October 8, 2020 • 28 mins
Host Z & Host Jess sit down with Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos from Johns Hopkins Medicine where he serves as a Pulmonologist as well as Director of the Health Equity Steering Committee. How has COVID-19 shined a light on healthcare disparities in the U.S.? How can hospitals do a better job of listening to the communities they serve? Tune in to hear his feedback.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey listeners, hope everybody's doing well.
And staying safe today isepisode number seven, where we
are going to be talking abouthealthcare and how you can be an
anti-racist in a healthcaresetting, as well as the
healthcare disparity among racesin our country.
Currently with us today, we arethrilled to have dr.
Portuguese golly at Santos.
(00:23):
Enjoy your listening to
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Awakened in America.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Nine's on a journey to create dialogue about
diversity inclusion
Speaker 2 (00:35):
In optimism.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Do you want to say hi to our listeners before we get
started?
Hi weekend.
Thanks for joining dr.
Gallien Santos.
Anything you want to say to ourlisteners?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yes.
Uh, first of all, just it's anhonor to be here.
Um, first of all, I can justalso, uh, congratulations.
You got the name, correct?
Uh, my parents are immigrantscame to America.
They wanted to assimilate to theAmerican dream, but they still
wanted to give their son alinguistic nightmare for
kindergarten.
You guys nailed it.
Um, but yeah, no, it's, it'ssuch an honor to be here and
(01:13):
especially to talk about thetopic.
That's just so important to talkabout.
So yeah, this is exciting.
Thank you guys.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, definitely.
So like I said, this is such acurrent topic and the reason
that we're bringing it up is wefind inequities and disparities
and a lot of different aspectsthat fall under the diversity
anti-racism umbrella.
But because of COVID, it's kindof shined a light more so on the
(01:41):
healthcare disparity.
And just to start off with a fewstats related to COVID, um,
black and Latino patients aretwo to three times as likely as
white patients to be diagnosedwith COVID-19 and more than four
times as likely to behospitalized for it.
That in itself is a reallyunsettling stat.
Um, and then in addition tothat, black patients are
(02:02):
actually more than twice aslikely to die from the virus and
also at younger ages, but thatwas actually published in a
really insightful article by theAtlantic, just, uh, the end of
September called five ways thehealthcare system can stop
amplifying anti-racism.
So having said all that, I justwanted to give dr.
G a Z and I call you a quicklittle recap of his credentials
(02:28):
and it's a little bit lengthy.
So here we go.
He is assistant professor at theJohns Hopkins school of medicine
in the division of pulmonary andcritical care medicine.
In addition to that, he's thecoach here of the Johns Hopkins
health equity steeringcommittee, and is also the
co-director and cofounder ofmedicine for the greater good.
I know you have some more recentdevelopments things that you're
(02:50):
doing actually in the schools toeducate people.
So if you don't mind, actuallyjust starting there and telling
us a little bit about, maybestart with the medicine for the
greater good and, and kind ofwhere you've taken that to
educate children would be great.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
No, of course happy to.
And then we can also just evencircle back to those kinds of
conversations that you werehaving about those current
stats, because you know, it's soyeah, because it ties into like
what I've been kind of doing myalmost my entire life
unintentionally.
So I I'm born and raised inBaltimore.
My parents are immigrants.
They came over, I was born inthis city, actually.
(03:24):
I always laugh.
Like, you know, Hopkins there'stwo times in my career that they
rejected me.
And the first time was at birth.
My mom went to the hospital andshe couldn't speak English, but
my dad was like, we don't haveinsurance.
Like we just have cash.
And they're like, no, this isnot the hospital.
I mean, that's the story.
My parents tell me.
So I went to a differenthospital to have me.
So, Hey, the irony is I became aprofessor there now though.
(03:46):
Um, but you know, going intomedicine, I only, I always
thought of myself as, you know,becoming an academic physician,
meaning I do clinical work andthen I have a research theme.
And the way you get trained inmedical school is, you know,
labs, science, the basicsciences.
That's what you gravitate to.
And like, honestly, that's wheremy heart was going until then,
(04:07):
like time for residency, Iapplied to Hopkins specifically
a hospital called Bayview.
And you know, why I wanted to gothere is because that's the
hospital that was in mycommunity.
I was like, Oh my God, I got togo back and give back to my
community.
Like I grew up in a immigrantheavy area, right?
A lot of Greeks, but also a lotof North Africans, a lot of
Hispanic Latinos.
(04:28):
And we just, all jelled, none ofus really spoke English, but we
understood humanity.
Like you help one another out.
And from my standpoint, I neverhad, you know, my dad was a
painter.
I didn't have those skills.
My mom was a seamstress.
I didn't have those skills.
God knows I couldn't cook thatwell.
So I was excited to like, becomea doctor and then go back into
this community and give back.
But that's when I started torealize medicine's limitations,
(04:51):
like early as an intern, I beganto really struggle with my
identity as a physician.
Right.
I had just dropped$200,000 onmedical information and I never
felt like he could reach mycommunity.
Yeah.
I could go over diabetes fromthe genetics to the
pharmacokinetics, up to thephysiology and the complications
that's having.
It did nothing for my patients.
(05:13):
When they went back out to thecommunity where they couldn't
access their medications, theycouldn't get transportation to
their doctor's offices.
God knows it.
Couldn't find, you know, nicenutritious food to need.
So like, what's the point oflike telling them all these
things to do when they didn'thave an environment that allowed
them to be healthy.
And it just, it really botheredme.
(05:33):
Cause these were also, weren'tlike patients, I know we get
attached to them and then wehave to like move on.
But for me that was hard to dobecause like, you know, I would
sit with them and they're like,Oh, I knew your mom and dad, or
like, Oh my God, on a heat,like, you're you played soccer
with my son or my babysitter wasmy patients.
Like, you know, like I becameincredibly attached cause this
was the community.
(05:54):
And so the way medicine for thegreater good began the is I
began to go into my community.
I went to the churches and spokeabout medicine, healthcare, and
then realized I'm like, thismakes an impact.
It's not just like the doctortalking, but it's a trusted
doctor from the communityspeaking in a manner that they
understand.
And oftentimes in Greek, becauseit's a language, you know, my
(06:14):
truth spoken.
But so that the communitymembers, like I won them over
just because of my narrative,there was an already established
trust and he knew how I talked.
He knew that.
I knew that like, Hey, go to oldhim, go to this corner store.
You can find some good foods.
Like they knew that.
But like, they love that that's,it's better than the doctors can
go in and exercise.
They're like, you don't know mycommunity, man.
Like, you don't know whathappened to walk through just to
be able to be safe.
(06:36):
And you know, like I see thisbecause I recognize it was a
good thing to do.
Right.
I knew it was the right thing todo, but I didn't know if this
like aligned at all with anacademic career.
Like I wanted to be a lung andcritical care doctor.
Every mentor I had in that fieldwas like, you got to do basic
science.
You've got to get a lab going.
And that like, like my mind knewthat was what I had to do.
(06:57):
My heart's like, dude, you gotto help your community, man.
Like, like, and like I felt likeI had these dueling competitions
of like, I want to be anacademic physician at the same
time.
I want to help my community, butwanting to do that, I had no
idea who I could mentor after orlike who could role model me at.
But with that said like I didhave a lot of people that would
(07:19):
champion this.
Like my program director caughtwind of what I was doing and was
encouraging of this.
This is Colleen Christmas, thepresident of our hospital
recruited some Florida.
Who's been doing this for years.
So I began to go to him.
This guy's name is Dan Hill.
I mean, I, you know, thebeautiful story of this is like
he became a North star andultimately, and we met at a
restaurant called the red star,which I, I love you.
(07:41):
And I'm like, Oh astronomy.
But like, we, you know, he liketo discuss like, Hey look, you
could be doing this.
And like, I never thought aboutdoing it in a way that allowed
me to do the right thing andallow my career to grow in
medicine.
I see this because I had no one,I had no role models.
I had no one to like guide me.
And it was the hardest thing todecide, to say fine, I'll make
(08:02):
an academic career in it.
I still don't know what thatmeans.
Like, I don't know who's goingto pay me to do community
engagement, but then like, yeah.
So then my chief year, I mean,one more year after residency, I
stayed on to be the chiefresident and I launched medicine
for the greater good inconjunction with my program
director, calling Christmas, whobelieved in this and we somehow
convinced the chairman ofMadison.
(08:22):
So this is where the story getsinteresting.
Right?
What medicine for the greatergood was.
It was to take physicians intraining and tell them how
community impacts healthoutcomes.
Right?
So we had workshops, people fromthe community came in reverends
in moms, like they all came inand talk.
And then we did what everyphysician does, where you learn
in school with you go bedside bythe patient and learn about the
(08:45):
patient, right?
So we got these doctors and weput them and planted them in the
community or work with them withhealth projects that they
identify they can help with.
Right?
You can't empathize with themand walk in their shoes, but
gosh, darn it.
We can walk next to them andunderstand the struggles that
they have.
So the next time I'm in clinicand trying to create a plan for
(09:06):
you no longer will that createequal plans.
Now I'm going to be creatingequitable plans.
And so that was my revolutionwith medicine for the greater
good.
And there's a little bit more tothis story that I want to
mention, and hopefully your,your, your listeners appreciate
this.
So my chief year, I poured ourblood, sweat and tears into it.
And my biggest fear as I leftwas knowing that probably like
(09:28):
I'm going to go into my trainingto be a lung and critical care
doctor.
Now I'm actually going to go tothe NIH to spend four years
there.
I have no idea how I pass thisBaton.
Right.
I did such a big job to build itup.
And now I'm like kind of leavingit to kind of just get further
training around this time.
The uprising of Freddie graybegan to happen in Baltimore and
(09:50):
the program directors who helpbuild this, just saw medicine
for the greater good assomething important.
So they wrote this beautiful oped published in new England
journal of medicine and it waspublished.
And I took it, you know, I'msitting here only my 80th hour
of a weekday work in criticalcare.
And I drove to the Baltimore sunheadquarters and I dropped it
(10:10):
off.
Like I sealed it.
I gave it to one of theirwriters called Andrew McDaniels
and it put it in the mailboxaddress to her.
She emails me and she's like,that's very kind of old school
dropping things off.
Let's go ahead.
And um, you know, can I come outand write a story about you?
It's like, sure.
So she comes out and you gottaunderstand, like I'm like
leaving the ICU.
Once my shift is over driving upto Baltimore from Bethesda, it's
(10:33):
about a 40 minute drive with notraffic just to like continue
with MDG stuff.
Like, you know, doing it likeout of my blood, sweat and
tears.
Cause I believe in this, right?
It comes, gets these picturesdone.
And Christmas Eve, I get a phonecall from my aunt and uncle, my
aunt and uncle, you know, bluecollar individuals.
They work for the Baltimore sunand local newspaper by at night
(10:55):
delivering them.
And they call me two in themorning and they're like, why
didn't you tell us you're goingto be on the cover of the
Baltimore sun.
This is December 24, 2015.
The reason why I'm saying thisis because, all right, that's
great.
You know, feel good story.
Then January comes and presidentDaniels of Hopkins calls my
(11:15):
chairman and goes, I'm sittinghere with a letter from
Congressman Elijah Cummingstelling me about medicine for
the greater good.
You got to tell me what the heckthis is.
So Congressman Cummings readthat newspaper commented, like
wrote a letter.
We invite him to kick off oursymposium and he's like, yeah,
(11:38):
I'll be your speaker.
By the way, we actually had asymposium speaker already lined
up.
It was Lena Winn who like now islike, so such a celebrity
status, but she was justbecoming our health commissioner
of Baltimore.
And I was like, you know, we'regonna, we're gonna push you back
one week to have congressmencoming.
So she's like, that's, I justremember I bumped into the
Congressman Cummings at like oneevent several years ago.
(12:01):
And I like, I wouldn't huggedhim.
Like, I mean, his securitypeople were like, who's this
guy.
And I'm like, I'm sorry.
And like, I have like tearsmiles.
I was like, you're the reasonyou're belief in medicine for
the greater good, got everyacademics attention.
Like when people say, how didyou get him?
Did you start it?
I was like, Oh, I just had acongressmen approve it.
And I'm like, yeah, I know.
Like it's a lot of the rightstars lining up.
(12:22):
I get, it's a story, sweat andtears.
But it's also a story of likepeople believing your mission
outside of your circle.
So, yeah.
Sorry for rambling.
But it's just, to me, it's justsuch an important story because
it's not like one that I couldtell someone else to like do
just, if you believe in yourwork, others will believe in it
and it's the right thing to dofor medicine.
(12:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Well, I think that's incredible.
And I think that's what drew usto pursuing you as a guest is
not very often.
Do you find a doctor whodedicates themselves to this
more holistic communityinvolvement approach?
Yeah.
So when we saw that, I was like,we would be so fortunate.
So thank you again for joiningus today and really commend you
(13:07):
for all of the, like you said,blood, sweat, and tears that
you've put into this in your,uh, after your day job.
Um, and I also wanted to knowbefore we go on, because you're
also a published author.
You mentioned, um, there's abook series, the person, the
doctor you collaborate with, Ithink in Florida, Dan Hale, you
said, um, and the book is calledbuilding healthy communities.
(13:27):
So I just wanted to make sureit's, um, it's noted for our
listeners in case they want tocheck it out and I I've read
some of it, uh, truth be toldhim I'm not finished, but it was
really interesting just to kindof hear the ways that you've
kind of really dedicatedyourself to integrating in the
communities and the positiveresponse that you've received as
a result.
(13:47):
And so many points kind ofresonated talking about, um, a
lot of churchgoers, a kind oflike an aging population.
And maybe sometimes it's harderfor them to have access to kind
of like basic guidelines on howto take care of themselves.
You know, they're not as techsavvy or whatever is younger
people like ourselves.
So making that connection and itwas kind of like a light bulb
moment.
I was like, Oh, that's such agreat idea to connect with, um,
(14:10):
that aging population.
I'm thinking about my parentsand stuff.
You know, they go to church andall that.
And then also the connectionwith the trust that church goers
put in their pastor or their,their priest or whoever is kind
of the leader of the church.
And sometimes depending on yourexperience and your practitioner
that you're seeing, you don'tnecessarily have that report
established.
(14:31):
So to have that collaborationcoming from the doctor, as well
as the head of the churchtogether, I think is brilliant.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
I appreciate it, honestly, that brilliant,
supposed to my colleague DanHale, who he was like, dude,
we've been doing this likefollow this path.
And it actually like writing thebook and then like other
publications.
The reason I emphasize it isbecause it's one way we can
disseminate our message throughthe channels of academia.
But at the same time, like whatwe try to hint at is recognizing
(15:01):
like health disparities are notgoing to be broken by hospital.
When you think of Baltimore, Imean, you've got one of the
world's best hospitals of JohnsHopkins planted there, and you
still have health disparities,Cleveland clinic in Cleveland,
massive health disparities.
There it's like a, hospital'sgot to be part of the solution,
but also recognize that it can'tbe the only solution.
(15:21):
And so that's what we try toemphasize in the book, like the
more communities and communities, just such a broad term, the
reason why we, we choose in thisbook, a faith based
organizations it's because whereelse do you get a collection of
adults gathering weekly with aninnate sense of trust and have a
great kind of hierarchicalleadership ties into your
(15:42):
message?
Do they disseminate it so well?
So thank you for commenting onthe book, but it's, from our
standpoint, it's important torecognize, like right now we're
writing another series forbuilding healthy communities by
working with schools.
And definitely we'll do a lotwith perfect segue.
A lot with COVID-19 makes nosense right now, but yes, back
(16:02):
back to you guys, sorry, youjust, this is,
Speaker 1 (16:05):
That's a great segue.
I was just going to say the goalof the podcast is to normalize
these discussions that aredifficult, you know, about race
and racism and anti-racism andthose sorts of things.
But for me personally, where I'mhoping I can take this as more
influencing curriculum andeducation, you know, as my
children get older and startgoing to big kids, schools,
elementary schools within, youknow, a big public school
(16:28):
district, that's kind of whereI'm hoping to be able to kind of
influence things surroundinganti-racism.
So when I read what you'redoing, kind of educating, uh,
students at a very young ageabout COVID and things like
that.
Could you tell us our listenersa little bit about that
initiative that you're doing?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Oh yes.
No happy to.
So let me, let me start off withkind of the Genesis of this,
right?
So I guess there's always aprecursor to like what X, what
we're doing, why, how we gothere, you know, and you know,
the value of communityengagement from my standpoint.
So I'm, I'm an adult and I carefor adult patients.
So like, while kids are awesome,you know, they're good for them.
(17:07):
Like I never, like, it neverdawned on me to potentially work
with that generation until likeone of my colleagues is like,
who does a lot of research inthe youth specifically around
asthma was like, you get allthis, we have all this science
done.
It could really create advocatesand its youth group.
We should try to createcurriculums to work with them.
So we reached out to a varietyof schools in Baltimore city to
(17:29):
scientists, team jurors reachedback out to me and we created
actually a curriculum intendedfor seventh and eighth graders.
I know it's going to sound likea cheesy name, but it was called
the lung health ambassadorprogram.
So we wanted to teach the kidsabout lung disease and what was
interesting from the teachers.
Cause like, like at this point Iwas doing community engagement
research.
I did health disparitiesresearch.
The teachers were the ones whowere like, you just teach wrong
(17:49):
health.
You gotta teach about thedisparities because these kids
are Hispanic, Latino, AfricanAmerican.
They know they're at risk forasthma COPT you got to tell them
why I was like, you got it.
Like we're happy to, but itwasn't just a teaching of why.
Like we also wanted to emphasizethat they can mitigate this.
They can stop this one of thebig conversation pieces for the
(18:11):
lung health ambassador program,not to sound like a broken
record or up 60 years of publichealth messaging, but it was an
anti tobacco, right?
So we talked about lung anatomy.
We talked about certain lungdiseases.
We introduced them to tobacco,both combustible cigarettes and
electronic.
And then we talked aboutadvocacy.
Like how can you put an end tothis?
Because tobacco easily helpsresult in more prevalence of
(18:35):
asthma in youth, from parentswho smoke.
And a lot of minority populationsmoke, a lot of people of
socioeconomic disadvantagesmoke.
So definitely trying to fightthis.
So our first year of doing this,uh, I remember vividly cause it
was my birthday.
We went to Annapolis, theCapitol Maryland.
We've got like eighth graderscoming with us to advocate to
take the smoking age of Marylandfrom 18 to 21.
(18:57):
Great.
And what was cool about thecurriculum?
By the way, the scienceteachers, we taught it in their
science class.
English teachers helped us, uh,help the students like write
letters to the governor, toadvocate for this bill.
That's awesome.
And the drama teachers taught inpublic speaking for the future
that came with us well,Annapolis.
It was awesome.
Uh, we have this cool curriculumand we're like, let's repeat it.
So 2019, 2020, we're back in theacademic.
(19:19):
Yeah, here.
Now we're really focused alittle bit more on e-cigarettes.
We're not only in the city,we're in some rural counties,
Justin Z we're like hitting onall cylinders.
Then March 11th, world healthorganization declared a pandemic
March 13th, which is a Friday.
And by the way, our governor ofMaryland we're locking down.
(19:40):
So all of our efforts now arekind of stopped.
But I will say actually, beforewe get to the curriculum, I
apologize for such a tangentialconversation, but it's just such
important narrative tounderstand when that happened,
March 14th, we get a call fromone of the community partner hat
, Mark.
He calls me he's out of new sungAcademy.
That's located in sand town,Winchester where the Freddie
(20:01):
gray uprising occurred.
And he's like this pandemic,it's going to be tough on black
communities.
When you know, poor individualsin Baltimore city who don't have
a trust of the medical system.
Now you're telling them to gettested screened and who don't
have access to like, you know, aplethora of food items and so
forth.
And you're telling them to stayhome.
And that broke my heartactually.
(20:21):
So one of the first things webegan doing our, we call them
community calls to talk about,COVID-19 call us in this number,
Mondays and Fridays andcommunity calls.
It's probably my, a brief momentof cleverness.
Maybe I thought that's clevermaybe, but it was like a
community call like a telephone,but it's community calls like
it's called an action.
We would talk about COVID-19streamlined information and so
(20:43):
forth.
And then we'll begin happening.
Jess and Z, our teachers that wepartner with will get on and
just say, we need you guys likeour kids.
Aren't distracted all they wantto talk about as a pandemic, but
say this because what we builtwith the pastor program, what we
built with that program, wealready really had these
connections with these teachers.
(21:04):
And so we kind of flipped thescript a little bit to make it
more COVID-19 but we had thekind of same, um, teaching kind
of, um, narrative of how wewould approach it because we
want to finish with someadvocacy.
It's not just here's one sciencefactor or the other it's what
can you do?
Right.
And got great enjoyment.
They liked it, got someattention of some other people
(21:25):
at Hopkins where we went in nowwe're like, let's make a
curriculum.
We have to, but what else are wegoing to do?
Like kids are going to go backto school in the fall.
It's spread this virus as muchas an adult can.
We've got to do something.
So we created a curriculum, 12lectures with faculty, from the
school of education, publichealth and medicine.
We piloted it over the summer atMorehouse school of medicine.
(21:47):
And with usher, Raymond's anonprofit in Atlanta called the
Usher's new look well received.
And one of our local reporters,we told her about this Abby
Isaacs from WMUR.
And she's like, Oh, let me run astory.
It was like cute.
It was a great story and Hopkinstweets it.
And then suddenly our inbox,this MGG inbox and medicine for
(22:09):
the greater good inbox, by theway, they get like an email,
like a week.
Some of it mainly spam.
We're being like blown upschools from like Hawaii to
Alabama, to Rhode Island.
Like we need you guys, like, weneed this curriculum, um,
countries from Panama to, um,Sudan, we're going to be
teaching in Sudan.
Like they were like, we like,you know, I get, we have this
(22:31):
concept of Hopkins, but like,what was clearly a first for the
community is can we get astreamline of information that's
consistent from experts?
Like just tell the kids what'sgoing on.
And so what we did, actually,what we did with every single
one of these schools is we hadthese one on one meetings.
So they know what they're goingto get.
(22:52):
And every single school waslike, we want you guys in and
we've kicked it off.
Like right now we were finishingup about a dozen schools in
Connecticut.
Next week we are going to out inAlabama.
And sometime in mid October,we're becoming a mandatory
curriculum for Baltimore citypublic schools.
It is.
(23:12):
No thank you.
But it's so powerful when youtalk to action, clearly that is
really impressive.
It tells you how much thecommunity wants this right to
partner with health.
They want to promote science.
They want to prevent disease.
They want to, you know, theywant this like Friday morning
when our, our leader of thenation went into the hospital,
(23:36):
we taught school in Tennessee,in an art class and the lesson
there was about the biology ofthe virus.
Right.
And we finish off like, how doyou think this is kinda barkers?
NERC goes, wait, dr.
G I don't like, why wasn't he,why will the president bring a
face mask?
And I'm sitting there, I'm likethis kid gets it.
(23:56):
Right?
And so like from our standpoint,you know, we're going in here
just promoting science, that'sit.
We go over the biology, like thefirst four lectures over the
biology of the virus.
It goes over the math ofmathematical models.
Right?
How we talk about, how do wephase in or phase out?
We go over the physics offacemask, little John Love.
I mean, I could to nerd out onphysics in real time.
(24:18):
And then we finished it with thechemistry of hand hygiene.
That's our first fourelectrodes.
We have eight other ones thatgoes over from vaccines to how
to interpret science, toactually help disparities.
So I can tell you, every kidthat goes through this
curriculum so far where we'vehad 12 schools out of
Connecticut, we have a half adozen out of Rhode Island so
far, and this is all before weeven launched in Baltimore city
(24:39):
or Alabama or two next biggeographic spots.
But every single kid gets it.
Every single kid finished likeone fifth grader, a few weeks
back.
I was like, when will this set?
And I was like, it's going totake a while.
But my friend, if everyone does,you know, physical distancing
face masking hand hygienestatement was often as you can,
(25:01):
this could go away for weeks.
And this fifth grader stood upand goes, I'm going to tell
everyone I'm sick of this.
We got to end it.
Now.
I'm like, that's the power wewant.
Like, we're all human beings.
We have, we have the ability tohave science help us.
Right.
I get science.
That's limitations.
Don't get me wrong.
I mean, case in point healthdisparities.
(25:21):
Right.
But you gotta focus.
I mean, when you talk aboutcommunity engagement, it can't
be, we can't be agents.
We can't just think, Oh, justadults.
Talk to them.
Powerful.
I mean, I am, if I get it's abias symbol I'm working with,
but if these kids are supposedto give me an insight into the
next generation, we're going tobe in good hands.
(25:42):
These kids are bright, they'reintelligent and they get it.
And you know what?
They are thirsty to do good.
And having science as part oftheir artillery to say, this is
how I'm going to think clearlythrough these problems.
Awesome.
So, yeah.
So that's, I gave you like thebackground, but you got to know
the background cause like, Oh,we just showed up and we're
like, Hey, we're doing this
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Nice.
That's perfect.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
I would say gen Z is community engagement.
The one ingredient, if anyoneasks like, what's key about it
making success as like it'strust.
And that, that doesn't happenimmediately.
It doesn't happen by knocking onthe door.
I mean, one of my favoritestories is showing up to st.
Matthew's or Turner station andDundalk Baltimore showed up like
(26:26):
three consecutive Sundays beforethe Reverend talked to me
invited and he kept them buddy.
And he's like, come back.
I was like, alright man, but yougotta earn their trust.
And it's it.
Maybe it sounds simple.
Like you just show up for them.
That's a lot more than othershave done.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Well, awakened that does it for us today.
That was part one of anti-racismin the healthcare setting with
dr.
G.
We hope that you learned a lottoday and we hope that too can
focus on one important piece.
And that is communityengagement.
(27:05):
We can all do better withrecognizing who our council
members are, who our staterepresentatives are and senators
and reaching out and making adifference.
Now isn't really important timeto have all of our voices heard
as one and individually.
(27:26):
So make it happen.
And at the end of the day, beyou do you for you be safe and
be well.
And don't forget to reach out tous@infoatawakenedandamerica.com.
(27:48):
Take care.
Thank you for listening toawakened in America.
If you enjoyed today's podcast,be sure to subscribe and leave a
review.
You can also find us onInstagram at awakened in
America.
That's awakened underscoreunderscore America, and remember
(28:10):
be mindful, be grateful.
And most of all be you.
Hey listeners, hope everybody's doing well.
And staying safe today isepisode number seven, where we
are going to be talking abouthealthcare and how you can be an
anti-racist in a healthcaresetting, as well as the
healthcare disparity among racesin our country.
Currently with us today, we arethrilled to have dr.
Portuguese golly at Santos.
(00:23):
Enjoy your listening to
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Awakened in America.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Nine's on a journey to create dialogue about
diversity inclusion
Speaker 2 (00:35):
In optimism.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Do you want to say hi to our listeners before we get
started?
Hi weekend.
Thanks for joining dr.
Gallien Santos.
Anything you want to say to ourlisteners?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yes.
Uh, first of all, just it's anhonor to be here.
Um, first of all, I can justalso, uh, congratulations.
You got the name, correct?
Uh, my parents are immigrantscame to America.
They wanted to assimilate to theAmerican dream, but they still
wanted to give their son alinguistic nightmare for
kindergarten.
You guys nailed it.
Um, but yeah, no, it's, it'ssuch an honor to be here and
(01:13):
especially to talk about thetopic.
That's just so important to talkabout.
So yeah, this is exciting.
Thank you guys.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, definitely.
So like I said, this is such acurrent topic and the reason
that we're bringing it up is wefind inequities and disparities
and a lot of different aspectsthat fall under the diversity
anti-racism umbrella.
But because of COVID, it's kindof shined a light more so on the
(01:41):
healthcare disparity.
And just to start off with a fewstats related to COVID, um,
black and Latino patients aretwo to three times as likely as
white patients to be diagnosedwith COVID-19 and more than four
times as likely to behospitalized for it.
That in itself is a reallyunsettling stat.
Um, and then in addition tothat, black patients are
(02:02):
actually more than twice aslikely to die from the virus and
also at younger ages, but thatwas actually published in a
really insightful article by theAtlantic, just, uh, the end of
September called five ways thehealthcare system can stop
amplifying anti-racism.
So having said all that, I justwanted to give dr.
G a Z and I call you a quicklittle recap of his credentials
(02:28):
and it's a little bit lengthy.
So here we go.
He is assistant professor at theJohns Hopkins school of medicine
in the division of pulmonary andcritical care medicine.
In addition to that, he's thecoach here of the Johns Hopkins
health equity steeringcommittee, and is also the
co-director and cofounder ofmedicine for the greater good.
I know you have some more recentdevelopments things that you're
(02:50):
doing actually in the schools toeducate people.
So if you don't mind, actuallyjust starting there and telling
us a little bit about, maybestart with the medicine for the
greater good and, and kind ofwhere you've taken that to
educate children would be great.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
No, of course happy to.
And then we can also just evencircle back to those kinds of
conversations that you werehaving about those current
stats, because you know, it's soyeah, because it ties into like
what I've been kind of doing myalmost my entire life
unintentionally.
So I I'm born and raised inBaltimore.
My parents are immigrants.
They came over, I was born inthis city, actually.
(03:24):
I always laugh.
Like, you know, Hopkins there'stwo times in my career that they
rejected me.
And the first time was at birth.
My mom went to the hospital andshe couldn't speak English, but
my dad was like, we don't haveinsurance.
Like we just have cash.
And they're like, no, this isnot the hospital.
I mean, that's the story.
My parents tell me.
So I went to a differenthospital to have me.
So, Hey, the irony is I became aprofessor there now though.
(03:46):
Um, but you know, going intomedicine, I only, I always
thought of myself as, you know,becoming an academic physician,
meaning I do clinical work andthen I have a research theme.
And the way you get trained inmedical school is, you know,
labs, science, the basicsciences.
That's what you gravitate to.
And like, honestly, that's wheremy heart was going until then,
(04:07):
like time for residency, Iapplied to Hopkins specifically
a hospital called Bayview.
And you know, why I wanted to gothere is because that's the
hospital that was in mycommunity.
I was like, Oh my God, I got togo back and give back to my
community.
Like I grew up in a immigrantheavy area, right?
A lot of Greeks, but also a lotof North Africans, a lot of
Hispanic Latinos.
(04:28):
And we just, all jelled, none ofus really spoke English, but we
understood humanity.
Like you help one another out.
And from my standpoint, I neverhad, you know, my dad was a
painter.
I didn't have those skills.
My mom was a seamstress.
I didn't have those skills.
God knows I couldn't cook thatwell.
So I was excited to like, becomea doctor and then go back into
this community and give back.
But that's when I started torealize medicine's limitations,
(04:51):
like early as an intern, I beganto really struggle with my
identity as a physician.
Right.
I had just dropped$200,000 onmedical information and I never
felt like he could reach mycommunity.
Yeah.
I could go over diabetes fromthe genetics to the
pharmacokinetics, up to thephysiology and the complications
that's having.
It did nothing for my patients.
(05:13):
When they went back out to thecommunity where they couldn't
access their medications, theycouldn't get transportation to
their doctor's offices.
God knows it.
Couldn't find, you know, nicenutritious food to need.
So like, what's the point oflike telling them all these
things to do when they didn'thave an environment that allowed
them to be healthy.
And it just, it really botheredme.
(05:33):
Cause these were also, weren'tlike patients, I know we get
attached to them and then wehave to like move on.
But for me that was hard to dobecause like, you know, I would
sit with them and they're like,Oh, I knew your mom and dad, or
like, Oh my God, on a heat,like, you're you played soccer
with my son or my babysitter wasmy patients.
Like, you know, like I becameincredibly attached cause this
was the community.
(05:54):
And so the way medicine for thegreater good began the is I
began to go into my community.
I went to the churches and spokeabout medicine, healthcare, and
then realized I'm like, thismakes an impact.
It's not just like the doctortalking, but it's a trusted
doctor from the communityspeaking in a manner that they
understand.
And oftentimes in Greek, becauseit's a language, you know, my
(06:14):
truth spoken.
But so that the communitymembers, like I won them over
just because of my narrative,there was an already established
trust and he knew how I talked.
He knew that.
I knew that like, Hey, go to oldhim, go to this corner store.
You can find some good foods.
Like they knew that.
But like, they love that that's,it's better than the doctors can
go in and exercise.
They're like, you don't know mycommunity, man.
Like, you don't know whathappened to walk through just to
be able to be safe.
(06:36):
And you know, like I see thisbecause I recognize it was a
good thing to do.
Right.
I knew it was the right thing todo, but I didn't know if this
like aligned at all with anacademic career.
Like I wanted to be a lung andcritical care doctor.
Every mentor I had in that fieldwas like, you got to do basic
science.
You've got to get a lab going.
And that like, like my mind knewthat was what I had to do.
(06:57):
My heart's like, dude, you gotto help your community, man.
Like, like, and like I felt likeI had these dueling competitions
of like, I want to be anacademic physician at the same
time.
I want to help my community, butwanting to do that, I had no
idea who I could mentor after orlike who could role model me at.
But with that said like I didhave a lot of people that would
(07:19):
champion this.
Like my program director caughtwind of what I was doing and was
encouraging of this.
This is Colleen Christmas, thepresident of our hospital
recruited some Florida.
Who's been doing this for years.
So I began to go to him.
This guy's name is Dan Hill.
I mean, I, you know, thebeautiful story of this is like
he became a North star andultimately, and we met at a
restaurant called the red star,which I, I love you.
(07:41):
And I'm like, Oh astronomy.
But like, we, you know, he liketo discuss like, Hey look, you
could be doing this.
And like, I never thought aboutdoing it in a way that allowed
me to do the right thing andallow my career to grow in
medicine.
I see this because I had no one,I had no role models.
I had no one to like guide me.
And it was the hardest thing todecide, to say fine, I'll make
(08:02):
an academic career in it.
I still don't know what thatmeans.
Like, I don't know who's goingto pay me to do community
engagement, but then like, yeah.
So then my chief year, I mean,one more year after residency, I
stayed on to be the chiefresident and I launched medicine
for the greater good inconjunction with my program
director, calling Christmas, whobelieved in this and we somehow
convinced the chairman ofMadison.
(08:22):
So this is where the story getsinteresting.
Right?
What medicine for the greatergood was.
It was to take physicians intraining and tell them how
community impacts healthoutcomes.
Right?
So we had workshops, people fromthe community came in reverends
in moms, like they all came inand talk.
And then we did what everyphysician does, where you learn
in school with you go bedside bythe patient and learn about the
(08:45):
patient, right?
So we got these doctors and weput them and planted them in the
community or work with them withhealth projects that they
identify they can help with.
Right?
You can't empathize with themand walk in their shoes, but
gosh, darn it.
We can walk next to them andunderstand the struggles that
they have.
So the next time I'm in clinicand trying to create a plan for
(09:06):
you no longer will that createequal plans.
Now I'm going to be creatingequitable plans.
And so that was my revolutionwith medicine for the greater
good.
And there's a little bit more tothis story that I want to
mention, and hopefully your,your, your listeners appreciate
this.
So my chief year, I poured ourblood, sweat and tears into it.
And my biggest fear as I leftwas knowing that probably like
(09:28):
I'm going to go into my trainingto be a lung and critical care
doctor.
Now I'm actually going to go tothe NIH to spend four years
there.
I have no idea how I pass thisBaton.
Right.
I did such a big job to build itup.
And now I'm like kind of leavingit to kind of just get further
training around this time.
The uprising of Freddie graybegan to happen in Baltimore and
(09:50):
the program directors who helpbuild this, just saw medicine
for the greater good assomething important.
So they wrote this beautiful oped published in new England
journal of medicine and it waspublished.
And I took it, you know, I'msitting here only my 80th hour
of a weekday work in criticalcare.
And I drove to the Baltimore sunheadquarters and I dropped it
(10:10):
off.
Like I sealed it.
I gave it to one of theirwriters called Andrew McDaniels
and it put it in the mailboxaddress to her.
She emails me and she's like,that's very kind of old school
dropping things off.
Let's go ahead.
And um, you know, can I come outand write a story about you?
It's like, sure.
So she comes out and you gottaunderstand, like I'm like
leaving the ICU.
Once my shift is over driving upto Baltimore from Bethesda, it's
(10:33):
about a 40 minute drive with notraffic just to like continue
with MDG stuff.
Like, you know, doing it likeout of my blood, sweat and
tears.
Cause I believe in this, right?
It comes, gets these picturesdone.
And Christmas Eve, I get a phonecall from my aunt and uncle, my
aunt and uncle, you know, bluecollar individuals.
They work for the Baltimore sunand local newspaper by at night
(10:55):
delivering them.
And they call me two in themorning and they're like, why
didn't you tell us you're goingto be on the cover of the
Baltimore sun.
This is December 24, 2015.
The reason why I'm saying thisis because, all right, that's
great.
You know, feel good story.
Then January comes and presidentDaniels of Hopkins calls my
(11:15):
chairman and goes, I'm sittinghere with a letter from
Congressman Elijah Cummingstelling me about medicine for
the greater good.
You got to tell me what the heckthis is.
So Congressman Cummings readthat newspaper commented, like
wrote a letter.
We invite him to kick off oursymposium and he's like, yeah,
(11:38):
I'll be your speaker.
By the way, we actually had asymposium speaker already lined
up.
It was Lena Winn who like now islike, so such a celebrity
status, but she was justbecoming our health commissioner
of Baltimore.
And I was like, you know, we'regonna, we're gonna push you back
one week to have congressmencoming.
So she's like, that's, I justremember I bumped into the
Congressman Cummings at like oneevent several years ago.
(12:01):
And I like, I wouldn't huggedhim.
Like, I mean, his securitypeople were like, who's this
guy.
And I'm like, I'm sorry.
And like, I have like tearsmiles.
I was like, you're the reasonyou're belief in medicine for
the greater good, got everyacademics attention.
Like when people say, how didyou get him?
Did you start it?
I was like, Oh, I just had acongressmen approve it.
And I'm like, yeah, I know.
Like it's a lot of the rightstars lining up.
(12:22):
I get, it's a story, sweat andtears.
But it's also a story of likepeople believing your mission
outside of your circle.
So, yeah.
Sorry for rambling.
But it's just, to me, it's justsuch an important story because
it's not like one that I couldtell someone else to like do
just, if you believe in yourwork, others will believe in it
and it's the right thing to dofor medicine.
(12:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Well, I think that's incredible.
And I think that's what drew usto pursuing you as a guest is
not very often.
Do you find a doctor whodedicates themselves to this
more holistic communityinvolvement approach?
Yeah.
So when we saw that, I was like,we would be so fortunate.
So thank you again for joiningus today and really commend you
(13:07):
for all of the, like you said,blood, sweat, and tears that
you've put into this in your,uh, after your day job.
Um, and I also wanted to knowbefore we go on, because you're
also a published author.
You mentioned, um, there's abook series, the person, the
doctor you collaborate with, Ithink in Florida, Dan Hale, you
said, um, and the book is calledbuilding healthy communities.
(13:27):
So I just wanted to make sureit's, um, it's noted for our
listeners in case they want tocheck it out and I I've read
some of it, uh, truth be toldhim I'm not finished, but it was
really interesting just to kindof hear the ways that you've
kind of really dedicatedyourself to integrating in the
communities and the positiveresponse that you've received as
a result.
(13:47):
And so many points kind ofresonated talking about, um, a
lot of churchgoers, a kind oflike an aging population.
And maybe sometimes it's harderfor them to have access to kind
of like basic guidelines on howto take care of themselves.
You know, they're not as techsavvy or whatever is younger
people like ourselves.
So making that connection and itwas kind of like a light bulb
moment.
I was like, Oh, that's such agreat idea to connect with, um,
(14:10):
that aging population.
I'm thinking about my parentsand stuff.
You know, they go to church andall that.
And then also the connectionwith the trust that church goers
put in their pastor or their,their priest or whoever is kind
of the leader of the church.
And sometimes depending on yourexperience and your practitioner
that you're seeing, you don'tnecessarily have that report
established.
(14:31):
So to have that collaborationcoming from the doctor, as well
as the head of the churchtogether, I think is brilliant.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
I appreciate it, honestly, that brilliant,
supposed to my colleague DanHale, who he was like, dude,
we've been doing this likefollow this path.
And it actually like writing thebook and then like other
publications.
The reason I emphasize it isbecause it's one way we can
disseminate our message throughthe channels of academia.
But at the same time, like whatwe try to hint at is recognizing
(15:01):
like health disparities are notgoing to be broken by hospital.
When you think of Baltimore, Imean, you've got one of the
world's best hospitals of JohnsHopkins planted there, and you
still have health disparities,Cleveland clinic in Cleveland,
massive health disparities.
There it's like a, hospital'sgot to be part of the solution,
but also recognize that it can'tbe the only solution.
(15:21):
And so that's what we try toemphasize in the book, like the
more communities and communities, just such a broad term, the
reason why we, we choose in thisbook, a faith based
organizations it's because whereelse do you get a collection of
adults gathering weekly with aninnate sense of trust and have a
great kind of hierarchicalleadership ties into your
(15:42):
message?
Do they disseminate it so well?
So thank you for commenting onthe book, but it's, from our
standpoint, it's important torecognize, like right now we're
writing another series forbuilding healthy communities by
working with schools.
And definitely we'll do a lotwith perfect segue.
A lot with COVID-19 makes nosense right now, but yes, back
(16:02):
back to you guys, sorry, youjust, this is,
Speaker 1 (16:05):
That's a great segue.
I was just going to say the goalof the podcast is to normalize
these discussions that aredifficult, you know, about race
and racism and anti-racism andthose sorts of things.
But for me personally, where I'mhoping I can take this as more
influencing curriculum andeducation, you know, as my
children get older and startgoing to big kids, schools,
elementary schools within, youknow, a big public school
(16:28):
district, that's kind of whereI'm hoping to be able to kind of
influence things surroundinganti-racism.
So when I read what you'redoing, kind of educating, uh,
students at a very young ageabout COVID and things like
that.
Could you tell us our listenersa little bit about that
initiative that you're doing?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Oh yes.
No happy to.
So let me, let me start off withkind of the Genesis of this,
right?
So I guess there's always aprecursor to like what X, what
we're doing, why, how we gothere, you know, and you know,
the value of communityengagement from my standpoint.
So I'm, I'm an adult and I carefor adult patients.
So like, while kids are awesome,you know, they're good for them.
(17:07):
Like I never, like, it neverdawned on me to potentially work
with that generation until likeone of my colleagues is like,
who does a lot of research inthe youth specifically around
asthma was like, you get allthis, we have all this science
done.
It could really create advocatesand its youth group.
We should try to createcurriculums to work with them.
So we reached out to a varietyof schools in Baltimore city to
(17:29):
scientists, team jurors reachedback out to me and we created
actually a curriculum intendedfor seventh and eighth graders.
I know it's going to sound likea cheesy name, but it was called
the lung health ambassadorprogram.
So we wanted to teach the kidsabout lung disease and what was
interesting from the teachers.
Cause like, like at this point Iwas doing community engagement
research.
I did health disparitiesresearch.
The teachers were the ones whowere like, you just teach wrong
(17:49):
health.
You gotta teach about thedisparities because these kids
are Hispanic, Latino, AfricanAmerican.
They know they're at risk forasthma COPT you got to tell them
why I was like, you got it.
Like we're happy to, but itwasn't just a teaching of why.
Like we also wanted to emphasizethat they can mitigate this.
They can stop this one of thebig conversation pieces for the
(18:11):
lung health ambassador program,not to sound like a broken
record or up 60 years of publichealth messaging, but it was an
anti tobacco, right?
So we talked about lung anatomy.
We talked about certain lungdiseases.
We introduced them to tobacco,both combustible cigarettes and
electronic.
And then we talked aboutadvocacy.
Like how can you put an end tothis?
Because tobacco easily helpsresult in more prevalence of
(18:35):
asthma in youth, from parentswho smoke.
And a lot of minority populationsmoke, a lot of people of
socioeconomic disadvantagesmoke.
So definitely trying to fightthis.
So our first year of doing this,uh, I remember vividly cause it
was my birthday.
We went to Annapolis, theCapitol Maryland.
We've got like eighth graderscoming with us to advocate to
take the smoking age of Marylandfrom 18 to 21.
(18:57):
Great.
And what was cool about thecurriculum?
By the way, the scienceteachers, we taught it in their
science class.
English teachers helped us, uh,help the students like write
letters to the governor, toadvocate for this bill.
That's awesome.
And the drama teachers taught inpublic speaking for the future
that came with us well,Annapolis.
It was awesome.
Uh, we have this cool curriculumand we're like, let's repeat it.
So 2019, 2020, we're back in theacademic.
(19:19):
Yeah, here.
Now we're really focused alittle bit more on e-cigarettes.
We're not only in the city,we're in some rural counties,
Justin Z we're like hitting onall cylinders.
Then March 11th, world healthorganization declared a pandemic
March 13th, which is a Friday.
And by the way, our governor ofMaryland we're locking down.
(19:40):
So all of our efforts now arekind of stopped.
But I will say actually, beforewe get to the curriculum, I
apologize for such a tangentialconversation, but it's just such
important narrative tounderstand when that happened,
March 14th, we get a call fromone of the community partner hat
, Mark.
He calls me he's out of new sungAcademy.
That's located in sand town,Winchester where the Freddie
(20:01):
gray uprising occurred.
And he's like this pandemic,it's going to be tough on black
communities.
When you know, poor individualsin Baltimore city who don't have
a trust of the medical system.
Now you're telling them to gettested screened and who don't
have access to like, you know, aplethora of food items and so
forth.
And you're telling them to stayhome.
And that broke my heartactually.
(20:21):
So one of the first things webegan doing our, we call them
community calls to talk about,COVID-19 call us in this number,
Mondays and Fridays andcommunity calls.
It's probably my, a brief momentof cleverness.
Maybe I thought that's clevermaybe, but it was like a
community call like a telephone,but it's community calls like
it's called an action.
We would talk about COVID-19streamlined information and so
(20:43):
forth.
And then we'll begin happening.
Jess and Z, our teachers that wepartner with will get on and
just say, we need you guys likeour kids.
Aren't distracted all they wantto talk about as a pandemic, but
say this because what we builtwith the pastor program, what we
built with that program, wealready really had these
connections with these teachers.
(21:04):
And so we kind of flipped thescript a little bit to make it
more COVID-19 but we had thekind of same, um, teaching kind
of, um, narrative of how wewould approach it because we
want to finish with someadvocacy.
It's not just here's one sciencefactor or the other it's what
can you do?
Right.
And got great enjoyment.
They liked it, got someattention of some other people
(21:25):
at Hopkins where we went in nowwe're like, let's make a
curriculum.
We have to, but what else are wegoing to do?
Like kids are going to go backto school in the fall.
It's spread this virus as muchas an adult can.
We've got to do something.
So we created a curriculum, 12lectures with faculty, from the
school of education, publichealth and medicine.
We piloted it over the summer atMorehouse school of medicine.
(21:47):
And with usher, Raymond's anonprofit in Atlanta called the
Usher's new look well received.
And one of our local reporters,we told her about this Abby
Isaacs from WMUR.
And she's like, Oh, let me run astory.
It was like cute.
It was a great story and Hopkinstweets it.
And then suddenly our inbox,this MGG inbox and medicine for
(22:09):
the greater good inbox, by theway, they get like an email,
like a week.
Some of it mainly spam.
We're being like blown upschools from like Hawaii to
Alabama, to Rhode Island.
Like we need you guys, like, weneed this curriculum, um,
countries from Panama to, um,Sudan, we're going to be
teaching in Sudan.
Like they were like, we like,you know, I get, we have this
(22:31):
concept of Hopkins, but like,what was clearly a first for the
community is can we get astreamline of information that's
consistent from experts?
Like just tell the kids what'sgoing on.
And so what we did, actually,what we did with every single
one of these schools is we hadthese one on one meetings.
So they know what they're goingto get.
(22:52):
And every single school waslike, we want you guys in and
we've kicked it off.
Like right now we were finishingup about a dozen schools in
Connecticut.
Next week we are going to out inAlabama.
And sometime in mid October,we're becoming a mandatory
curriculum for Baltimore citypublic schools.
It is.
(23:12):
No thank you.
But it's so powerful when youtalk to action, clearly that is
really impressive.
It tells you how much thecommunity wants this right to
partner with health.
They want to promote science.
They want to prevent disease.
They want to, you know, theywant this like Friday morning
when our, our leader of thenation went into the hospital,
(23:36):
we taught school in Tennessee,in an art class and the lesson
there was about the biology ofthe virus.
Right.
And we finish off like, how doyou think this is kinda barkers?
NERC goes, wait, dr.
G I don't like, why wasn't he,why will the president bring a
face mask?
And I'm sitting there, I'm likethis kid gets it.
(23:56):
Right?
And so like from our standpoint,you know, we're going in here
just promoting science, that'sit.
We go over the biology, like thefirst four lectures over the
biology of the virus.
It goes over the math ofmathematical models.
Right?
How we talk about, how do wephase in or phase out?
We go over the physics offacemask, little John Love.
I mean, I could to nerd out onphysics in real time.
(24:18):
And then we finished it with thechemistry of hand hygiene.
That's our first fourelectrodes.
We have eight other ones thatgoes over from vaccines to how
to interpret science, toactually help disparities.
So I can tell you, every kidthat goes through this
curriculum so far where we'vehad 12 schools out of
Connecticut, we have a half adozen out of Rhode Island so
far, and this is all before weeven launched in Baltimore city
(24:39):
or Alabama or two next biggeographic spots.
But every single kid gets it.
Every single kid finished likeone fifth grader, a few weeks
back.
I was like, when will this set?
And I was like, it's going totake a while.
But my friend, if everyone does,you know, physical distancing
face masking hand hygienestatement was often as you can,
(25:01):
this could go away for weeks.
And this fifth grader stood upand goes, I'm going to tell
everyone I'm sick of this.
We got to end it.
Now.
I'm like, that's the power wewant.
Like, we're all human beings.
We have, we have the ability tohave science help us.
Right.
I get science.
That's limitations.
Don't get me wrong.
I mean, case in point healthdisparities.
(25:21):
Right.
But you gotta focus.
I mean, when you talk aboutcommunity engagement, it can't
be, we can't be agents.
We can't just think, Oh, justadults.
Talk to them.
Powerful.
I mean, I am, if I get it's abias symbol I'm working with,
but if these kids are supposedto give me an insight into the
next generation, we're going tobe in good hands.
(25:42):
These kids are bright, they'reintelligent and they get it.
And you know what?
They are thirsty to do good.
And having science as part oftheir artillery to say, this is
how I'm going to think clearlythrough these problems.
Awesome.
So, yeah.
So that's, I gave you like thebackground, but you got to know
the background cause like, Oh,we just showed up and we're
like, Hey, we're doing this
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Nice.
That's perfect.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
I would say gen Z is community engagement.
The one ingredient, if anyoneasks like, what's key about it
making success as like it'strust.
And that, that doesn't happenimmediately.
It doesn't happen by knocking onthe door.
I mean, one of my favoritestories is showing up to st.
Matthew's or Turner station andDundalk Baltimore showed up like
(26:26):
three consecutive Sundays beforethe Reverend talked to me
invited and he kept them buddy.
And he's like, come back.
I was like, alright man, but yougotta earn their trust.
And it's it.
Maybe it sounds simple.
Like you just show up for them.
That's a lot more than othershave done.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Well, awakened that does it for us today.
That was part one of anti-racismin the healthcare setting with
dr.
G.
We hope that you learned a lottoday and we hope that too can
focus on one important piece.
And that is communityengagement.
(27:05):
We can all do better withrecognizing who our council
members are, who our staterepresentatives are and senators
and reaching out and making adifference.
Now isn't really important timeto have all of our voices heard
as one and individually.
(27:26):
So make it happen.
And at the end of the day, beyou do you for you be safe and
be well.
And don't forget to reach out tous@infoatawakenedandamerica.com.
(27:48):
Take care.
Thank you for listening toawakened in America.
If you enjoyed today's podcast,be sure to subscribe and leave a
review.
You can also find us onInstagram at awakened in
America.
That's awakened underscoreunderscore America, and remember
(28:10):
be mindful, be grateful.
And most of all be you.
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