September 22, 2023 • 41 mins
Scott Charles, a trauma outreach manager at Temple University Hospital, joins hosts Kelly and JJ to share about his own experiences with gun violence and the impact it's had on his role in preventative care. We delve into the importance of personal narratives and the power they hold in humanizing statistics related to firearm injuries, while also uncovering the raw reality of the trauma bay, revealing its stark contrast to the dramatized portrayal often seen in mainstream media. Scott introduces us to the Cradle to Grave program, an initiative designed to educate young people about the harsh medical realities of firearm injuries.
Need a gun lock? Request one from Scott here.
Further reading:
‘Where is the outrage ... from everyone?’ The story behind this Temple trauma surgeon’s tweet. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Dying is Easy: Cradle 2 Grave (the Philadelphia Citizen)
These 11 Temple University violence reduction programs are enhancing safety in Philadelphia (Temple University)
Temple University Hospital's trauma advocates work to expand program to help gun violence victims (ABC)'
One man's mission to prevent gun deaths – one lock at a time (Metro)
Further reading:
‘Where is the outrage ... from everyone?’ The story behind this Temple trauma surgeon’s tweet. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Dying is Easy: Cradle 2 Grave (the Philadelphia Citizen)
These 11 Temple University violence reduction programs are enhancing safety in Philadelphia (Temple University)
Temple University Hospital's tra
For more information on Brady, follow us on social media @Bradybuzz or visit our website at bradyunited.org.
Full transcripts and bibliographies of this episode are available at bradyunited.org/podcast.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255.
In a crisis? Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a Crisis Counselor 24/7.
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells for their long-standing legal support
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the legal disclaimer, where I tell you
that the views, thoughts andopinion shared on this podcast
belong solely to our guests andhosts and not necessarily Brady
or Brady's affiliates.
Please note this podcastcontains discussions of violence
that some people may finddisturbing.
It's okay, we find itdisturbing too.
Hey, everybody, welcome back toanother episode of Red Bull and
(00:45):
Brady.
I'm one of your hosts, jj.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And I'm Kelly, your other host.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
And today, kelly and I are sitting down with Scott
Charles, who's a trauma outreachmanager at Temple University
Hospital, and Scott is reallyanswering a lot of questions,
kelly, that I think you and Ihave both had, but the big one
for me, which is how do webridge this gap between medicine
and gun violence on the street?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, and I mean for me too, he's kind of showing an
example of what public healthcould be at its best.
You know, we're sitting hererecording having survived a
pandemic that is still happening, and we've seen a lot of
examples of services beingprovided but then being taken
away, or what happens whenpeople don't have access to
things, and gun violence is apublic health issue, and so one
(01:30):
of the questions I constantlyhave is what would it look like
if everything was sort ofworking together holistically?
And what Scott does is reallycool because he's bringing harm
reduction to the bedside ofpeople who have been shot, but
also to their families andcommunities, and he's going to
where people are.
So I think it's a really coolprogram.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
And listening to Scott too, as I hope I think our
listeners probably will be Iwas like why is this not in
every city?
Why?
Is this not across the US.
You know if this is somethingthat works and so I highly
encourage our listeners.
You know, right in at the endof this episode, if there's
similar initiatives in your citythat we just don't know about
that we should be highlighting.
Or if you want kind of thisprogram, as Scott will detail it
(02:13):
out, called Cradle to Grave, tobe in your city.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I'm Scott Charles.
I'm the trauma outreach managerat Temple University Hospital,
where I oversee the healthsystems, violence prevention and
intervention initiatives,something that I've been doing
for almost the last 20 years now.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
And I wonder kind of along those lines if you can
kind of tease out what thatposition is to like.
What does a trauma outreachmanager so?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
yeah, so it's interesting.
One of the things that sets usapart, I think, at Temple is the
way that we've defined thetrauma outreach manager role.
I started as a trauma outreachcoordinator and for many
hospitals what that looks likeis somebody who might hand out
bicycle helmets or might hostlike a bicycle rodeo to help
(02:59):
teach kids about preventinginjuries, or might go to a
senior center and talk to seniorcitizens about pulling up their
rugs or making sure that theircats don't become tripping
hazards.
For us at the hospital, what werecognize is that we are
operating in a city in generaland in the community in
particular, with high rates offirearm injury, and what we were
(03:20):
seeing a lot of probably evenmore than children being injured
on bicycles were young peoplebeing injured by firearms, and
so what my role as the traumaoutreach professional looks like
at my hospital is probablydifferent than it looks at many
hospitals.
So what I'm tasked with doing istrying to prevent firearm
injury in a variety of forms.
(03:44):
So that includes trying toprevent unintentional shootings
by children by distributinggunlocks.
It means hosting programs thateducate young people about the
medical realities of firearminjuries in order to dispel a
lot of the myths that exist outthere.
I do a program that teachescommunity first aid to
(04:04):
individuals who my role hasreally been focused on victim
advocacy and standing up aprogram in the hospital where we
have a team of victim advocateswho assist victims of violent
injury and their familieswithout a navigate the health
care system, how to navigate thejustice system, how to navigate
(04:25):
victim services and that typeof thing, and that's it.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
It's real simple, small stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, we're excited to kind of drill more down to
the programs that you've beenworking on.
But before we do that, we knowthat you're a survivor of gun
violence yourself, and so ifyou're comfortable to the extent
that you're comfortable I'mwondering if you can share how
that impacts the work thatyou're doing every day when
you're seeing gun violence.
But it's also been a part ofyour own life.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
So I want to be clear , when I myself have not been
shot, but I grew up in ahousehold where a couple of my
siblings had been shot, mysister completed suicide with a
firearm, and, as somebody whogrew up in the neighborhood
where I grew up, I lost somefriends to gun violence growing
up.
So in many ways I'm comfortablesaying that I might be a
(05:15):
co-victim of violence in thesense that the people close to
me have been shot, but Ipersonally have never been shot.
The way it impacts me is that Ithink for me I've reflected a
lot on kind of how I approachconversations around gun
violence and I tend to I comeacross as being kind of feisty
when it comes to this issue and,some would argue, intolerant
(05:36):
when it comes to this issue, andI think really the way that
it's impacted me is it's made mepassionate about this, because
this is not an abstract idea asfar as I'm concerned.
This is something that holdsreal meaning for me, and so I
tend not to give up a lot ofground when it comes to kind of
the cliches and the tropes thatexist around gun violence,
because I see it every day, butit certainly, I think, humanizes
(05:58):
the experience for me, and sothat when I or members of my
team are going into a familywaiting room to talk to the
family about their loved one whois probably 100 feet away
fighting for their lives in atrauma bay, I'm able to put
myself in their shoes and tothink about what they must be
(06:19):
experiencing.
And then to work so closelywith patients who are surviving
gunshot patients or survivinggunshot injuries and, in many
cases, actually potentiallylosing their lives, in front of
me.
This is something that's veryreal for me and it's hard, so it
drives me, certainly, but italso, I think, gives me a level
(06:40):
of empathy that I might nototherwise have, and I think that
that's kind of the greatestinfluence that my personal
experiences, the way that theyreally influence my work.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
I think it's really good that you highlight that
kind of like co-traumatization.
I know, like one of the thingsI think that we all talk a lot
about is like terms, right.
So some folks want to beconsidered survivors of gun
violence or don't want to beconsidered survivors of gun
violence, or like what asurvivor is is like a whole we
had to do a whole podcastepisode on it, right.
But I think what you'veidentified is that, even if you
(07:10):
yourself are not shot, when youlose people or if you live in a
community where people are beinglost regularly, like that has
an impact too and just, I thinkyou being able to go into those
spaces ensure that experience orat least kind of know like what
verbal pitfalls not to fallinto is probably immensely
helpful for the people thatyou're serving.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Right and it's one of the things that you know, those
of us that are working in thisspace consider all the time is
it's real easy to want to saythings like I know it.
You know, I know how you feeland you know, even if I have you
know, I'm with somebody who, me, have just lost their sibling.
It's not really for me to say Iknow exactly how they feel.
My role is to be there to bearwitness to their pain and to
(07:52):
support them through thatexperience.
But when it comes to thatexperience of that first hand
traumatization, you knowwitnessing it I know that none
of my experiences come close towhat our patients are enduring.
I simply know that, through theconversations that I'm having
with them, I'm asking them totell me what it's like and I'm
(08:14):
trying to listen so that theyknow that they're being heard.
And I can say with absoluteconfidence that nothing in my
life leading up to that, thismoment would prepare me for what
they're experiencing.
It's really difficult Bye,that's not to dismiss those who
are, who have lost loved ones togun violence or who were, or
(08:35):
even living with people who havesurvived a tremendously Brutal
gunshot injury, because it'sit's tough and one of the things
that I say to the young peoplethat come through the program is
I Talk to them about the damagethat is inflicted, not to just
them physically or even, if theydie, the loss, what the loss
(08:56):
represents as on the individuallevel, but I talked to them
about what's left in the wakeand I explained that you know,
when they die they have the easypart.
Ultimately, it's the peoplethat they leave behind who will
die a little bit each and everyday for the rest of their lives.
And for young people who feelthat loyalty is really important
(09:18):
, I think it's it's helpful forthem to recognize that there is
a responsibility that they haveto the people who love them,
because they have the potentialof making those individuals
co-victims of homicide, which issomething we wouldn't want to
inflict on anybody that we lovethat's.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I mean that I think is incredibly powerful and we're
gonna, I think, dive into someof the work that you're doing to
, I think of like meeting peoplewhere they are, which medicine
doesn't always do and and thegun violence prevention movement
doesn't always do, but we'rehoping gets better at.
But you said something earlierabout kind of educating folks
about the medical realities ofgun violence and I'm wondering
(09:55):
if we can, if we can, tease thatout of what that Even is,
because I think, kelly, you andI have talked on this podcast
now so many times about how,like, what you see on TV Isn't
true.
I think, even even what peoplewho read a lot, or or do I think
if you're not in the medicalfield, you probably just don't
know what those realities are.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Yeah, you know it's.
It's interesting, given all theexperiences I've had Growing up
around gun violence.
When I came to the hospital in2005 I had no idea what goes on
in an emergency department, in atrauma bay.
I just I had no point ofreference.
It really everything I knewcame from television and movies.
(10:33):
And you know, I really credit DrAmy Goldberg, who is now the
dean of the medical school at atTemple and is has really been
my Partnering in crime or noncrime since since 2005, who
recruited me to come to TempleBecause she wanted to think
outside the box and to push theenvelope and think of some some
really provocative andinnovative ways to address this
(10:57):
issue from Multiple angles.
But one of the things that shedid very early on was say you,
you should probably come seewhat we do.
And I was like fine, you know,it seems like a snooze fest.
You guys are all scrubbed inand you know, based on what I've
seen on ER, just it seems verysterile.
And then when I first got in,that's in that room, I just
remember thinking, oh my god,this is, this is incredible.
(11:20):
I mean it's.
There's nothing.
I've yet to really see anythingthat Resembles what goes on in
a trauma.
But it's just because, you know,I go back to this experience we
had with a news organizationthat wanted to film and and
there was a lot of pushback fromthe institution, understandably
(11:41):
, because we do such great workat our hospital, you know, in
terms of transplants anddelivering babies and we do all
this other great stuff, butpeople really are fixated on
violence, and understandably.
But you know, it was hard forthe hospital to really reconcile
that it's important to showthis other side of what we do at
the hospital in terms ofaddressing violence, because we
(12:03):
didn't want to be seen as a gunand knife club.
We wanted to be seen kind of asthis really high-level
institution which we are.
So there was theseconversations and it was
interesting because the Mediaoutlets said to us look, we're
not going to show, you know,blood and gore at 6 pm Because
people are gonna be eatingdinner and they don't want to
(12:25):
see that.
And it really what it reallyspoke to was the fact that
there's this natural disconnectbetween our what we're willing
to, you know, look at in termsof gun violence and what it
really looks like, and so that'sa Particularly hazardous thing
when you're talking about youngpeople, young people who have
been raised to think that theycan solve their problems by
(12:47):
pointing a gun at those problemsand pulling the trigger and
that with five pounds ofpressure that they can alleviate
all their issues without Reallyhaving to face what's on the
other side of that.
And so you know that's how I wasraised.
You know movies and I, to thisday, I still love action movies.
But when you're in the traumabay and you're seeing what
(13:08):
doctors have to do in an effortto save lives the fact that they
inflict their own trauma on thebody To get to the bleeding, to
open up you know a chest, totry to cross, clamping aorta to
prevent blood from Flowing outof places where blood shouldn't
be flowing out of as a result ofbullets Traveling through those
places that's just notsomething we've ever seen on
(13:30):
television, really, with theexception Maybe of Grey's
Anatomy here and there.
But when we're talking about acity like Philadelphia, where a
couple thousand people will beshot every year this is
happening day after day and whenwe talk about the numbers, it
really avoids what those numbersrepresent, and so I think it's
(13:52):
important for A young person whomay ultimately want to pick up
a firearm to understand whatwhat he or she may ultimately be
inflicting on to another person.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Thanks for kind of sharing that, because I know
it's something when we've hadindividuals who've been shot and
survived come on the podcast.
They often talk about how,rightfully, we focus a lot on
people who are killed by gunviolence, but we also don't
necessarily talk about what itmeans for you to have that
trauma on your body and stillhave to live with it.
(14:23):
So I think what you're sayingis really important and want to
drill down a little bit on theCradle to Grave program, because
that's a place where you'reconfronting some of these issues
.
So I'm wondering if you couldtell listeners what that program
is and what it looks like.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Yeah, so it really began with how Dr Goldberg and I
met back in 2004.
At the time, a lot of youngkids were being shot in the city
and we hadn't seen anythinglike it before.
And I was doing a project.
You know, my background is ineducation and I was doing a
project with some young peoplein North Philly.
I was introduced to Dr Goldberg.
(14:55):
She arranged a visit and webrought some kids up there to
the hospital.
They had this exchange of ideaswith surgeons and medical
professionals and it waspowerful, you know, for the
physicians.
It allowed them to look at ateenager who hadn't been shot,
who wasn't staring up at themand saying I'm not going to die,
am I?
To ask them questions abouttheir life, what it's like to go
(15:17):
to school in a neighborhoodwhere they hear gunshots and
where they feel that conflictmay lead to their deaths, and
then, conversely, to have kidsbe able to talk to a surgeon
some of surgeons look like themand to ask them.
You know, what is it like topronounce a child dead and then
go home at the end of the day.
How do you come back every dayand do this, day after day?
And so that was the genesis ofwhat would become the Cradle to
(15:39):
Grave program.
So we thought it was powerfulto bring kids in as learners
rather than as patients.
And in 2006, we began theprogram after I joined Temple
University Hospital, and what wedo is we bring a group of young
people into the hospital.
A lot of times they are fromtraditional, you know, public
(15:59):
schools, sometimes they're fromalternative schools, sometimes
they're from juvenile justiceprograms or diversion programs
and they might be court mandatedto be a part of that diversion
program.
But the diversion program seesCradle to Grave as an important
tool and we'll bring them in fora two hour experience and
during that experience what wedo is we use a real case study
(16:21):
of a 16 year old who was shotseveral years ago here in North
Philadelphia, a kid who was somuch like these kids.
He was exceptional in how normaland average he was.
He was just a sweet kid, afunny kid, a kid who had a.
You know his life was reallyordinary.
You know he had friends, heliked to tell jokes, he was an
(16:42):
okay student, he never got introuble.
He was just that kid.
He was that every kid and as aresult of a misunderstanding he
would ultimately be shot 14times about a block from his
house.
And what we do is we narrate allof the events that led up to
that moment so that you can seehow the most mundane things can
(17:06):
result in tragedy when youintroduce a gun into that
equation.
And we pick up the story afterthe kid is transported to the
hospital and we use his medicalrecord, which was something that
his grandmother allowed us todo and I want to say his name,
because so often we talk aboutindividuals as almost being
movie characters or just numbersand his name is Lamont Adams,
(17:30):
and I think about Lamont all thetime.
He was 16 at the time of theshooting and 16 at the time of
his death.
And his grandmother, jennyClark.
When I spoke to her afterwards,she wanted something good to
come out of this, so that itwasn't just about loss, and she
hoped that she could save otherkids.
So she granted us permission tobasically open up his medical
(17:52):
record so that we could talkabout what doctors do, and
that's what we've done, for youknow, the better part of 17
years is to us to talk about hiscase in vivid detail and we
bring kids into the clinicalarea, into the trauma bay Again,
we don't want them.
We don't want to meet them thereas victims.
We want to see them there aslearners and we have medical
(18:13):
staff, surgeons and attendingsand residents, nurses, who will
come in and talk about theirrole and what they do and using.
They all know his case, theyall know Lamont's case so that
it can recite kind of all thesteps that were done and it's
very straightforward.
The procedures are justdescribed.
(18:34):
We show them the equipment thatis used, but we just talk in
medical terms about why, forinstance, they would cross clamp
A or an Aorta.
You know, why would they wantto prevent blood flow going
throughout the body when apatient is bleeding to death?
And then, you know, after weexplained that after 14 minutes
in the trauma bay he waspronounced dead, we take a
(18:56):
moment and we reflect kind ofwhat that must have been like
for the surgeons, what we knowit's going to be like when
somebody walks out and tells hisgrandmother and all of the
things that a 16-year-old who'scut down in the prime of their
life will miss out on.
And it's a conversation A lotof times.
One of the labels that has kindof been put on cradle to grave
(19:19):
is that it's a scared straightprogram, and I think we do that
because we just don't know whatelse to call it.
It's kind of a shorthand fortalking about difficult things,
but this is the leading cause ofdeath for young black men in
Philadelphia, and I have tobelieve that if heart disease
was the number one killer ofyoung black men in Philadelphia,
no one would really take issuewith me talking about what a
diseased heart looks like or themedical procedures that are
(19:43):
undertaken to try to save aperson with heart disease.
But for some reason, we're verysqueamish when it comes to
talking about saving lives.
We'll show endless hours ofpeople being killed.
I just watched John Wick 4because I can't help myself.
I was hoping Halle Berry wouldmake a cameo.
I was a disappointed spoileralert, but it was amazing to me
(20:07):
that we can watch somebody justlike kill person after person
after person.
Nobody goes to the hospital.
Nobody talks about the factthat, in reality, we save about
80% of shooting victims.
Admittedly are shooting victimsaren't being shot by John Wick,
but in reality, in a city likePhiladelphia, we're saving more
than 80% of shooting victims,and so the issue of gun violence
(20:28):
isn't so much about life anddeath as much as it is.
How are you going to cope withliving with this devastating
injury?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
And it's not.
I mean, I know and I don't wantto speak poorly of the amazing
medical folks in Philadelphia,but it's also not that folks are
getting shot and they go homethe next day and, because they
weren't killed, that theirrecovery is a linear, quick,
painless, inexpensive process.
It's more folks are living now,but they're living with very
(20:58):
severe, not just trauma but likephysical issues too right.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
I say it all the time .
You know I can drive through.
I don't live far from fromwhere I work.
I can drive through theneighborhoods to get to my home
and I see former patients in thestreets, you know, in the
neighborhoods.
You know one of the things thatwe don't talk about is how
geographically limiting povertyis and gun violence is, and so
(21:26):
so often the individuals who getshot will be stuck in the
neighborhoods where they wereshot.
So you know there's nobodywho's gonna give you a golden
ticket and you get out of theneighborhood because you got
shot.
But when I'm driving throughthose neighborhoods it really is
, it reminds me of war zones andyou know, you see the people
who are victims, who are inwheelchairs or who have
(21:50):
amputations or who are oncrutches, and that's probably
gonna be there a lot, for quitesome time, and it's pervasive,
and so not only do they have thephysical injuries to deal with,
but they're constantly remindedof what they've endured, and
everywhere they look, there arepeople like them who have gone
(22:11):
through something similar, and Ithink that it ultimately you
know it ultimately shapes theway that people respond to
conflict.
If you live in a neighborhoodwhere there are all these kind
of visual, visible reminders ofhow lethal things are, things
that are made lethal by theprevalence of firearms.
You're gonna hope for the best,but you're gonna prepare for
(22:32):
the worst.
And you know you may notnecessarily be somebody that
would consider themselves anevil person, but when it comes
to your own salvation, what youmay want to do is pick up a gun
and you're not gonna wait forthe other person to pull their
gun out if you think that theyneed to do you harm.
So there are all these, youknow all these different ways
(22:54):
that us getting better atmedicine has, in some ways,
unintended consequences.
And that's not to suggest byany means that I hope I wish
more people would die.
No, I mean, I want everybody tosurvive.
But what it also means is thatthere will be, there's gonna be
something happening as a resultof that, and I think it's it's
that constant reminder of howviolent the community can become
(23:17):
.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I was going to ask if you think, if that ties into
what you're talking aboutearlier, with that kind of
people's senses of what my lifepath can even look like, will
look like.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, and there's a level offatalism if you, if you know
more kids that have been shotthan have gotten accepted to
college, that may be how you seeyour future in terms of that
inevitability, but also in termsof just you.
Again, you know, if I, if I doconvince a young person that
(23:46):
they don't want their mama togrieve, to grieve their loss,
then another way of looking atit is, if I haven't given that
young person an out or somesolution to their issue, then
they're stuck there and they'rethinking well, okay.
Well then my solution is to pickup a gun and do the person harm
.
That means to do me harm and so, yeah, I think it feeds into
(24:09):
this in in many ways.
So the solution to gun violencehas to take many forms and part
of it, you know, is not justturning off the the tap in terms
of the flow of guns into theneighborhood.
We absolutely have to do that.
But if we don't replace thatwith something meaningful,
something powerful and immediate, you know folks are gonna still
(24:31):
feel that level of fatalism,and so we have to tackle this in
a variety of ways and I thinkhopelessness is really the
greatest precursor there is tothe violence that we're seeing.
If we give you know kidssomething to live for, they're
gonna be less willing to die forfor other things.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I'm wondering you know you talked about how the
posture of the, the kids who dothis program, is there in the
hospital as learners, and I'mwondering has anyone have you
heard stories of people perhapsbeing inspired themselves to
become healers or to get intomedicine from what they saw?
Because I can imagine, you know, contrary to like you said,
(25:10):
it's not scare straight, they'relearning.
So I'm wondering that sort ofhad an impact in that way?
Speaker 3 (25:15):
So it's interesting, we've not.
I would love to say that a lotof the kids that have come
through the program ended upbeing doctors, and if they have,
please contact me immediately.
But but you know, we can lookat the, we can look at the
medical schools and we can lookat the industry and know that
there's not this abundance ofkids coming from the
neighborhood filling those,those spots.
(25:36):
But I but it looks like thingsare changing slowly but surely
with regard to that, but it'scertainly not as a result of my
program.
What I will tell you that we dosee periodically are
individuals who came through theprogram as teams.
This really makes me feel old,but they came through as kids
because they had gotten introuble.
(25:57):
And then they come backbringing a group of kids because
they're now counselors andthey're now running their own
program, and that's, you know,that's heartwarming.
I also had a police officer whopointed out to me when he was,
you know, he had a group of kidsthat were coming through a PAL
program.
He was a police officer now hepointed out to me that he had
come through when he was in highschool because he had gotten in
(26:18):
trouble and he had turned hislife around and and had become a
police officer.
So you know, those things areout there and one of the things
that will happen that happensquite frequently is if I am out
to eat or I stop to getsomething to eat on the way home
.
I've gone into fast food spotsand there'll be a group of kids
in there and you know I'm notintimidated.
(26:39):
These are kids that I probablyhave had through my program and
sure enough one of the kids willbe like yo, oh, hey, you, the
dude that you know taught usabout the AK-47, and you, the
kid, you know, the guy thatshowed us, you know what bullets
do to bodies, or you know, and,and you know they'll start
talking to the friends whohaven't gone through the program
Yo, you got to see this program, you know I learned a lot.
So you know, the goal of theprogram is just to educate as
(27:02):
many kids as we can.
You know, I would love to thinkthat a kid, because he had gone
or she had gone through theprogram, ends up in college.
But that's really not where thebar is for me.
You know, that's the icing onthe cake, to mix metaphors.
But the you know, the goal forme is just to have young people
making informed decisions, andthe only way that I can
guarantee that is by gettingthis information out there.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
And you mentioned, some people have
mischaracterized the program asaired straight.
I'm wondering if other peoplehave said well, this is
overreach, a hospital shouldn'tbe doing this.
You know this isn't appropriate.
And if, if you have gotten thatsort of critique, what do you
say to people who think thatthis is outside of the range of
what you know a hospital?
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I don't want my tax dollars going through this yeah,
that one.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
That's the good news.
The program is not funded bycradle of grave has never had
funding from anybody.
It's really part of you know,it's what I do with my spare
time.
It's what my, our nurses anddoctors do when they can commit
the time to doing it.
So that's the good news to theperson who doesn't want their
tax dollars going to it.
But for those who do want thetax dollars going to it, please
(28:14):
reach out to your localrepresentative.
And the truth is, when DrGoldberg and I started doing
this, you know, 18 years ago,what we were seeing as heretics.
You know and it wasn't justfrom outside of medicine, people
within medicine, kind of likewhy this is not what we do.
But again, to go back to thepoint, that this is the number
one killer of the significantportion of our community.
(28:37):
This absolutely has to be whatwe're, what we should do.
This is not a political issue.
When you're inside the hospital, nobody's asking them how they
voted, nobody's asking thedoctors how they voted.
We don't care even what theywere doing prior to getting shot
.
This is one of the.
This is part of the culture ofTemple in particular, that Dr
Goldberg was, was keen on it,and it's, and it continues to
(29:01):
this day.
We do not care about what theindividual is involved in.
For us, it's about saving lives, and I'm not, I don't want to.
I said us because I see thoseguys as my family.
But for the hospital, it'sabout saving lives, it's not
about politicizing this issue,and so for us, the notion of
overreaches is just silly.
(29:21):
This is what we're meant to do.
It looks.
It looks different depending onwhat area of the hospital
you're in.
Nobody would say that the X-raytechnician I don't want somebody
taking pictures of how's thatmedicine?
It's all medicine, it's allcommunity health and that's what
we're here for.
And, honestly, all that goesout the window.
(29:44):
When it's your loved one who'sshot, it absolutely goes out the
window.
And people have said for yearsbullets have no names and we see
people from all walks of lifebeing shot.
Today In Philadelphia, there's alot of outrage and uproar when,
when that gun violence seepsout of the neighborhoods where
(30:06):
we expect to find it and ends upin places where the folks
who've been protected from it,you know, go about their
business.
I would like to think that thepeople that live in the suburbs,
who visit the city, aregrateful that that somebody is
trying to talk to young peoplewho might pick up a gun before
they pick up a gun, because, asI said, sometimes that violence
(30:26):
seeps out of those neighborhoodswhere those people are
comfortable with it existing inthose you know, quote unquote
neighborhoods, but there's noguarantees not going to find its
way into center city and and Iwould hope that you'd be
grateful that we're trying tostop it before it gets there.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Well, I think, to use your metaphor before, like I
don't have heart disease, butI'm really thankful that people
do research into it and aretrying to keep other people from
getting it.
You know one, because we nothaving heart disease doesn't
make me care less about peoplewho have it.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Well, in the argument , right is you know.
You know every, every time wetalk about how insane the
numbers are, that this manyAmericans suffer a gunshot
injury every day, and theninevitably somebody says, we'll
now do do heart attacks or nowdo this.
And I always think it's such aweird argument because it
(31:18):
suggests that we only have thecapacity to do one thing.
And I think you know we canwalk and shoot gun, and never
have I seen somebody suffering aheart attack and then have you
know somebody in the in thehospital announced well, hold on
, let's not, let's not try tosave that guy.
Do you know how many people youknow die from cancer every year
?
I mean, we don't do that in thehospital.
(31:39):
We don't say like, let'sprioritize who gets treatment
based on the ranking in terms ofits frequency in the population
.
We just don't do that.
So we, you know we divide ourtime and we have people who
specialize in a certain thing,and this just happens to be the
thing that I specialize in.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
And kind of continuing to think about this
holistic approach.
For example, when you'retalking about something like
heart disease, a lot of timesdoctors will do preventative
things.
They'll think about your dietand you know your cholesterol,
things like that.
And we know, for gun violenceprevention, one of those things
deals with access and so yourprogram you hand out gun locks
and safes, and so I'm wonderinghow that developed and what that
(32:18):
looks like in a hospitalsetting, because we've seen
examples in, you know, lawenforcement settings.
But I'm wondering what it lookslike for for healthcare
settings.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Yeah, the way it started really was me being on
social media and there's anindividual, tagrox's handle, who
would talk.
He had a hashtag that he reallyhelped create called gunfail,
and I would see these stories ofthese kids being shot by other
(32:50):
children or unintentionallyshooting themselves, which was
just heartbreaking for me.
It's just like such apreventable thing, and I'd also
see kids who were coming up tovisit their parents, and so I
would have a gunshot victim in aroom that I'd been working with
or talking with, and I'd seehis girlfriend or wife and their
(33:10):
child downstairs, and so I knewthat this is an individual who,
based on our conversation, mayvery well have a firearm at home
, and I would think about thefact that the way that most
people are able to get gunlocksif they're not getting their
guns from like since gun dealeris that they'd have to go to law
(33:31):
enforcement to get thosegunlocks.
And so, thinking about that kid, that young man or that man
who's laying in the bed, who'swrestling with whether or not he
should retaliate or maybe he'snot even thinking about
retaliation, but maybe he'sthinking simply about his own
protection and he may have a gunat home, especially now that
he's been shot.
Where is he going to get thatgun?
(33:53):
He's going to get that gunlockif he's a prohibited individual,
and so the answer traditionallyhas been from law enforcement
and he's not going to do that Ifhe's not going to go ask for a
gunlock for the gun that he'snot supposed to have.
In having conversations onsocial media about this, I'll
get people who will criticizethe fact that I'm giving
gunlocks to prohibitedindividuals, and all I can think
(34:16):
of is those are the people whoneed them the most.
I don't want any child tosuffer for the mistakes that
their parents have made or thebad decisions that their parents
have made.
I want to have a conversationwith that individual about one
not keeping a gun in the house,not having a gun as a prohibited
individual.
But if I can't dissuade himfrom that, what I am going to do
(34:40):
is encourage him to safelysecure that gun.
I'm going to have conversationswith him about how often kids
are being shot, how dangerous itis to keep a gun up on a closet
shelf because you think thatyour four-year-old isn't going
to find it there, and not onlyhave that talk with him, but to
give him the tools and give himthe implement necessary to make
(35:01):
his child safer.
And that's really where itstarted, by having conversations
at the bedside and then sayingyo, do you want a gunlock?
And after that conversation noteverybody would want a gunlock
but for those who do, like yeah,absolutely, I'd be able to
physically give them a gunlockwhile he's still in the hospital
.
That kind of evolved from megiving out gunlocks at the
(35:22):
bedside to me making them,offering them on social media,
saying you know I'm going to beat the hospital if you want to
come by and pick up a gunlock,and people would reach out to me
and call me, say can I comethrough and get one?
That then further evolved to meworking with community groups
going out to very busyintersections, places that are
close to the subway, andannouncing I'm going to be out
(35:44):
there giving out gunlocks andhitting commuters and having
conversations and I've had briefconversations with them to talk
to them about how important itis to safely secure the guns and
giving them out there and thatway.
And then that just expandedfurther to our hospital now has
signs up in the emergencydepartment that notifies
visitors and patients that ifthey're interested in receiving
(36:05):
a gunlock they can get one fromany nurse, any tech, any doctor,
no questions asked.
And so, you know, we just seethis in the same way that, I'm
sure, dentists see giving outtoothbrushes, and it's hard to
see where the harm is.
We only really see an upside tothat, and so we are grateful
that it's something that thecity is really embraced.
(36:26):
There are a lot of partners inthe city that are giving out
gunlocks, and other hospitalsare now giving out gunlocks as
well, so it's really becomequite a movement.
I absolutely do not get whyanybody would be opposed to
saving somebody's life.
I just, you know, we can haveour political differences, we
absolutely can, but it juststill boggles the mind that we
(36:48):
can't find common ground aroundsaving individuals' lives, and
one of the things that, one ofthe interesting things that will
happen, is, oftentimes I havethese positions that are
completely different fromanother person who's really a
staunch gun rights person, and alot of it is just because of
how wound up everybody gets.
(37:09):
But then I'll invite them, youknow, they'll challenge me.
Well, you know, you should belistening to this person or this
person.
I'll say, well, come meet withme, you know, and I'll drop my
email.
I'll drop my email, you know, inthe chat and I don't mean that,
as you know, calling somebody'sbluff, I really mean reach out,
let's have this conversation.
And it hasn't really happenedyet until recently.
(37:29):
And I met an individual who isa staunch gun rights guy and I
mean his Jeep is covered in allof the stickers, all the second
amendment stickers and all ofthat, and I don't think he and I
could be more diametricallyopposed when it comes to a lot
of issues around guns.
But I think, as cliche as itsounds, he and I have a lot more
(37:52):
in common and he and I aremeeting and he and I are having
conversations, in particularabout protecting children from
unintentional gun injury.
And I'll admit I've learned alot in having these
conversations.
I've been to his home, we'vesat out on the deck.
(38:12):
Again, he looks at it through avery different lens than I do.
I look at it through adifferent lens, obviously, but
we find a lot of common groundand we put our differences aside
to say what are the things thatwe can do?
Where do our interests overlap?
Well, we don't feel like we'reinfringing on each other's
rights and let's work in thatspace and let's see where we go
(38:32):
from there.
And so you know I don't mean totease this for something that
is going to come later, but I'mexcited to say that I think that
this is going to lead to areally important project in the
coming months.
That's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
I'm looking forward to hearing about it because I
think that is the sort of placethat we need to get to when, as
you said, it's the number onecause of death for Black men and
we saw recently, gun violenceis the number one cause of death
for American children periodand so there are places where,
to your point, who is opposed tokeeping kids alive?
I hope no one.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
And so we have to stop moralizing this issue.
It's incredibly racialized.
Obviously, we want to believethe folks in the neighborhood
who are dying from gun violenceare less than and are deserving
of that peril, you know.
I think that we have to behonest about where that
motivation is to look at them asother.
(39:27):
It's rooted in racism, if weare.
You know, when people talk aboutChicago and Chicago has become
this punching bag, I'm alwayslike Philadelphia's way worse
gun violence rate than Chicago.
But the reason it's become apunching bag is obviously
because, you know, it's a citythat has a large minority
(39:48):
population and we say, well,look at Chicago.
And I always think is Chicagonot in America At last?
I checked Chicago is in AmericaAt last.
I checked Chicagoans,regardless of their color.
We're Americans.
Why are we OK, if you're OK,saying like they shouldn't be
counted as the Americans whowere dying of gun violence?
What you're saying is thatthey're not really Americans,
(40:10):
that they're black and Latinoand as a result of that, they're
not like the rest of us.
That's the definition of racismand let's just be honest about
it.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Hey want to share with the podcast.
Listeners can now get in touchwith us here at Red Blue and
Brady via phone or text message.
Simply call or text us at480-744-3452 with your thoughts.
Questions concerns ideas, catpictures, whatever.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Thanks for listening.
As always, brady's lifesavingwork in Congress, the courts and
communities across the countryis made possible thanks to you.
For more information on Bradyor how to get involved in the
fight against gun violence,please like and subscribe to the
podcast.
Get in touch with us atbradyunitedorg or on social at
BradyBuzz.
Be brave and remember.
(40:58):
Take action, not sags MUSIC.
This is the legal disclaimer, where I tell you
that the views, thoughts andopinion shared on this podcast
belong solely to our guests andhosts and not necessarily Brady
or Brady's affiliates.
Please note this podcastcontains discussions of violence
that some people may finddisturbing.
It's okay, we find itdisturbing too.
Hey, everybody, welcome back toanother episode of Red Bull and
(00:45):
Brady.
I'm one of your hosts, jj.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And I'm Kelly, your other host.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
And today, kelly and I are sitting down with Scott
Charles, who's a trauma outreachmanager at Temple University
Hospital, and Scott is reallyanswering a lot of questions,
kelly, that I think you and Ihave both had, but the big one
for me, which is how do webridge this gap between medicine
and gun violence on the street?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, and I mean for me too, he's kind of showing an
example of what public healthcould be at its best.
You know, we're sitting hererecording having survived a
pandemic that is still happening, and we've seen a lot of
examples of services beingprovided but then being taken
away, or what happens whenpeople don't have access to
things, and gun violence is apublic health issue, and so one
(01:30):
of the questions I constantlyhave is what would it look like
if everything was sort ofworking together holistically?
And what Scott does is reallycool because he's bringing harm
reduction to the bedside ofpeople who have been shot, but
also to their families andcommunities, and he's going to
where people are.
So I think it's a really coolprogram.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
And listening to Scott too, as I hope I think our
listeners probably will be Iwas like why is this not in
every city?
Why?
Is this not across the US.
You know if this is somethingthat works and so I highly
encourage our listeners.
You know, right in at the endof this episode, if there's
similar initiatives in your citythat we just don't know about
that we should be highlighting.
Or if you want kind of thisprogram, as Scott will detail it
(02:13):
out, called Cradle to Grave, tobe in your city.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I'm Scott Charles.
I'm the trauma outreach managerat Temple University Hospital,
where I oversee the healthsystems, violence prevention and
intervention initiatives,something that I've been doing
for almost the last 20 years now.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
And I wonder kind of along those lines if you can
kind of tease out what thatposition is to like.
What does a trauma outreachmanager so?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
yeah, so it's interesting.
One of the things that sets usapart, I think, at Temple is the
way that we've defined thetrauma outreach manager role.
I started as a trauma outreachcoordinator and for many
hospitals what that looks likeis somebody who might hand out
bicycle helmets or might hostlike a bicycle rodeo to help
(02:59):
teach kids about preventinginjuries, or might go to a
senior center and talk to seniorcitizens about pulling up their
rugs or making sure that theircats don't become tripping
hazards.
For us at the hospital, what werecognize is that we are
operating in a city in generaland in the community in
particular, with high rates offirearm injury, and what we were
(03:20):
seeing a lot of probably evenmore than children being injured
on bicycles were young peoplebeing injured by firearms, and
so what my role as the traumaoutreach professional looks like
at my hospital is probablydifferent than it looks at many
hospitals.
So what I'm tasked with doing istrying to prevent firearm
injury in a variety of forms.
(03:44):
So that includes trying toprevent unintentional shootings
by children by distributinggunlocks.
It means hosting programs thateducate young people about the
medical realities of firearminjuries in order to dispel a
lot of the myths that exist outthere.
I do a program that teachescommunity first aid to
(04:04):
individuals who my role hasreally been focused on victim
advocacy and standing up aprogram in the hospital where we
have a team of victim advocateswho assist victims of violent
injury and their familieswithout a navigate the health
care system, how to navigate thejustice system, how to navigate
(04:25):
victim services and that typeof thing, and that's it.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
It's real simple, small stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, we're excited to kind of drill more down to
the programs that you've beenworking on.
But before we do that, we knowthat you're a survivor of gun
violence yourself, and so ifyou're comfortable to the extent
that you're comfortable I'mwondering if you can share how
that impacts the work thatyou're doing every day when
you're seeing gun violence.
But it's also been a part ofyour own life.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
So I want to be clear , when I myself have not been
shot, but I grew up in ahousehold where a couple of my
siblings had been shot, mysister completed suicide with a
firearm, and, as somebody whogrew up in the neighborhood
where I grew up, I lost somefriends to gun violence growing
up.
So in many ways I'm comfortablesaying that I might be a
(05:15):
co-victim of violence in thesense that the people close to
me have been shot, but Ipersonally have never been shot.
The way it impacts me is that Ithink for me I've reflected a
lot on kind of how I approachconversations around gun
violence and I tend to I comeacross as being kind of feisty
when it comes to this issue and,some would argue, intolerant
(05:36):
when it comes to this issue, andI think really the way that
it's impacted me is it's made mepassionate about this, because
this is not an abstract idea asfar as I'm concerned.
This is something that holdsreal meaning for me, and so I
tend not to give up a lot ofground when it comes to kind of
the cliches and the tropes thatexist around gun violence,
because I see it every day, butit certainly, I think, humanizes
(05:58):
the experience for me, and sothat when I or members of my
team are going into a familywaiting room to talk to the
family about their loved one whois probably 100 feet away
fighting for their lives in atrauma bay, I'm able to put
myself in their shoes and tothink about what they must be
(06:19):
experiencing.
And then to work so closelywith patients who are surviving
gunshot patients or survivinggunshot injuries and, in many
cases, actually potentiallylosing their lives, in front of
me.
This is something that's veryreal for me and it's hard, so it
drives me, certainly, but italso, I think, gives me a level
(06:40):
of empathy that I might nototherwise have, and I think that
that's kind of the greatestinfluence that my personal
experiences, the way that theyreally influence my work.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
I think it's really good that you highlight that
kind of like co-traumatization.
I know, like one of the thingsI think that we all talk a lot
about is like terms, right.
So some folks want to beconsidered survivors of gun
violence or don't want to beconsidered survivors of gun
violence, or like what asurvivor is is like a whole we
had to do a whole podcastepisode on it, right.
But I think what you'veidentified is that, even if you
(07:10):
yourself are not shot, when youlose people or if you live in a
community where people are beinglost regularly, like that has
an impact too and just, I thinkyou being able to go into those
spaces ensure that experience orat least kind of know like what
verbal pitfalls not to fallinto is probably immensely
helpful for the people thatyou're serving.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Right and it's one of the things that you know, those
of us that are working in thisspace consider all the time is
it's real easy to want to saythings like I know it.
You know, I know how you feeland you know, even if I have you
know, I'm with somebody who, me, have just lost their sibling.
It's not really for me to say Iknow exactly how they feel.
My role is to be there to bearwitness to their pain and to
(07:52):
support them through thatexperience.
But when it comes to thatexperience of that first hand
traumatization, you knowwitnessing it I know that none
of my experiences come close towhat our patients are enduring.
I simply know that, through theconversations that I'm having
with them, I'm asking them totell me what it's like and I'm
(08:14):
trying to listen so that theyknow that they're being heard.
And I can say with absoluteconfidence that nothing in my
life leading up to that, thismoment would prepare me for what
they're experiencing.
It's really difficult Bye,that's not to dismiss those who
are, who have lost loved ones togun violence or who were, or
(08:35):
even living with people who havesurvived a tremendously Brutal
gunshot injury, because it'sit's tough and one of the things
that I say to the young peoplethat come through the program is
I Talk to them about the damagethat is inflicted, not to just
them physically or even, if theydie, the loss, what the loss
(08:56):
represents as on the individuallevel, but I talked to them
about what's left in the wakeand I explained that you know,
when they die they have the easypart.
Ultimately, it's the peoplethat they leave behind who will
die a little bit each and everyday for the rest of their lives.
And for young people who feelthat loyalty is really important
(09:18):
, I think it's it's helpful forthem to recognize that there is
a responsibility that they haveto the people who love them,
because they have the potentialof making those individuals
co-victims of homicide, which issomething we wouldn't want to
inflict on anybody that we lovethat's.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I mean that I think is incredibly powerful and we're
gonna, I think, dive into someof the work that you're doing to
, I think of like meeting peoplewhere they are, which medicine
doesn't always do and and thegun violence prevention movement
doesn't always do, but we'rehoping gets better at.
But you said something earlierabout kind of educating folks
about the medical realities ofgun violence and I'm wondering
(09:55):
if we can, if we can, tease thatout of what that Even is,
because I think, kelly, you andI have talked on this podcast
now so many times about how,like, what you see on TV Isn't
true.
I think, even even what peoplewho read a lot, or or do I think
if you're not in the medicalfield, you probably just don't
know what those realities are.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Yeah, you know it's.
It's interesting, given all theexperiences I've had Growing up
around gun violence.
When I came to the hospital in2005 I had no idea what goes on
in an emergency department, in atrauma bay.
I just I had no point ofreference.
It really everything I knewcame from television and movies.
(10:33):
And you know, I really credit DrAmy Goldberg, who is now the
dean of the medical school at atTemple and is has really been
my Partnering in crime or noncrime since since 2005, who
recruited me to come to TempleBecause she wanted to think
outside the box and to push theenvelope and think of some some
really provocative andinnovative ways to address this
(10:57):
issue from Multiple angles.
But one of the things that shedid very early on was say you,
you should probably come seewhat we do.
And I was like fine, you know,it seems like a snooze fest.
You guys are all scrubbed inand you know, based on what I've
seen on ER, just it seems verysterile.
And then when I first got in,that's in that room, I just
remember thinking, oh my god,this is, this is incredible.
(11:20):
I mean it's.
There's nothing.
I've yet to really see anythingthat Resembles what goes on in
a trauma.
But it's just because, you know,I go back to this experience we
had with a news organizationthat wanted to film and and
there was a lot of pushback fromthe institution, understandably
(11:41):
, because we do such great workat our hospital, you know, in
terms of transplants anddelivering babies and we do all
this other great stuff, butpeople really are fixated on
violence, and understandably.
But you know, it was hard forthe hospital to really reconcile
that it's important to showthis other side of what we do at
the hospital in terms ofaddressing violence, because we
(12:03):
didn't want to be seen as a gunand knife club.
We wanted to be seen kind of asthis really high-level
institution which we are.
So there was theseconversations and it was
interesting because the Mediaoutlets said to us look, we're
not going to show, you know,blood and gore at 6 pm Because
people are gonna be eatingdinner and they don't want to
(12:25):
see that.
And it really what it reallyspoke to was the fact that
there's this natural disconnectbetween our what we're willing
to, you know, look at in termsof gun violence and what it
really looks like, and so that'sa Particularly hazardous thing
when you're talking about youngpeople, young people who have
been raised to think that theycan solve their problems by
(12:47):
pointing a gun at those problemsand pulling the trigger and
that with five pounds ofpressure that they can alleviate
all their issues without Reallyhaving to face what's on the
other side of that.
And so you know that's how I wasraised.
You know movies and I, to thisday, I still love action movies.
But when you're in the traumabay and you're seeing what
(13:08):
doctors have to do in an effortto save lives the fact that they
inflict their own trauma on thebody To get to the bleeding, to
open up you know a chest, totry to cross, clamping aorta to
prevent blood from Flowing outof places where blood shouldn't
be flowing out of as a result ofbullets Traveling through those
places that's just notsomething we've ever seen on
(13:30):
television, really, with theexception Maybe of Grey's
Anatomy here and there.
But when we're talking about acity like Philadelphia, where a
couple thousand people will beshot every year this is
happening day after day and whenwe talk about the numbers, it
really avoids what those numbersrepresent, and so I think it's
(13:52):
important for A young person whomay ultimately want to pick up
a firearm to understand whatwhat he or she may ultimately be
inflicting on to another person.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Thanks for kind of sharing that, because I know
it's something when we've hadindividuals who've been shot and
survived come on the podcast.
They often talk about how,rightfully, we focus a lot on
people who are killed by gunviolence, but we also don't
necessarily talk about what itmeans for you to have that
trauma on your body and stillhave to live with it.
(14:23):
So I think what you're sayingis really important and want to
drill down a little bit on theCradle to Grave program, because
that's a place where you'reconfronting some of these issues
.
So I'm wondering if you couldtell listeners what that program
is and what it looks like.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Yeah, so it really began with how Dr Goldberg and I
met back in 2004.
At the time, a lot of youngkids were being shot in the city
and we hadn't seen anythinglike it before.
And I was doing a project.
You know, my background is ineducation and I was doing a
project with some young peoplein North Philly.
I was introduced to Dr Goldberg.
(14:55):
She arranged a visit and webrought some kids up there to
the hospital.
They had this exchange of ideaswith surgeons and medical
professionals and it waspowerful, you know, for the
physicians.
It allowed them to look at ateenager who hadn't been shot,
who wasn't staring up at themand saying I'm not going to die,
am I?
To ask them questions abouttheir life, what it's like to go
(15:17):
to school in a neighborhoodwhere they hear gunshots and
where they feel that conflictmay lead to their deaths, and
then, conversely, to have kidsbe able to talk to a surgeon
some of surgeons look like themand to ask them.
You know, what is it like topronounce a child dead and then
go home at the end of the day.
How do you come back every dayand do this, day after day?
And so that was the genesis ofwhat would become the Cradle to
(15:39):
Grave program.
So we thought it was powerfulto bring kids in as learners
rather than as patients.
And in 2006, we began theprogram after I joined Temple
University Hospital, and what wedo is we bring a group of young
people into the hospital.
A lot of times they are fromtraditional, you know, public
(15:59):
schools, sometimes they're fromalternative schools, sometimes
they're from juvenile justiceprograms or diversion programs
and they might be court mandatedto be a part of that diversion
program.
But the diversion program seesCradle to Grave as an important
tool and we'll bring them in fora two hour experience and
during that experience what wedo is we use a real case study
(16:21):
of a 16 year old who was shotseveral years ago here in North
Philadelphia, a kid who was somuch like these kids.
He was exceptional in how normaland average he was.
He was just a sweet kid, afunny kid, a kid who had a.
You know his life was reallyordinary.
You know he had friends, heliked to tell jokes, he was an
(16:42):
okay student, he never got introuble.
He was just that kid.
He was that every kid and as aresult of a misunderstanding he
would ultimately be shot 14times about a block from his
house.
And what we do is we narrate allof the events that led up to
that moment so that you can seehow the most mundane things can
(17:06):
result in tragedy when youintroduce a gun into that
equation.
And we pick up the story afterthe kid is transported to the
hospital and we use his medicalrecord, which was something that
his grandmother allowed us todo and I want to say his name,
because so often we talk aboutindividuals as almost being
movie characters or just numbersand his name is Lamont Adams,
(17:30):
and I think about Lamont all thetime.
He was 16 at the time of theshooting and 16 at the time of
his death.
And his grandmother, jennyClark.
When I spoke to her afterwards,she wanted something good to
come out of this, so that itwasn't just about loss, and she
hoped that she could save otherkids.
So she granted us permission tobasically open up his medical
(17:52):
record so that we could talkabout what doctors do, and
that's what we've done, for youknow, the better part of 17
years is to us to talk about hiscase in vivid detail and we
bring kids into the clinicalarea, into the trauma bay Again,
we don't want them.
We don't want to meet them thereas victims.
We want to see them there aslearners and we have medical
(18:13):
staff, surgeons and attendingsand residents, nurses, who will
come in and talk about theirrole and what they do and using.
They all know his case, theyall know Lamont's case so that
it can recite kind of all thesteps that were done and it's
very straightforward.
The procedures are justdescribed.
(18:34):
We show them the equipment thatis used, but we just talk in
medical terms about why, forinstance, they would cross clamp
A or an Aorta.
You know, why would they wantto prevent blood flow going
throughout the body when apatient is bleeding to death?
And then, you know, after weexplained that after 14 minutes
in the trauma bay he waspronounced dead, we take a
(18:56):
moment and we reflect kind ofwhat that must have been like
for the surgeons, what we knowit's going to be like when
somebody walks out and tells hisgrandmother and all of the
things that a 16-year-old who'scut down in the prime of their
life will miss out on.
And it's a conversation A lotof times.
One of the labels that has kindof been put on cradle to grave
(19:19):
is that it's a scared straightprogram, and I think we do that
because we just don't know whatelse to call it.
It's kind of a shorthand fortalking about difficult things,
but this is the leading cause ofdeath for young black men in
Philadelphia, and I have tobelieve that if heart disease
was the number one killer ofyoung black men in Philadelphia,
no one would really take issuewith me talking about what a
diseased heart looks like or themedical procedures that are
(19:43):
undertaken to try to save aperson with heart disease.
But for some reason, we're verysqueamish when it comes to
talking about saving lives.
We'll show endless hours ofpeople being killed.
I just watched John Wick 4because I can't help myself.
I was hoping Halle Berry wouldmake a cameo.
I was a disappointed spoileralert, but it was amazing to me
(20:07):
that we can watch somebody justlike kill person after person
after person.
Nobody goes to the hospital.
Nobody talks about the factthat, in reality, we save about
80% of shooting victims.
Admittedly are shooting victimsaren't being shot by John Wick,
but in reality, in a city likePhiladelphia, we're saving more
than 80% of shooting victims,and so the issue of gun violence
(20:28):
isn't so much about life anddeath as much as it is.
How are you going to cope withliving with this devastating
injury?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
And it's not.
I mean, I know and I don't wantto speak poorly of the amazing
medical folks in Philadelphia,but it's also not that folks are
getting shot and they go homethe next day and, because they
weren't killed, that theirrecovery is a linear, quick,
painless, inexpensive process.
It's more folks are living now,but they're living with very
(20:58):
severe, not just trauma but likephysical issues too right.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
I say it all the time .
You know I can drive through.
I don't live far from fromwhere I work.
I can drive through theneighborhoods to get to my home
and I see former patients in thestreets, you know, in the
neighborhoods.
You know one of the things thatwe don't talk about is how
geographically limiting povertyis and gun violence is, and so
(21:26):
so often the individuals who getshot will be stuck in the
neighborhoods where they wereshot.
So you know there's nobodywho's gonna give you a golden
ticket and you get out of theneighborhood because you got
shot.
But when I'm driving throughthose neighborhoods it really is
, it reminds me of war zones andyou know, you see the people
who are victims, who are inwheelchairs or who have
(21:50):
amputations or who are oncrutches, and that's probably
gonna be there a lot, for quitesome time, and it's pervasive,
and so not only do they have thephysical injuries to deal with,
but they're constantly remindedof what they've endured, and
everywhere they look, there arepeople like them who have gone
(22:11):
through something similar, and Ithink that it ultimately you
know it ultimately shapes theway that people respond to
conflict.
If you live in a neighborhoodwhere there are all these kind
of visual, visible reminders ofhow lethal things are, things
that are made lethal by theprevalence of firearms.
You're gonna hope for the best,but you're gonna prepare for
(22:32):
the worst.
And you know you may notnecessarily be somebody that
would consider themselves anevil person, but when it comes
to your own salvation, what youmay want to do is pick up a gun
and you're not gonna wait forthe other person to pull their
gun out if you think that theyneed to do you harm.
So there are all these, youknow all these different ways
(22:54):
that us getting better atmedicine has, in some ways,
unintended consequences.
And that's not to suggest byany means that I hope I wish
more people would die.
No, I mean, I want everybody tosurvive.
But what it also means is thatthere will be, there's gonna be
something happening as a resultof that, and I think it's it's
that constant reminder of howviolent the community can become
(23:17):
.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I was going to ask if you think, if that ties into
what you're talking aboutearlier, with that kind of
people's senses of what my lifepath can even look like, will
look like.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, and there's a level offatalism if you, if you know
more kids that have been shotthan have gotten accepted to
college, that may be how you seeyour future in terms of that
inevitability, but also in termsof just you.
Again, you know, if I, if I doconvince a young person that
(23:46):
they don't want their mama togrieve, to grieve their loss,
then another way of looking atit is, if I haven't given that
young person an out or somesolution to their issue, then
they're stuck there and they'rethinking well, okay.
Well then my solution is to pickup a gun and do the person harm
.
That means to do me harm and so, yeah, I think it feeds into
(24:09):
this in in many ways.
So the solution to gun violencehas to take many forms and part
of it, you know, is not justturning off the the tap in terms
of the flow of guns into theneighborhood.
We absolutely have to do that.
But if we don't replace thatwith something meaningful,
something powerful and immediate, you know folks are gonna still
(24:31):
feel that level of fatalism,and so we have to tackle this in
a variety of ways and I thinkhopelessness is really the
greatest precursor there is tothe violence that we're seeing.
If we give you know kidssomething to live for, they're
gonna be less willing to die forfor other things.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I'm wondering you know you talked about how the
posture of the, the kids who dothis program, is there in the
hospital as learners, and I'mwondering has anyone have you
heard stories of people perhapsbeing inspired themselves to
become healers or to get intomedicine from what they saw?
Because I can imagine, you know, contrary to like you said,
(25:10):
it's not scare straight, they'relearning.
So I'm wondering that sort ofhad an impact in that way?
Speaker 3 (25:15):
So it's interesting, we've not.
I would love to say that a lotof the kids that have come
through the program ended upbeing doctors, and if they have,
please contact me immediately.
But but you know, we can lookat the, we can look at the
medical schools and we can lookat the industry and know that
there's not this abundance ofkids coming from the
neighborhood filling those,those spots.
(25:36):
But I but it looks like thingsare changing slowly but surely
with regard to that, but it'scertainly not as a result of my
program.
What I will tell you that we dosee periodically are
individuals who came through theprogram as teams.
This really makes me feel old,but they came through as kids
because they had gotten introuble.
(25:57):
And then they come backbringing a group of kids because
they're now counselors andthey're now running their own
program, and that's, you know,that's heartwarming.
I also had a police officer whopointed out to me when he was,
you know, he had a group of kidsthat were coming through a PAL
program.
He was a police officer now hepointed out to me that he had
come through when he was in highschool because he had gotten in
(26:18):
trouble and he had turned hislife around and and had become a
police officer.
So you know, those things areout there and one of the things
that will happen that happensquite frequently is if I am out
to eat or I stop to getsomething to eat on the way home
.
I've gone into fast food spotsand there'll be a group of kids
in there and you know I'm notintimidated.
(26:39):
These are kids that I probablyhave had through my program and
sure enough one of the kids willbe like yo, oh, hey, you, the
dude that you know taught usabout the AK-47, and you, the
kid, you know, the guy thatshowed us, you know what bullets
do to bodies, or you know, and,and you know they'll start
talking to the friends whohaven't gone through the program
Yo, you got to see this program, you know I learned a lot.
So you know, the goal of theprogram is just to educate as
(27:02):
many kids as we can.
You know, I would love to thinkthat a kid, because he had gone
or she had gone through theprogram, ends up in college.
But that's really not where thebar is for me.
You know, that's the icing onthe cake, to mix metaphors.
But the you know, the goal forme is just to have young people
making informed decisions, andthe only way that I can
guarantee that is by gettingthis information out there.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
And you mentioned, some people have
mischaracterized the program asaired straight.
I'm wondering if other peoplehave said well, this is
overreach, a hospital shouldn'tbe doing this.
You know this isn't appropriate.
And if, if you have gotten thatsort of critique, what do you
say to people who think thatthis is outside of the range of
what you know a hospital?
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I don't want my tax dollars going through this yeah,
that one.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
That's the good news.
The program is not funded bycradle of grave has never had
funding from anybody.
It's really part of you know,it's what I do with my spare
time.
It's what my, our nurses anddoctors do when they can commit
the time to doing it.
So that's the good news to theperson who doesn't want their
tax dollars going to it.
But for those who do want thetax dollars going to it, please
(28:14):
reach out to your localrepresentative.
And the truth is, when DrGoldberg and I started doing
this, you know, 18 years ago,what we were seeing as heretics.
You know and it wasn't justfrom outside of medicine, people
within medicine, kind of likewhy this is not what we do.
But again, to go back to thepoint, that this is the number
one killer of the significantportion of our community.
(28:37):
This absolutely has to be whatwe're, what we should do.
This is not a political issue.
When you're inside the hospital, nobody's asking them how they
voted, nobody's asking thedoctors how they voted.
We don't care even what theywere doing prior to getting shot
.
This is one of the.
This is part of the culture ofTemple in particular, that Dr
Goldberg was, was keen on it,and it's, and it continues to
(29:01):
this day.
We do not care about what theindividual is involved in.
For us, it's about saving lives, and I'm not, I don't want to.
I said us because I see thoseguys as my family.
But for the hospital, it'sabout saving lives, it's not
about politicizing this issue,and so for us, the notion of
overreaches is just silly.
(29:21):
This is what we're meant to do.
It looks.
It looks different depending onwhat area of the hospital
you're in.
Nobody would say that the X-raytechnician I don't want somebody
taking pictures of how's thatmedicine?
It's all medicine, it's allcommunity health and that's what
we're here for.
And, honestly, all that goesout the window.
(29:44):
When it's your loved one who'sshot, it absolutely goes out the
window.
And people have said for yearsbullets have no names and we see
people from all walks of lifebeing shot.
Today In Philadelphia, there's alot of outrage and uproar when,
when that gun violence seepsout of the neighborhoods where
(30:06):
we expect to find it and ends upin places where the folks
who've been protected from it,you know, go about their
business.
I would like to think that thepeople that live in the suburbs,
who visit the city, aregrateful that that somebody is
trying to talk to young peoplewho might pick up a gun before
they pick up a gun, because, asI said, sometimes that violence
(30:26):
seeps out of those neighborhoodswhere those people are
comfortable with it existing inthose you know, quote unquote
neighborhoods, but there's noguarantees not going to find its
way into center city and and Iwould hope that you'd be
grateful that we're trying tostop it before it gets there.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Well, I think, to use your metaphor before, like I
don't have heart disease, butI'm really thankful that people
do research into it and aretrying to keep other people from
getting it.
You know one, because we nothaving heart disease doesn't
make me care less about peoplewho have it.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Well, in the argument , right is you know.
You know every, every time wetalk about how insane the
numbers are, that this manyAmericans suffer a gunshot
injury every day, and theninevitably somebody says, we'll
now do do heart attacks or nowdo this.
And I always think it's such aweird argument because it
(31:18):
suggests that we only have thecapacity to do one thing.
And I think you know we canwalk and shoot gun, and never
have I seen somebody suffering aheart attack and then have you
know somebody in the in thehospital announced well, hold on
, let's not, let's not try tosave that guy.
Do you know how many people youknow die from cancer every year
?
I mean, we don't do that in thehospital.
(31:39):
We don't say like, let'sprioritize who gets treatment
based on the ranking in terms ofits frequency in the population
.
We just don't do that.
So we, you know we divide ourtime and we have people who
specialize in a certain thing,and this just happens to be the
thing that I specialize in.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
And kind of continuing to think about this
holistic approach.
For example, when you'retalking about something like
heart disease, a lot of timesdoctors will do preventative
things.
They'll think about your dietand you know your cholesterol,
things like that.
And we know, for gun violenceprevention, one of those things
deals with access and so yourprogram you hand out gun locks
and safes, and so I'm wonderinghow that developed and what that
(32:18):
looks like in a hospitalsetting, because we've seen
examples in, you know, lawenforcement settings.
But I'm wondering what it lookslike for for healthcare
settings.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Yeah, the way it started really was me being on
social media and there's anindividual, tagrox's handle, who
would talk.
He had a hashtag that he reallyhelped create called gunfail,
and I would see these stories ofthese kids being shot by other
(32:50):
children or unintentionallyshooting themselves, which was
just heartbreaking for me.
It's just like such apreventable thing, and I'd also
see kids who were coming up tovisit their parents, and so I
would have a gunshot victim in aroom that I'd been working with
or talking with, and I'd seehis girlfriend or wife and their
(33:10):
child downstairs, and so I knewthat this is an individual who,
based on our conversation, mayvery well have a firearm at home
, and I would think about thefact that the way that most
people are able to get gunlocksif they're not getting their
guns from like since gun dealeris that they'd have to go to law
(33:31):
enforcement to get thosegunlocks.
And so, thinking about that kid, that young man or that man
who's laying in the bed, who'swrestling with whether or not he
should retaliate or maybe he'snot even thinking about
retaliation, but maybe he'sthinking simply about his own
protection and he may have a gunat home, especially now that
he's been shot.
Where is he going to get thatgun?
(33:53):
He's going to get that gunlockif he's a prohibited individual,
and so the answer traditionallyhas been from law enforcement
and he's not going to do that Ifhe's not going to go ask for a
gunlock for the gun that he'snot supposed to have.
In having conversations onsocial media about this, I'll
get people who will criticizethe fact that I'm giving
gunlocks to prohibitedindividuals, and all I can think
(34:16):
of is those are the people whoneed them the most.
I don't want any child tosuffer for the mistakes that
their parents have made or thebad decisions that their parents
have made.
I want to have a conversationwith that individual about one
not keeping a gun in the house,not having a gun as a prohibited
individual.
But if I can't dissuade himfrom that, what I am going to do
(34:40):
is encourage him to safelysecure that gun.
I'm going to have conversationswith him about how often kids
are being shot, how dangerous itis to keep a gun up on a closet
shelf because you think thatyour four-year-old isn't going
to find it there, and not onlyhave that talk with him, but to
give him the tools and give himthe implement necessary to make
(35:01):
his child safer.
And that's really where itstarted, by having conversations
at the bedside and then sayingyo, do you want a gunlock?
And after that conversation noteverybody would want a gunlock
but for those who do, like yeah,absolutely, I'd be able to
physically give them a gunlockwhile he's still in the hospital
.
That kind of evolved from megiving out gunlocks at the
(35:22):
bedside to me making them,offering them on social media,
saying you know I'm going to beat the hospital if you want to
come by and pick up a gunlock,and people would reach out to me
and call me, say can I comethrough and get one?
That then further evolved to meworking with community groups
going out to very busyintersections, places that are
close to the subway, andannouncing I'm going to be out
(35:44):
there giving out gunlocks andhitting commuters and having
conversations and I've had briefconversations with them to talk
to them about how important itis to safely secure the guns and
giving them out there and thatway.
And then that just expandedfurther to our hospital now has
signs up in the emergencydepartment that notifies
visitors and patients that ifthey're interested in receiving
(36:05):
a gunlock they can get one fromany nurse, any tech, any doctor,
no questions asked.
And so, you know, we just seethis in the same way that, I'm
sure, dentists see giving outtoothbrushes, and it's hard to
see where the harm is.
We only really see an upside tothat, and so we are grateful
that it's something that thecity is really embraced.
(36:26):
There are a lot of partners inthe city that are giving out
gunlocks, and other hospitalsare now giving out gunlocks as
well, so it's really becomequite a movement.
I absolutely do not get whyanybody would be opposed to
saving somebody's life.
I just, you know, we can haveour political differences, we
absolutely can, but it juststill boggles the mind that we
(36:48):
can't find common ground aroundsaving individuals' lives, and
one of the things that, one ofthe interesting things that will
happen, is, oftentimes I havethese positions that are
completely different fromanother person who's really a
staunch gun rights person, and alot of it is just because of
how wound up everybody gets.
(37:09):
But then I'll invite them, youknow, they'll challenge me.
Well, you know, you should belistening to this person or this
person.
I'll say, well, come meet withme, you know, and I'll drop my
email.
I'll drop my email, you know, inthe chat and I don't mean that,
as you know, calling somebody'sbluff, I really mean reach out,
let's have this conversation.
And it hasn't really happenedyet until recently.
(37:29):
And I met an individual who isa staunch gun rights guy and I
mean his Jeep is covered in allof the stickers, all the second
amendment stickers and all ofthat, and I don't think he and I
could be more diametricallyopposed when it comes to a lot
of issues around guns.
But I think, as cliche as itsounds, he and I have a lot more
(37:52):
in common and he and I aremeeting and he and I are having
conversations, in particularabout protecting children from
unintentional gun injury.
And I'll admit I've learned alot in having these
conversations.
I've been to his home, we'vesat out on the deck.
(38:12):
Again, he looks at it through avery different lens than I do.
I look at it through adifferent lens, obviously, but
we find a lot of common groundand we put our differences aside
to say what are the things thatwe can do?
Where do our interests overlap?
Well, we don't feel like we'reinfringing on each other's
rights and let's work in thatspace and let's see where we go
(38:32):
from there.
And so you know I don't mean totease this for something that
is going to come later, but I'mexcited to say that I think that
this is going to lead to areally important project in the
coming months.
That's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
I'm looking forward to hearing about it because I
think that is the sort of placethat we need to get to when, as
you said, it's the number onecause of death for Black men and
we saw recently, gun violenceis the number one cause of death
for American children periodand so there are places where,
to your point, who is opposed tokeeping kids alive?
I hope no one.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
And so we have to stop moralizing this issue.
It's incredibly racialized.
Obviously, we want to believethe folks in the neighborhood
who are dying from gun violenceare less than and are deserving
of that peril, you know.
I think that we have to behonest about where that
motivation is to look at them asother.
(39:27):
It's rooted in racism, if weare.
You know, when people talk aboutChicago and Chicago has become
this punching bag, I'm alwayslike Philadelphia's way worse
gun violence rate than Chicago.
But the reason it's become apunching bag is obviously
because, you know, it's a citythat has a large minority
(39:48):
population and we say, well,look at Chicago.
And I always think is Chicagonot in America At last?
I checked Chicago is in AmericaAt last.
I checked Chicagoans,regardless of their color.
We're Americans.
Why are we OK, if you're OK,saying like they shouldn't be
counted as the Americans whowere dying of gun violence?
What you're saying is thatthey're not really Americans,
(40:10):
that they're black and Latinoand as a result of that, they're
not like the rest of us.
That's the definition of racismand let's just be honest about
it.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Hey want to share with the podcast.
Listeners can now get in touchwith us here at Red Blue and
Brady via phone or text message.
Simply call or text us at480-744-3452 with your thoughts.
Questions concerns ideas, catpictures, whatever.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Thanks for listening.
As always, brady's lifesavingwork in Congress, the courts and
communities across the countryis made possible thanks to you.
For more information on Bradyor how to get involved in the
fight against gun violence,please like and subscribe to the
podcast.
Get in touch with us atbradyunitedorg or on social at
BradyBuzz.
Be brave and remember.
(40:58):
Take action, not sags MUSIC.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!