, maybe maybe taking my
dog out. Whatever it was. So it's really not great.
And she would smell it at me and I would
lie and I would say, Oh, She's like, wow, do
you have some drinks? And I'm like, yeah, I went
to brunch with friends. Like I always had a new story.
(10:57):
I always had some sort of life. So it's not
it wasn't up to her. And know, she was already
doing the due diligence of recognizing what she smelled. But
when I told her that what was, she supposed to
keep questioning me. And I think that all became part
of the spiral, lying to myself, lying to other people,
and then being so alone and isolated, thinking that I
(11:17):
had to keep that that was. That was heavy and
so yes, I think I compartmentalized, but poorly. Well, I'm
so glad you wrote these books and you're sharing all
of this with the world, because, as you know from
your first book, there are so many people who can
relate to what you're talking about in these books. And again,
Ginger z, ABC News chief meteorologist is author of the
(11:38):
new book, A Little Closer to Home How I Found
the Calm after the Storm. Ginger really appreciate the time.
Thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing
all that you did. Thank you, Ryan, enjoy the rest
of your day, all right. And finally, I'm joined now
by Dr Byron Jasper, founder and CEO of by Jack
Clinic in Baton Rouge, to talk about the state of
(11:58):
the pandemic and the COVID nineteen vaccines. Dr Jasper, thanks
so much for taking a few minutes to come on
the show. And let's start with where we stand right now.
COVID cases decreasing across the United States, and I think
for some they're wondering, with that being the case, does
it still make sense to get vaccinated. Absolutely. I would
(12:21):
say vaccines are a huge reason why those numbers are
actually going down in the United States. A lot of
people may happen to think that it just happened based
off of happenstance, or it just came to fruition because
people were basically being their normal, healthy, sanitary selves. But
we actually know in the medical field that the vaccines
(12:44):
have been quintisential in all of the things that are
leading to decreases in hospitalizations, decreases in depth, decreases in
people getting sick and actually transmitting it to other people
in such high numbers, decreases in people at actually being
able to be around other people with the fears that hey,
(13:04):
you know, what I'm going to end up giving this
to somebody, so I may just have to stay home.
All of that being said, if you think about where
we were prior to vaccines, you would see that we've
actually gotten a lot further when vaccines became available. So
I think vaccines need a lot of credit. I'm a
huge advocate for getting vaccinated, and I do think that
even though we're on the decline when it comes to
(13:25):
the rate of infection, we should not go without vaccination
and should get vaccination. As to credit where it's due,
what do people need to know about getting boosted? Who's
eligible to receive a booster, and why exactly is it
important to get a COVID NINETEAM booster if you're fully vaccinated. Yeah,
so boosters are really really helpful. And I actually had
(13:48):
this conversation with the patient not too long ago. The
question was very plainly, can you explain to me what
a booster is and why should I get one? And
to make it as simple as possible. I love analogies
of a Big the Kid for giving things in ways
that people hopefully can receive it a lot better and
not make it so so technical. A booster is basically
your immune system. Getting a boost is the most basic
(14:11):
way I can say it. If you are literally starting
in one spot and you want to get to another spot,
a little bit fast or a boost will help you.
Or if you're thinking about it in a sense that
you were at a certain level and you're starting to
fade a little bit. You need a little pick me up,
so you take a boost of coffee or a boost
of caffeine, and that gives you a little bit more
(14:31):
to where you were in the past. So the booster
when it comes to vaccines, it's the same thing. It's
basically us giving you another round of something that uh
a virus, bacteria, fungus, whatever the vaccine is, and it's
boosting the immune system so it responds adequately compared to
where it was when we first gave the vaccine. So
it's nothing different. It may be a slight difference in
(14:53):
the amount, the dose may be different, the number of
vaccines or shots may be different, but the actual response
it's the same. It's begging your it's making your immune
system better. And to answer the second part of the question,
who should get a booster shot, it's pretty much anyone
over the age of twelve if you've had a COVID
vaccination pass. If you haven't been vaccinated, we want you
to get the original series, and then once you have
(15:15):
achieved that actual original series of being vaccinated fully, we
then want you to go back and get boosted to
make sure that that community does not get to a
low level where it's no longer effective. So sometimes that
can be anywhere from five months from certain vaccines. Sometimes
it's as little as two months. It depends on the
vaccine that we're talking about, but specifically the Fiser vaccine
(15:36):
and then the Darta vaccine, which we've seen be the
most effective options in America. It's usually five months after
you've completed the first series, and once so five months
have passed, you go ahead and get another booster, and
then you're back to where we started. Those immune systems
are working very powerfully, and everybody is going to be
the better off because we're now fully protected. Now, with
(15:57):
so many people having been affected by this latest variant
O maicron, does it still make sense to get a
booster or would natural immunity cover them? So? I think
natural immunity is very tough because a lot of people
here that well, well, look I had COVID before, I'm
naturally immune, and if I say, well, tell me what
(16:17):
that means, then their mind, that means that they can't
ever get COVID again. And that's actually the polar opposite.
It really doesn't work that way. It really and truthfully
is if you had the virus before, you are susceptible
to getting it again. So natural immunity takes a long
time to develop, and even with natural immunity, there is
still a chink in the armor. If you will, you
(16:38):
could still potentially get COVID again with natural immunity, whereas
when you have what we call man made immunity with vaccinations,
the likelihood of you getting COVID a first time and
or a second time is a lot lower. So if
you're kind of comparing the two, natural immunity is better
than nothing, right, but man made immunity vaccines have actually
(16:59):
proven to be more effective the natural immunity. There's research
that has been done to see if those people who
have had COVID in the past compared to those that
have vaccines actually do better, and the science has shown
that those who have been vaccinated performed better in terms
of the rate of hospitalization. The rate of death and
the rate of just basically getting COVID. So all of
(17:19):
that being fit Mannade immunity has actually proven to be better,
and because of that, we want to keep going to
the idea that vaccines are necessary. I'm Ryan Gorman, joined
right now by Dr Byron Jasper, founder and CEO of
Bai Jack Clinic in Baton Rouge. When it comes to boosters,
how should people decide which booster shot to get? Is
(17:40):
one better than the others? Yeah, so I think the
idea of booster shots, it's tough because sometimes we just think, look,
I want to always get the best one. So the
first thing I tell people that you get what you
can get, especially if you're in a place where it's
just tough to get access to one booster compared to another.
From the actual science side, Visor and Maderna have proven
(18:01):
to be the most effective. They're in the high nine
d percentile of the effectiveness of the actual boosters and
the vaccine. And because of that, those are the two
that I kind of guide people towards, just based on
the science, not based on a preference of one versus
the other. And if a person says, look, I started
with Fiser should I switch over for me? I tell them, looks,
(18:21):
do what you can. If you say, look, I've got Visor,
but looks they're really running short over here, and I'd
rather get Visor another time. But if they take another
six seven months, I'm like, look, just go get some Maderna.
Be happy. We'll be fine with it. And then it's
the same thing if Maderna had been available in the
past and now Viser is available. Mixing and matching so
far has been shown to actually work. All things being said,
(18:43):
as long as you're getting that booster shot and doing
it in the way in the time that we're actually
asking people to do, in the most effective means, then
I think we're gonna be fine. So mixing and matching
it's not a bad idea. You don't have to do that,
But if you want to do it, or you have
to do it because of the availability is actually not
quite there, then I think that's fine as well. And
(19:05):
we mentioned earlier the case count across the United States
right now with this bomicron variant is coming down, But
is it possible that other variants could soon emerge. I
think it can, and I think we've actually seen in
the news that there are other variants that are out there.
It's just that they're not as prominent, they're not as virulent,
(19:27):
they're not as transmissible. So all of that being said,
what we're starting to see is that people will often say,
you know what, I think that this variant is a
big deal and I'm going to really take it seriously,
and some people are actually doing the opposite. So all
of that being said, I tell people, look, variants are there.
Their variables are variations of the original virus. They happen
(19:50):
all the time. We have a lot of variants of
a lot of things, like the blue virus, we just
don't realize that they're variants because we just call it
the flue. In COVID, we're getting a little bit more
attention to trains because those are a little bit more
path logic, and because of that, they're going to be around.
So as they actually start to uh show up, I
think we definitely are going to hear more about them,
(20:12):
and they're not necessarily going away. And even if we
don't hear about them, we still want to be as
effective in terms of vaccinating, in terms of socially distancing, masking,
washing our hands, all the things that we have seen
that has helped us get to this point of being
starting to go in the right direction. I'm Ryan Gorman,
joined by Dr. Byron Jasper, Founder and chief executive officer
(20:32):
of by Jack Clinic. You alluded to vaccine access a
moment ago. Have you seen any improvement with vaccine access
and vaccination rates in black neighborhoods and communities across the country.
I say, very plainly, it's here, miss It depends on
the neighborhood, depends on the local government, it depends on
(20:54):
the resources, and it's unfortunate. It really is something that
I really a lot on in my community, but also
just trying to advocate for more equality and more equity,
which some people don't realize those are two different things.
But the idea is that every neighborhood is not created
in the same likeness of every neighborhood. So uh, black
(21:16):
people and black neighborhoods are not monolithic, meaning that if
you do one thing in one neighborhood is going to
work in the other neighbors But if you do one
thing in one uh demographic, it's going to work in another.
You sometimes have to get creative, so UM. I actually
attended an actual grand grounds and in uh the actual
medical field. Grandgrounds is kind of when someone gives a
presentation to other colleagues in the medical field. And one
(21:39):
of the analogies, as I mentioned I love analogies that A. O. B. G.
Y M gave to me was she used the term
we need to roll the dice. And what she meant was,
when we roll the dice, you always get a different combination,
usually of numbers when the dice actually finished rolling. And
what she was trying to get at was very plainly
that you don't want to do the same thing in
(22:00):
every neighborhood unless you know it really works. Sometimes you
have to get creative. So in neighborhood ay, you may
do this, and neighborhood be you may do this, and
neighborhood too, you may do this, and neighborhood or see,
you may do this. And the point is there's so
many different things that we can do to get access
to vaccines, to better health care. We need to stop
thinking about the actual four walls that we are actually
(22:21):
put in in the medical field within the United States
and work on doing things that are actually working for
a certain neighborhood, certain people, certain demographics, and one of
the things that I will advocate for and undoubtedly loudly
and proudly is getting people into primary care, especially those
people that are often disenfranchised by the medical system. Black
and brown people are often those people who are last
(22:44):
to get healthcare but the first to get sick. And
if that's the case, we should think more creatively of
how to deliver these vaccines and these actual health uh
health solutions to those actual demographics so we don't have
the issues of health disparities that we see so often
and it just becomes the norm. And I'll say very
(23:04):
plainly to wrap it up, is that health disparity should
not be a thing. It should not take until two
for us to say our one or twenty twenties to say,
you know what, this is a problem. We should find
a way to do something about this. If it's something
that's been there and it's not working, we need to
try something else. And I think the ideas we work
on sick care a lot bick care, meaning hey, we
(23:24):
want patients to go in and get treated when they
get thick. If we focus more on the primary care,
the preventative care, I think things would shift in a
better fashion. But again, not a one size fits all.
We just need to figure out different ways to get
different care to different people and do it in an
equitable way. Continuing real quick with this issue in particular,
COVID cases among Black Americans now occurring at about the
(23:44):
same rate as among white Americans, but hospitalizations among Blacks
are two and a half times higher and deaths are
nearly two times higher than white Americans. What health issues
in the black community put them at higher risk? Especially
when we see these different variants begin to emerge. Yeah,
(24:06):
the trinity of healthcare are let me back up. The
trinity of actual health related issues in the black community
that I see that are often at the top of
the list are usually high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol,
and to be more specific, uncontrolled high blood pressure, uncontrolled diabetes,
and uncontrolled high cholesterol. Those things are the culprits that
(24:31):
often times will cause the black families, the black fathers,
the black mothers, the grandmothers to be in the hospital
very quickly for a number of issues. And COVID just
came along and made it actually a lot worse and
a lot more prominent. But the idea is not new
that black women, black men are often those that have
the worst healthcare outcomes. But for some reason, we're often
(24:54):
really shocked when we see the numbers, like you just mentioned,
two point five times more likely to die than a
white American. That is not something that should be shocking
if it's been going on for forty some odd years,
but it's just shocking when you hear it. And it's
possibly that it's in your face now because COVID is everywhere.
So I back up to go to the idea that
(25:15):
we need to find ways to treat these people and
meet them where they're at and get creative. And the
idea that we often have is that we'll hear a
lot of people come on and say, the black community,
you need to go get vaccinated, and then my first
question is, well, who's giving the message, and it's usually somebody.
They have no idea who this person is. It's a doctor,
(25:36):
it's a health care professional, and that person is nowhere
near the community that they're speaking to. They may be
passing through, they may be prominent in the news world,
but they are not in that community. So when you
go and find a black doctor who works in the community,
who's from the community and has a focus in the community,
they're more likely to receive the information in a little
(25:56):
bit different fashion than someone who they've never met before.
Again bringing me back to analogies. My thing is that
if you have a financial advisor who you've never met
before telling you you give me all your money and
I'll make you rich, I'm pretty sure you're gonna say,
let me clutch my wallets a little bit more closely
than somebody who's never ever you know, somebody who you
(26:16):
actually know. But if you have a financial planet relationship
with for three, four or five decades and they tell
you put your money here, I'm pretty sure you'll be
all right. More than likely you'll say, hey, i've known
this financial planner for a while. I think it's a
good idea to listen to them, because he or she
hasn't let me wrong yet. But in the medical field
it's the exact opposite. It really explores me that a
lot of people don't say, you know what, maybe I
(26:38):
should get a primary care doctor who works in the community,
who looks like black people and says, you know what,
this person may be a better messenger than so and
so who's on the national news who comes in and
just drops this random fifteen minute plug or fifteen minutes
segment on how vaccines are breaks. So my my biggest outcry,
if you will, and I've been saying this of the
(27:00):
better part of a year and a half to two years,
is that we need more focused on primary care. I
am a primary care position, so yes, I have a bias,
but I also know what works for me, and I
know what works for my patients. I have patients who
literally will call me at the drop of a hat
and say, before I do anything medically related, I call
you first, Dr Jeffery because I trust you, and that
feeling is something you can't Boy, you can't make people
(27:22):
trust you by just telling them to do stuff, So
that relationship is the first thing. So how do we
stop the two point five times higher death rate in
Black Americans when it comes to health care? How about
we get more black positions, black immersed practitioners, black position assistance,
and the list goes on and on. But again, for
some reason, we don't think simple things for simple solutions.
(27:46):
Are simple problems have simple solutions? Uh? You know, I
can go on and on about this, and a lot
of times I do, and I apologize if I'm getting lengthy,
But I really and truthfully don't understand why we haven't
figured out the enigma of how do we get more
black people be healthy, maybe get more black doctors. Doesn't
sound really really difficult to me, But for some reason
people just think, well, you know what, let's just go
(28:07):
ahead and throw more money. Yet, let's put a clinic here,
and let's do that. I mean, all those are great,
but if the people in the clinic don't speak the
same language, it makes no sense. Another quick analogy. If
you literally go to a place and everyone in the
building speaks Spanish and no one actually, uh in that
community spoke Spanish, how will how well would healthcare be delivered?
(28:29):
At that point, it's probably not going to go to well,
it's not saying it can't happen. But all of the
people in the building that our clinicians speak Spanish, and
no one in the community speaks Spanish, I think you're
gonna say, well, we probably can get this done, but
it could be done a lot better. So if everyone
in the community spoke Spanish and everyone in the clinic
spoke Spanish, all of a sudden, the community and the
clinic work a lot better. So when black people see
(28:51):
black doctors, their healthcare solutions are a lot better, the
communications better, the trust is better, They're more likely to
return the business. And it's actually proven. Research has show
that the the actual outcomes are exclusively better when there
are more people that looked like the actual patient. So,
all things being said, in the very robust and long
(29:11):
winded answer that I can give, if that we need
a more robust focus on primary care, and the primary
care hopefully can be delivered by people that looked like
the actual patient, so those health care disparities are actually
addressed in a more effective way. Dr Byron Jasper, founder
and CEO of Bai Jack Clinic in Baton Rouge, with
some great information for us on COVID nineteen and the vaccines.
(29:35):
Dr Jasper, thanks so much for coming on the show.
We appreciate it, Yes, sir, thank you for having me.
I appreciate it all right, And that'll do it for
this edition of I Hear Radio Communities. I'm your host.
Ryan Gorman will be back, same time, same place, next weekend.
Stay safe,
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