November 22, 2023 • 42 mins
Kelly and JJ tackle the harsh realities of gun violence, health inequity, and trauma surgery with our extraordinary guest, Dr. Brian Williams. Dr. Williams offers a unique perspective on these gripping matters, drawn from his personal experiences as a trauma surgeon in safety net hospitals. Together we discuss what led to Dr. William's writing his book " The Bodies Keep Coming: Dispatches from a Black Trauma Surgeon on Racism, Violence, and How We Heal" following experiencing the aftermath of a mass shooting, the profound role of racism and public health in the fight against gun violence, and how storytelling breathes life into these multifaceted issues.
Further reading:
After A Mass Shooting Shook Dallas, Dr. Brian Williams Took a Stand (D Magazine)
Trauma Surgeon Who Treated Dallas Cops: 'This Killing, It Has to Stop' (NBC)
Gun Violence is a Racial Justice Issue (Brady)
Healing a toxic brew of hate, racism, and gun violence in America (AAMC)
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
Mark as Played
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
(00:44):
Brady.
I'm one of your hosts, jj.
And I'm Kelly, your other hostand, as always, this podcast
just keeps introducing me topeople who are so good at about
8,000 problems.
For example, our guest today,dr Brian Williams, who, in
addition to being a husband anda father and a renowned trauma
surgeon and advocate, is alsonow a really good writer.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, I still you, jj .
It's a little unfair.
I'm like come on, it's enoughto be a renowned trauma surgeon,
but then you also have to writea book that is literally a page
turner, so well written, aboutwhat it's like to be the person,
oftentimes, who is tasked withtrying to save someone.
It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
And I know personally Kelly had to experience this
firsthand.
I just kept sending textmessages to everyone of look at
the sentence.
Look at the sentence, because Ithink that Dr Williams just
lays out so beautifully whichyou now all get to experience on
this podcast, as we did.
I think it's really easysometimes to think of gun
violence prevention work and notthink of the people behind it,
(01:48):
particularly doctors, people inwhite coats.
They maybe seem veryunapproachable, just so folks
not in medicine and I think DrWilliams just really strips all
that away and points out thehumanness and the
complicatedness of what we'redoing.
We're also offering solutions,which is just really soothing to
me.
I don't know about you, kelly,but I like answers.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yes, yes, and for me too, I mean, like you said, this
book helped me see the humanbeing, and also for me as
someone who thinks a lot about,like race and gun violence, it's
such a good job is showing how,if we are going to think of
this as a public health issue,which it is, we also think about
the ways that public health isintertwined with racism and make
(02:31):
sure that we acknowledge thatand then also bring that into
the solutions.
And so I learned a ton readingthis, and I would recommend,
after you listen to this episode, get the book and read the book
, because if you're anythinglike JJ and me, you will just
fly through it and come awaylearning a lot.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Dr Brian Williams.
I am an Air Force Academygraduate trauma surgeon and gun
violence prevention advocate.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And so we're discussing a lot, I think, kind
of your whole career in lifereally that you've shared within
this book entitled the bodieskeep coming.
And before we kind of dig intothe book itself, which was an
amazing read I highly recommendit to all of our listeners I
wonder if you can share with uswhat made you even go okay.
Well, now I'm going to write abook.
Being a trauma surgeon is notenough of a time sink for me.
(03:23):
I need to be a novelist as well.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, absolutely.
I didn't have any initial plansto become an author, but over
the course of my career on thefront lines of gun violence as a
trauma surgeon, but also morefront lines of health inequity
as someone who chose to work insafety net hospitals, I had seen
a lot of injustice and I waspushed to write this book
(03:46):
following a tragedy in Dallasthe mass shooting of police
officers and after that I beganto think about my role in the
healthcare system but I'm alsomy role in society and how I can
be part of healing of society,and that event was traumatic for
me and during my post-traumaticgrowth.
This book was spawned as aresult of that.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Definitely want to dig and saddle a bit more, but
before we do, could you justdefine for listeners what a
safety net hospital is?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Absolutely so.
A safety net hospital these arehospitals that are essentially
exists to catch those who fallthrough the cracks of our
healthcare systems.
I'm saying systems because theyhave multiple healthcare
systems within this country andgenerally people think of these
hospitals as ones that providecare to those who are uninsured
(04:34):
or underinsured, do not have thefinancial resources to get
healthcare.
So you predominantly find lowincome people, racial and ethnic
minorities.
But let's expand the definitionbecause this also includes
hospitals that are in ruralareas, where there may not be a
lot of healthcare facilities,but they're being the only
(04:56):
hospital in the area.
That makes them also a safetynet.
So I just wanted to work at ahospital because I felt nobody
were income or you're a stationalive.
People deserve the best sort ofhealthcare, so I gravitated
toward those types of healthsystems.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
And it seems like you explain it so well in the book
this concept of whittling thatkind of patients may go through
where they're coming in forservices.
You start with a patient who'sin diabetic needs, so he needs
some care for his feet.
That eventually can lead to anamputation, and then they just
sort of disappear off the rosterbut that if they only had that
care in between the times thatthey show up in the ER they
would probably have verydifferent health outcomes.
(05:30):
But even if they had othersocial safety net items like
better housing, better food,they probably better
transportation, better income,like all of these things would
catch.
And so is that sort of thesituation then that happens at
like a social safety nethospital.
You're seeing that sort ofsituation a lot.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Exactly and my feeling was that by the time
they get to me it's too late.
There is so many areas upstreamwhere we can intervene, not
just as healthcare providers,but society can intervene to
ensure people can remain healthyand thrive within their
communities.
So I described this gentlemanin the book that came in with
the diabetic toe infection.
(06:05):
I could take care of that as asurgeon, but still does he have
access to insulin andpreventative care.
So the disease progresses tothe point where he has a foot
amputation, then a below kneeamputation and to the point
where eventually I don't know,like I said, he's lost a
follow-up but he may have dieddue to progressive disease.
But the real point there isthat we need to see how we can
(06:28):
work to, how we as a country canintervene far upstream from the
healthcare system so that weall can remain healthy and
thrive within our homes and ourfamilies and our communities,
because by the time they get tothe hospital, I mean, it's
really too late in many ways,especially with gun violence.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Well, and that's.
It seemed almost that there'sthat correlation there with you
see, folks who it's a whittlingissue too, with folks coming in
for gun violence issues, thatyou know it's particularly,
maybe, folks who've been shotmultiple times, but also that
folks have seen other people getshot first, or folks know if
people have gotten shot in theirneighborhoods.
So there's already been all ofthese traumatic points before
they end up in your operatingtheater.
Is this a theater?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Didn't go to medical school, it's a operating room,
operating room in the US theaterin the UK, a RE theater.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
We've been consuming a lot of Call the Midwife lately
.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
It's our comfort show .
I don't know what that says.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I don't know.
I don't know what that says.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, and one thing you know when you're writing,
you have choices to make as tohow you want to enter in, and
you could have done this at likea 3000, or 30,000 foot view
very clinical, very removed butyou chose to be personal and
talk about your own feelings.
You touched on it alreadyStories from your family, what
was behind your choice to be alittle bit more personal and
(07:44):
telling this story versus beingmore like IMA surgeon?
I am objective and I am comingat this from on high.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I had grand ambitions for the book itself, which was
to really change the way peoplethought about injustice in this
country and what we can do tocreate justice today, and I do
it through the lens of myexperience with gun violence.
Now, the book began as a memoir.
(08:14):
You know deeply personalstories and I felt that
storytelling is it breedsconnection.
Now would be a way to draw youinto this world.
It's just kind of if I couldhook that part of you that is
our shared humanity and bringyou in, then I can bring you on
this journey and then, okay, nowthat you're here, we're going
to address some of the biggersocial issues Gun violence
(08:37):
prevention, healthcare crisis,racial justice, police brutality
all these things I packed inthere.
So I want it to be a memoir plussomething that when you were
done, you saw the worlddifferently and, hopefully, were
inspired to do somethingdifferently, and that kind of
(08:57):
happened in stages.
Right, Memoir.
Now what?
How can I turn this intosomething that you would use as
it's meant to be, hopeful in theend, Like there's hope and
healing?
How could you use this as ablueprint to do something
different with your life?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I appreciated that so much because I felt like, as a
reader, I understood how youwere, outside of just being like
doctor with a capital D, whichis very helpful.
But then I also think thechoices that you made to include
people's actual names.
So I think of the patient Malikthat you referenced several
times, both at the beginning andthe ending of the book.
I think it makes it, eventhough you do cite you know
quite a lot of statistics andrealities about gun violence.
(09:32):
It's not just numbers, right,there's all.
It's always coming back to thepeople, it's coming back to
their mothers, it's coming backto their families and it's
coming back to them themselvesas they lived before, you know
they passed.
I think that's really importantand vital.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
That was really intentional Cause.
I didn't want to come acrossthis as if I was.
I was lecturing you.
I wanted to respect yourintelligence as a reader and
your ability to connect withstrangers whom you may not.
You may never see right, so Ido have a lot of information in
my head.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Cause I'm an academic surgeon, right.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I've been a professor .
I've been teaching this for along time, so I wanted the book
to have credibility amongstthose in healthcare who would
read this book, but also to beaccessible for those who did not
.
So that's what the storytelling.
I can't.
I think it was very important.
Could you identify with someonein this book, whether it be me
as a narrator, one of thepatients or survivors I talked
about, or a family member?
(10:22):
What could draw you in and then, in that story, interweave
these other aspects gun violenceand healthcare, injustice and
racial justice with statisticsand facts, and not be
professorial about it.
But you learn anyway, despitethe fact that it's mainly a base
in memoir.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And I think you need those moments of like me
deciding that your wife is thecoolest person in the world.
Kathy Ann, if you're listening,I would love you to step in as
therapist cause.
You gave a lot of good advicewithin this, but so I think that
that's really helpful and itkeeps.
Sometimes it's really hard.
I mean, how many episodes havewe done now on gun violence to
make sure that folks are stillinteracting with this as the
(11:04):
horror reality that it is, butalso acknowledging that life is
happening simultaneously too andthat you can hold kind of
multiple things all at once, andso it's really helpful to know,
like, what are people doingwhen they go home at night?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Exactly, and there's really, there's really no book
without my wife, but also, forme, no growth without her.
You know she's nudging andpushing and at times, you know
gentle shoving throughout thebook, but you know she's clear,
the voice of reason.
When I'm having, I put mythoughts on the page and you can
(11:34):
decide as a reader is this manrational or not right?
I don't try to make a judgmentabout that, I don't want to
manipulate that.
I'm like here is what happenedand here is how I felt.
And she is the voice of reasonat various parts of the book and
I just want to show thatrelationship, that we are not
all alone and no matter what youmay think of me, just based on
my credentials and my job titleI don't want to come across as
(11:56):
infallible or perfect that Ihave a partner.
That was very important for mein the aftermath of this tragedy
.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I also think that's just important too, because
there's a perception sometimesthat gun violence sort of only
impacts the person who has beenhit and I think to the extent we
extend empathy, we may extendit to a family member, but also
maybe not the people we'retreating.
So I think it's important toshow that.
And one of the other thingsthat you did is you talked about
(12:25):
the actual impact of whatbullets do to the body and I'm
wondering if you could talkabout how you decided to do that
and sort of why you decided todo that.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Again very intentional.
I wanted to be graphic aboutwhat bullets do to the human
body, without being gratuitous.
I didn't want and I wanted torespect the in honor of those
who suffered gun violencesurvivors, victims but to let
(12:55):
the public know that this is notsome abstraction.
These are not just numbers thatwe tick off every year.
People are being impacted andthose of us that work in trauma
are seeing this all the time.
And if you could just have awindow into the reality of the
human carnage that we're dealingwith from gun violence, maybe
(13:19):
that would spark some people toaction, to do what we can to
reduce firearm related deathsand injury, because it's not
just the person that was shot ortheir family members, but in a
way, they were all impacted insome way by hearing about these
repeated the mass shootings, thehomicides, the intimate partner
violence.
We're all connected in thissomehow.
So when I described this, Ididn't want it to be gross, but
(13:42):
I wanted to be like this is thereality of what we're trying to
end right now, and I tried tochoose imagery that could put
you there, even though you don'twork in medicine or trauma.
That could put you there andyou say, oh, this is the reality
of folks working in traumaevery single day of the year.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I think it's something that comes up a lot,
as Brady has been pushing moreand more to get into more kind
of accurate depictions of notjust gun violence but gun
violence aftermath in media,right in shown media, because I
do think we have.
If you don't have any sort ofmedical background, you do have
sort of this like grazinganatomy perception of surgeries
being very clean and very neatand very quick and that it's a
(14:23):
you know in and out and thatsurgeons have kind of this
magical ability to fix everyone.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, you know, I nobody forced me into trauma
surgery.
I went into medicine because Iwanted to help people.
I wanted to be a healer.
In the beginning I didn't knowwhat type of doctor I wanted to
be.
I saw this in the book.
Trauma surgery chose me.
I didn't choose it.
I enjoyed the adrenaline rush,the fast pace.
(14:50):
You make quick decisions.
These were just my people.
I kind of felt that sort ofcamaraderie and over the course
of the years, my career, youbecome more in touch with the
human side of this, how familiesare impacted.
When you're telling people overand over and over again
strangers that you cannot savetheir loved one due to gun
(15:14):
violence, if that doesn't affectyou, then you've lost that part
of your humanity.
Then you need to find anotherline of work.
And it still bothers mePronouncing children dead on
arrival due to gun violence andreally most people don't see
this.
They don't see that.
I wanted you to understand thatlives are being impacted long
(15:38):
after we clean up the blood fromthe floor, change our bloodied
scrubs, talk to the family,write the death note.
The ripple effects of gunviolence extend much farther
from the hospital after we'redone.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
That's something certainly to sit with too, and
just think about the fact thatwe're putting so many people,
you included, who have hope andskills that you could be using
for all sorts of things, but onthis preventable manmade
epidemic that we deal with, andone of the things that happens
sometimes when we talk aboutanything in this country that
(16:14):
disproportionately impacts blackand brown people, as you know
and you talk about in the book,is that people will say black as
a risk factor, and one of theprofound things you do is you
say, to quote it, race is not arisk factor in chronic diseases,
medical errors and lifeexpectancy.
It's racism.
So could you unpack that?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Yeah.
So this is where we're reallytrying to discuss the structural
inequality that puts blackpeople at greater risk for gun
violence, healthcare inequityand I was taught when I was in
medical school that race is arisk factor for many things.
Right, and I understand betterthat.
It's not race, it's racism, andstructural racism is at the
(16:59):
core of that.
So I really wanted to reallyunpack what structural racism
means and how that impacts allof us as a society, because I
felt that this is a book that Icould write right.
As a black doctor, black traumasurgeon treating young black
male gun victims, I see myselfin them, see myself in their
(17:22):
families, who I'm talking to,and I had a perspective that I
felt was missing from thediscussion about all this.
So what can I add and talk about?
How racism impacts this andthat kind of intertwines with
our policies, right, ourpolicies that go back
generations where black peoplewere intentionally excluded from
a lot of the benefits thatwould have elevated whole
(17:43):
communities.
And I choose one example.
I talk about the GI Bill andhow you may have someone in your
family that benefited from theGI Bill out of the World War II
and how that created an entiremiddle class of people and
intergenerational wealth haspassed along.
But that was denied to amillion black service members
who served honorably duringWorld War II.
(18:04):
So that was housing assistance,that was education assistance
that was given to a lot of folks, except if you were black.
Now think about what that meanstoday if those tolders and
airmen and sailors were alsogiving the opportunity to go to
college subsidized by thegovernment or by a house
subsidized by the government andpass that along to their
(18:25):
children.
So that is structural racismthat has had far reaching
impacts across generations.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And I think that that kind of plays in as well with
sort of the reforming oflanguage or just kind of the
reframing of thinking aboutthings that you bring up in the
book a lot.
So, for example, it's not adisadvantaged community, it's a
community of opportunity,because the opportunities coming
from within, the disadvantagesare being forced from without.
I really did like thatreframing, but I wonder if you
(18:52):
see that kind of expanding outto kind of on the medical system
as a whole too, so kind ofagain pushing.
It's not that race is a riskfactor, it's that how people
respond to race is the riskfactor.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
I feel that within healthcare and academic medicine
, we are beginning to embracethese ideas better, particularly
with the younger generationthat's going through medical
school and residency right now.
I feel that they are much moresocially aware about how racial
injustice impacts our societyand within healthcare and I
(19:27):
talked about this in a bookseveral organizations that are
making concerted efforts toaddress that, particularly in
education.
But there is so much further togo.
We have so much work to do andthey can't be an afterthought.
This is going to be the core ofwhat we do, because race and
racism aren't woven in so muchof our society.
It's like it's okay to talkabout that, right, because we're
(19:49):
just trying to understand ourpast so we can understand our
present and prepare for a betterfuture.
And denying all these uglyparts of our past gets us
nowhere.
So in healthcare specifically,there is so much racial
injustice within healthcaresystem that is persisting today
that we as a profession have alot of work to do.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
You referenced that so many times, so beautifully
throughout the book.
Well, beautifully, and alsohorrifically, because it's the
reality of it throughout thebook, of just the number of
times that you, professionally,were either blatantly told or
just sort of hinted at Don't sayanything.
We cannot talk about race aspart of talking about medicine.
We cannot talk about race aspart of a response to an issue
and it's like well, how do younot?
Speaker 3 (20:33):
And we talked earlier about how I put my story in
there.
I freely admit of the role Iplayed in perpetuating that
silence by silencing myself, butalso just accepting what was
taught to me throughout mymedical education and then
continuing to teach that toothers that I was in charge of
education.
So I played a role in all this,which I freely admit.
(20:53):
But I now want to do betterright and step into how we're
going to correct the inequitiesof our past, because this
impacts all of us.
I'm going to benefit from thisand I certainly cannot turn away
from that anymore.
And after the shooting inDallas, I realized that there
was much more I had to do.
I could continue that role Iwas in, but when I was done with
(21:14):
my career, whenever that ends Icould look back and say, well,
not much has changed and I couldhave made a difference.
So that's why I'm choosing adifferent path.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I'm so glad that you're highlighting this
distinction between race andracism as a risk factor, because
I feel like, just speaking formyself, there's this stigma,
even for the people who areimpacted.
If we believe that race is arisk factor, you're basically
saying some people are justdeficient, which we're not, and
so I feel like putting the onuson the systems that we live in
(21:47):
is just very empowering.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
personally, I'm like yeah, there's nothing wrong with
us.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
We're great there is excellence everywhere, right,
but the country will try to tellyou there's something wrong
with you and then, therefore, wecan't do it.
We're disposable, basically,and you have referenced the
shooting on July 7th in Dallasand you talk about it a lot in
the book.
So, definitely, please read thebook and explore that a little
(22:14):
bit more.
But one of the things you didis you spoke at the press
conference after the shootingand you talked about how black
men were dying and beingforgotten and I'm wondering why
you, in that moment, that wasimportant for you to raise and
what that means to you.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
In that moment at the press conference.
That was the culmination of,you know, a lifetime of
Silencing myself about theseissues of racism and gun
violence and healthcareinjustice, and so I could get by
, right, so I could move up themedical hierarchy, because I
(22:53):
felt that that was what matteredthe most, that the press comes.
What was not said about theshooting really did not sit well
with me.
This was a shooting of policeofficers at a at a protest for
racial justice, a peacefulprotest for racial justice.
In the days following theofficer involved, shootings of
(23:13):
Philando Castile and AltonSterling.
And the shooter was Black whowas there targeting white cops.
I mean that, right, thereshould be enough to say, okay,
we need to unpack what thismeant for our society on a
larger scale.
But none of that was discussedand we've seen many of these
(23:34):
mass shooting press conferences.
They kind of follow the samescript and that's where we're
doing that time and sittingthere I should also.
I'll be the only black traumasurgeon in the entire group of
trauma surgeons.
What was unsaid just didn't sitwell with me and I was thinking
like, should I say somethingright now because they're
overlooking the huge issue rightnow?
(23:55):
But I thought, well, if I saysomething, it's gonna be
backlash, I'll get fired.
I thought about all of thenegative things that could
happen if I spoke up at thattime, but in the end I decided
if it's not now, it would everhappen.
And it was not me.
I mean, it has to be me rightnow.
And so I spoke and I mentionedthese things about gun violence
and policing and the ongoingloss of black men due to gun
(24:18):
violence Was unscripted.
It just came out at the momentand when I was done I just
really felt liberated.
I felt like there's just weightoff my shoulders.
I'm okay, I've said it, but Iassume that the next day I'd be
unemployed.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
I Don't understand how we've kind of gotten to this
place where people you can'thold multiple things as true at
the same time, which I think youarticulated at that press
conference right.
You can have wanted to savethose police officers who pass
through.
You can also be horrified thatsomeone would shoot at them.
You can be horrified that theyweren't able to be saved.
You can support police, you canalso be afraid of them.
(24:52):
All of those things can be trueat the same time, while at the
same time saying and there areBlack men dying in here every
day that don't get any attention.
It's not that I don't wantattention Following a mass
shooting, so that I also wantthese people who are passing
every day in my hospital to getattention.
All of those things can be trueat once.
It's just really complicatedand really hard to unpack.
Um, and so you, I think givingvoice to it was Incredibly
(25:15):
important and, as you detail onthe book, like, I think, a lot
of post-traumatic stressfollowed both the shooting and
that press conference too.
And then you know, hate mailand all that fun, the fun joy of
being a public figure.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Yes, yes, you are.
You articulated that very well,what you just said.
I should have you edit thatpart of my book.
I'm like that is really good.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
But yes, yes, I had good source materials, so in
Raising that, it sort of gets tothe point you mentioned before,
which is that.
And then there's racism.
And if we don't talk aboutracism, then it does put the
burden on People like you toraise it.
(25:55):
But if we can have it as partof the conversation, then it's a
known fact and until then, it'slike you have to, as the only
black trauma surgeon, be the oneto raise it.
And you know, I'm wondering forlisteners who Maybe they are
coming from a place wherethey're like okay, but why would
you raise it then, you know,isn't it about the police?
(26:17):
Or maybe for someone who says,uh, you know this is.
You know, we shouldn't reallybe talking about race at that
moment for listeners, why is itso important to To carry more
than one thing at once and toreally think about the
complexities and Make sure thatwhen we think about mass
shootings, we're also thinkingabout the daily trauma that you
(26:39):
see?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah, because I've been carrying all those things
at once for such a long time,right, and I For me, I got to
the point where I was no longerthriving.
I was existing right andremember 2016,.
There was so much death due togun violence.
Remember a month before that,that was the Orlando pulse mass
(27:02):
shooting.
So there was a lot happeningthat year and I had I felt that
I had to give voice to it atthat time, because there are so
many people who are dealing withus on a day to day basis that
will never have the opportunityto have access to that sort of
platform to speak for themselves.
(27:22):
So at that moment I felt Brian,you are the voice of the
voiceless.
Right now, you just have toaccept what is going to happen,
because this is the one chanceto bring light to this issue and
you are the one person that cando it.
And I you know I have to givecredit to my wife first, right,
because I didn't want to go tothat press conference.
(27:43):
When I was asked, I said no,and she was the one that said
get over yourself.
You need to go to that pressconference because of the very
things we just mentioned.
So you have to be there.
You don't have to speak, butthey need to see that there was
a black doctor there at nighttrying to save these police
officers and that would havebeen enough.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Well, and I think to the point of kind of saving
people beyond, just kind of whatyou do as a doctor in medicine,
right, but your position as adoctor, like in the world, you
articulate in the book a coupleof different policies or
loopholes that have led toincreased gun violence in the US
.
But the one that kind of in thelatter part of the book you
devote a lot of attention to issomething we've talked a lot
(28:24):
about on the podcast, which youcall stranger ground laws.
If I may suggest a reformation,we've been calling them right
to shoot first, laws here atBrady and I wonder you know why
the focus on these laws inparticular and the latter half
of the book.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Well, in the latter half of the book.
For one, I wanted the book tobe hopeful towards the end
because there's a lot of heavystuff through that right out.
So, okay, this is not to behopeful.
And about healing.
And I talk a lot about racismthroughout the book and that is
the clearest policy that hasthat is rooted in racism and
there's plenty of data tosupport that right.
(29:03):
But I want to just be by myopinion stand your ground laws.
And I must say I listened tothis podcast and I think I cited
your podcast as citations.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
I may have put a little tab on it.
I'm very excited.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
But just clearly stand your ground.
Laws, shoot first.
Laws If you're black, you'remost likely if you're shot and
killed by a white person, that'susually justified.
If you're a black person thatshoots, so white person, same
situation, you'll be deemedunjustified.
So right there, you see theracial disparities in that and
there's many more.
I kind of talked through there.
(29:37):
But the point I wanted to makewas that stand your ground.
Laws.
That is the one policy.
That is the intersection ofracism, gun violence and
policing.
And I'm not saying police, I'mtalking about policing because
in a way it deputizes allAmericans, particularly white
Americans, to shoot to killblack people who may think to be
(30:00):
a threat.
And we've seen it happen overand over again.
And Trayvon Martin is theprobably the one that brought
this law to attention, to anational consciousness and I
talked about when talking aboutthe value of black lives.
George Zimmerman, who wasacquitted a few years later,
sold auction the weapon that heused to kill Trayvon Martin and
(30:24):
reportedly a woman bought it fora quarter of a million dollars,
which is a statement about howwe value young black men, in
this case you know black boy whowas shot and killed.
I mean, there's no reason heshould be dead right, but that
weapon was viewed as somethingworth having and was sold for
(30:45):
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
And I think too it's one of the things in the book
kind of just like when we'retalking about the book itself,
like I think narratively you hadset it up beautifully because
as a reader we go along with you.
It was like you getting stoppedby the police routinely for
just living your life and thepositioning of like outside
strangers or police officers aslike you as a threat, and so I
think by the time we get to thestandard ground laws, we see
well, what was the thing is youquote Carol Anderson what is the
(31:10):
thing that makes you a threat?
You're a black man and so ifthat's all that it takes to
perceive you as a threat under ashoot first law, then that's a
huge portion of the populationthat is completely unsafe
because of a law that we haveand a firearm makes a deadly
interaction.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
And it's interesting, after the press conference
several police officers told meand said you know, I never
thought someone like you wouldbe afraid of me if I pulled you
over.
And I said well, yeah, you knowme as a doctor.
We worked together in thehospital, but on the street I
don't have doctor on my forehead.
You know, I'm not wearing mywhite coat.
(31:46):
I try to do things to minimizethe chance of a bad interaction,
but still I'm just a black manout there who is deemed a threat
.
So I understand where you'recoming from.
But it led to some discussions,right, that were hopefully
changed a few minds back then.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
I just picture, early on in the book you talk about,
like you're with ski equipmentand.
I've never found a man holdinga snowboard in any situation to
be someone I'm afraid of.
But they're like a neighborcalls it in and is like that man
with a snowboard is suspiciousand it's just like that's not.
You know, like you can't.
There's no winning in thatscenario, because history is
already there.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Right.
And with that scene, people maysay well, you did all the right
things, so you're here to talkabout it.
I said, well, in that momentI'm playing the tape of what
could go wrong, even if I dideverything right, because we
know that that could be a deadlyencounter, no matter what.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah, and it's like Trayvon Martin didn't do
anything wrong, Like you know,so it's.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
And how much is that to carry when like me and White?
Lady Land has never had to havethat calculus.
Yeah, significant time andattention, I know, like when we
both go running.
Yeah, it's a different set ofcalculus for both of us.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
And it's the same thing where I'm like no one sees
my educate.
Not that those things matterbut, it doesn't.
Anyway, and when you weretalking about history, I was
thinking about the fact thatthey sold the gun that was used
to kill Trayvon Martin, and itkind of echoes to people selling
postcards and things like thatof lynchings, and that that's
(33:17):
just part of our history.
And someone from our historywho is amazing and a genius and
I love him so much, JamesBaldwin.
You start the book with a quotefrom him where you say, or he
says quote the price one paysfor pursuing any profession or
calling is an intimate knowledgeof its ugly side.
Because he's a genius and I'mwondering you know we talked
(33:37):
about it some, but what are some?
What is, in your opinion, theugly side of medicine?
Speaker 3 (33:43):
For me, the ugly side of medicine that I've come to
realize over my course of myyear is how healthcare and
justice is rooted in each one,with racism within medicine, and
there is the benefits of that,which I discuss.
You know the exploitation ofblack women to develop surgical
(34:09):
procedures and instruments, theexploitation of black men to you
know the Tuskegee.
I talk about that like that'sjust the tip of the iceberg.
I talk about all these otherways that the medical
establishment has exploitedblack people for medical
advances, techniques andknowledge that I use as a doctor
(34:29):
and have taught to futuregenerations.
But the price we paid to getthat information was to use the
bodies of people that had noagency to say no, and so that's
like the ugly side and it'ssomething I have to reconcile
with myself is that I do get todo what I do and serve humanity,
(34:50):
but it's based on theexploitation of my ancestors
that I'm still here and I justwant people to understand how we
got here so we can teach thenext generation to do better.
That's the ugly side of theprice I've paid to become an
excellent surgeon and educator.
I feel excellent surgeon andeducator is learning that all
(35:13):
this knowledge I received.
A lot of us come from theexploitation of my ancestors.
So the thing is, what do I dowith that?
Going forward?
I can't just throw it away, butI can tell you like, look,
let's look at our history on thesame way we are now and do
better.
Going forward.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
I mean it's relatable as an attorney.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Like the Constitution itself, is, so you know,
tainted.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
And yet that's sort of our base document and a lot
of the way we're taught is thisa historical.
It's changing, but a lot of itis very a historical and it
doesn't really take into account, like, the background of cases.
It's just like this is theprecedent.
So I totally hear you on that,right.
Right, I wonder if there's asort of similar correlation to
like the ugly side of gunviolence prevention work too,
which what you were doing wasgun violence prevention work.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
but certainly post-Pres Conference and the
work you've done since has, Ithink, thrust you far more into
that avenue as well.
Is there kind of a you knowwhat's the bad side of what
we're doing or the ugly side?
Speaker 3 (36:10):
I think what we could do better is to elevate a lot
of the voices that are workingin this gun violence prevention
work, and I focus a lot on Blackvictims and survivors, because
that has been what my practiceis encompassed a lot of, because
I've chosen to work at safetynet hospitals, which are usually
located next to racialsegregated neighborhoods with a
lot of endemic violence.
And I want to speak like this isnot because my patients are
(36:32):
morally bankrupt, like there'sissues surrounding this that
feed into that, and I just wantto shine a light on that that we
as a society could do better.
So we talked about, you know wealways highlight a mass shooting
and just understand Anypreventable life loss to gun
(36:53):
violence is too many.
But I want to also say you knowwhat?
24 hours after listening tothis podcast, 60% of the firearm
homicides will be young Blackmen.
So I'm at this point do we haveto do that?
24 hours after listening tothis podcast, 60% of the firearm
homicides will be young Blackmen.
(37:14):
So my at this point, do youwant to highlight all that all
the time?
Maybe not, but we shouldn'tignore it either, because there
are families being affected bythis and to really reduce
firearm injury and death, weneed to look at all the
different types of gun violencesuicides, homicides, intimate
(37:35):
partner violence, mass shootingsand address the root causes of
each, so that we all can feelsafe and secure, no matter where
we go.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
And to just, you know , to even pluck something out of
that too.
You know we didn't talk aboutit, but I think your book does a
great response to folks whohonestly and it's a racist dog
whistle, but folks who will gowell, it's black on black crime.
Or we refer to it on thepodcast, where people say, well,
Chicago is the one that, likejust, is disruptive.
But what I appreciate about theway you spell it out in this
(38:07):
book is that we're talking,though, about racism.
We can throw that argument outthe window because we're not
entertaining this nonsense.
We're talking about what iscausing violence to be in these
communities, and it's not thatit's inherently a black issue.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Exactly exactly the black on black crime.
I use, you know, department ofJustice statistics to show that
it's not about race.
This is a byproduct of usliving in a racially segregated
society based on our historicalredlining policies.
(38:42):
So it's about proximity, right.
So black people live near blackpeople, white people live near
white people.
So the rate of violent crimesame race is the same whether
you're in black or white.
How we talk about that at anational level, that's different
, right?
Because we always interjectracist tropes about black
(39:04):
violence.
That's kind of interwoven intothe American consciousness.
So I just wanted to try todispel that from my own personal
experience, professionalexperience but also use, you
know, verifiable informationthat you can check yourself to
decide whether or not I'mtalking about.
I don't want to just be myopinion but say, hey, you can go
check these sources as well andmake your own informed decision
(39:26):
.
There's so much for us to solvein this country, right?
But that's what I enjoyed aboutbeing in academia is that these
questions keep popping up,right, and we can address them
using data and science.
And get to be around all thesesmart people looking at the same
issues from differentperspectives.
(39:47):
And how do we solve that?
And that's why at the end of thebook I wanted to be hopeful and
say like, yeah, we've have allthis, but here we have such
ingenuity.
In this country, we havesomething dedicated to people
that want to make the world abetter place, that we can reduce
needless death and suffering tothe gun violence, to the health
(40:08):
care injustice, to the policeinteractions, and it doesn't
have to lead to an argument Likewe can actually do this and
everybody benefits.
But I also just wanted to saythat it's just been a tremendous
honor for me to be on thepodcast, because I've been
listening to the show for years.
It is one of the ones Iregularly listen to.
(40:30):
You're doing a great serviceand to be your guest has been
fun and an honor.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
We're honored to have you truly.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Yeah, we're honored and I'm sending that to my mom
immediately.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
I feel like that's going to be the first edit.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
That is proof that podcasting is a real job.
Thank you, all right, and wherecan folks find the book to go
buy it?
I'll link it in the descriptionof this episode, but where can
folks find it?
And you and all your fabulouswork coming forward.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Excellent.
So the book is availableAnywhere books are sold.
I'm putting a plug to supportyour local Indies, please.
If you go to bryanwilliamsmdcom, there'll be all the different
links there for where you canpurchase the book, but it's
launched nationwide in prettymuch anywhere you can think of.
Also, I did.
The audio book is available.
(41:17):
I narrated the audio bookmyself and that's also available
in eReader as well.
So thank you, thanks for havingme.
Thanks for having me, thank you.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
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 (41:45):
Thanks for listening.
As always, brady's life-savingwork 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.
(42:06):
Take action, not sides.
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
(00:44):
Brady.
I'm one of your hosts, jj.
And I'm Kelly, your other hostand, as always, this podcast
just keeps introducing me topeople who are so good at about
8,000 problems.
For example, our guest today,dr Brian Williams, who, in
addition to being a husband anda father and a renowned trauma
surgeon and advocate, is alsonow a really good writer.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, I still you, jj .
It's a little unfair.
I'm like come on, it's enoughto be a renowned trauma surgeon,
but then you also have to writea book that is literally a page
turner, so well written, aboutwhat it's like to be the person,
oftentimes, who is tasked withtrying to save someone.
It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
And I know personally Kelly had to experience this
firsthand.
I just kept sending textmessages to everyone of look at
the sentence.
Look at the sentence, because Ithink that Dr Williams just
lays out so beautifully whichyou now all get to experience on
this podcast, as we did.
I think it's really easysometimes to think of gun
violence prevention work and notthink of the people behind it,
(01:48):
particularly doctors, people inwhite coats.
They maybe seem veryunapproachable, just so folks
not in medicine and I think DrWilliams just really strips all
that away and points out thehumanness and the
complicatedness of what we'redoing.
We're also offering solutions,which is just really soothing to
me.
I don't know about you, kelly,but I like answers.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yes, yes, and for me too, I mean, like you said, this
book helped me see the humanbeing, and also for me as
someone who thinks a lot about,like race and gun violence, it's
such a good job is showing how,if we are going to think of
this as a public health issue,which it is, we also think about
the ways that public health isintertwined with racism and make
(02:31):
sure that we acknowledge thatand then also bring that into
the solutions.
And so I learned a ton readingthis, and I would recommend,
after you listen to this episode, get the book and read the book
, because if you're anythinglike JJ and me, you will just
fly through it and come awaylearning a lot.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Dr Brian Williams.
I am an Air Force Academygraduate trauma surgeon and gun
violence prevention advocate.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And so we're discussing a lot, I think, kind
of your whole career in lifereally that you've shared within
this book entitled the bodieskeep coming.
And before we kind of dig intothe book itself, which was an
amazing read I highly recommendit to all of our listeners I
wonder if you can share with uswhat made you even go okay.
Well, now I'm going to write abook.
Being a trauma surgeon is notenough of a time sink for me.
(03:23):
I need to be a novelist as well.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, absolutely.
I didn't have any initial plansto become an author, but over
the course of my career on thefront lines of gun violence as a
trauma surgeon, but also morefront lines of health inequity
as someone who chose to work insafety net hospitals, I had seen
a lot of injustice and I waspushed to write this book
(03:46):
following a tragedy in Dallasthe mass shooting of police
officers and after that I beganto think about my role in the
healthcare system but I'm alsomy role in society and how I can
be part of healing of society,and that event was traumatic for
me and during my post-traumaticgrowth.
This book was spawned as aresult of that.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Definitely want to dig and saddle a bit more, but
before we do, could you justdefine for listeners what a
safety net hospital is?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Absolutely so.
A safety net hospital these arehospitals that are essentially
exists to catch those who fallthrough the cracks of our
healthcare systems.
I'm saying systems because theyhave multiple healthcare
systems within this country andgenerally people think of these
hospitals as ones that providecare to those who are uninsured
(04:34):
or underinsured, do not have thefinancial resources to get
healthcare.
So you predominantly find lowincome people, racial and ethnic
minorities.
But let's expand the definitionbecause this also includes
hospitals that are in ruralareas, where there may not be a
lot of healthcare facilities,but they're being the only
(04:56):
hospital in the area.
That makes them also a safetynet.
So I just wanted to work at ahospital because I felt nobody
were income or you're a stationalive.
People deserve the best sort ofhealthcare, so I gravitated
toward those types of healthsystems.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
And it seems like you explain it so well in the book
this concept of whittling thatkind of patients may go through
where they're coming in forservices.
You start with a patient who'sin diabetic needs, so he needs
some care for his feet.
That eventually can lead to anamputation, and then they just
sort of disappear off the rosterbut that if they only had that
care in between the times thatthey show up in the ER they
would probably have verydifferent health outcomes.
(05:30):
But even if they had othersocial safety net items like
better housing, better food,they probably better
transportation, better income,like all of these things would
catch.
And so is that sort of thesituation then that happens at
like a social safety nethospital.
You're seeing that sort ofsituation a lot.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Exactly and my feeling was that by the time
they get to me it's too late.
There is so many areas upstreamwhere we can intervene, not
just as healthcare providers,but society can intervene to
ensure people can remain healthyand thrive within their
communities.
So I described this gentlemanin the book that came in with
the diabetic toe infection.
(06:05):
I could take care of that as asurgeon, but still does he have
access to insulin andpreventative care.
So the disease progresses tothe point where he has a foot
amputation, then a below kneeamputation and to the point
where eventually I don't know,like I said, he's lost a
follow-up but he may have dieddue to progressive disease.
But the real point there isthat we need to see how we can
(06:28):
work to, how we as a country canintervene far upstream from the
healthcare system so that weall can remain healthy and
thrive within our homes and ourfamilies and our communities,
because by the time they get tothe hospital, I mean, it's
really too late in many ways,especially with gun violence.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Well, and that's.
It seemed almost that there'sthat correlation there with you
see, folks who it's a whittlingissue too, with folks coming in
for gun violence issues, thatyou know it's particularly,
maybe, folks who've been shotmultiple times, but also that
folks have seen other people getshot first, or folks know if
people have gotten shot in theirneighborhoods.
So there's already been all ofthese traumatic points before
they end up in your operatingtheater.
Is this a theater?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Didn't go to medical school, it's a operating room,
operating room in the US theaterin the UK, a RE theater.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
We've been consuming a lot of Call the Midwife lately
.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
It's our comfort show .
I don't know what that says.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I don't know.
I don't know what that says.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, and one thing you know when you're writing,
you have choices to make as tohow you want to enter in, and
you could have done this at likea 3000, or 30,000 foot view
very clinical, very removed butyou chose to be personal and
talk about your own feelings.
You touched on it alreadyStories from your family, what
was behind your choice to be alittle bit more personal and
(07:44):
telling this story versus beingmore like IMA surgeon?
I am objective and I am comingat this from on high.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I had grand ambitions for the book itself, which was
to really change the way peoplethought about injustice in this
country and what we can do tocreate justice today, and I do
it through the lens of myexperience with gun violence.
Now, the book began as a memoir.
(08:14):
You know deeply personalstories and I felt that
storytelling is it breedsconnection.
Now would be a way to draw youinto this world.
It's just kind of if I couldhook that part of you that is
our shared humanity and bringyou in, then I can bring you on
this journey and then, okay, nowthat you're here, we're going
to address some of the biggersocial issues Gun violence
(08:37):
prevention, healthcare crisis,racial justice, police brutality
all these things I packed inthere.
So I want it to be a memoir plussomething that when you were
done, you saw the worlddifferently and, hopefully, were
inspired to do somethingdifferently, and that kind of
(08:57):
happened in stages.
Right, Memoir.
Now what?
How can I turn this intosomething that you would use as
it's meant to be, hopeful in theend, Like there's hope and
healing?
How could you use this as ablueprint to do something
different with your life?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I appreciated that so much because I felt like, as a
reader, I understood how youwere, outside of just being like
doctor with a capital D, whichis very helpful.
But then I also think thechoices that you made to include
people's actual names.
So I think of the patient Malikthat you referenced several
times, both at the beginning andthe ending of the book.
I think it makes it, eventhough you do cite you know
quite a lot of statistics andrealities about gun violence.
(09:32):
It's not just numbers, right,there's all.
It's always coming back to thepeople, it's coming back to
their mothers, it's coming backto their families and it's
coming back to them themselvesas they lived before, you know
they passed.
I think that's really importantand vital.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
That was really intentional Cause.
I didn't want to come acrossthis as if I was.
I was lecturing you.
I wanted to respect yourintelligence as a reader and
your ability to connect withstrangers whom you may not.
You may never see right, so Ido have a lot of information in
my head.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Cause I'm an academic surgeon, right.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I've been a professor .
I've been teaching this for along time, so I wanted the book
to have credibility amongstthose in healthcare who would
read this book, but also to beaccessible for those who did not
.
So that's what the storytelling.
I can't.
I think it was very important.
Could you identify with someonein this book, whether it be me
as a narrator, one of thepatients or survivors I talked
about, or a family member?
(10:22):
What could draw you in and then, in that story, interweave
these other aspects gun violenceand healthcare, injustice and
racial justice with statisticsand facts, and not be
professorial about it.
But you learn anyway, despitethe fact that it's mainly a base
in memoir.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And I think you need those moments of like me
deciding that your wife is thecoolest person in the world.
Kathy Ann, if you're listening,I would love you to step in as
therapist cause.
You gave a lot of good advicewithin this, but so I think that
that's really helpful and itkeeps.
Sometimes it's really hard.
I mean, how many episodes havewe done now on gun violence to
make sure that folks are stillinteracting with this as the
(11:04):
horror reality that it is, butalso acknowledging that life is
happening simultaneously too andthat you can hold kind of
multiple things all at once, andso it's really helpful to know,
like, what are people doingwhen they go home at night?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Exactly, and there's really, there's really no book
without my wife, but also, forme, no growth without her.
You know she's nudging andpushing and at times, you know
gentle shoving throughout thebook, but you know she's clear,
the voice of reason.
When I'm having, I put mythoughts on the page and you can
(11:34):
decide as a reader is this manrational or not right?
I don't try to make a judgmentabout that, I don't want to
manipulate that.
I'm like here is what happenedand here is how I felt.
And she is the voice of reasonat various parts of the book and
I just want to show thatrelationship, that we are not
all alone and no matter what youmay think of me, just based on
my credentials and my job titleI don't want to come across as
(11:56):
infallible or perfect that Ihave a partner.
That was very important for mein the aftermath of this tragedy
.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I also think that's just important too, because
there's a perception sometimesthat gun violence sort of only
impacts the person who has beenhit and I think to the extent we
extend empathy, we may extendit to a family member, but also
maybe not the people we'retreating.
So I think it's important toshow that.
And one of the other thingsthat you did is you talked about
(12:25):
the actual impact of whatbullets do to the body and I'm
wondering if you could talkabout how you decided to do that
and sort of why you decided todo that.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Again very intentional.
I wanted to be graphic aboutwhat bullets do to the human
body, without being gratuitous.
I didn't want and I wanted torespect the in honor of those
who suffered gun violencesurvivors, victims but to let
(12:55):
the public know that this is notsome abstraction.
These are not just numbers thatwe tick off every year.
People are being impacted andthose of us that work in trauma
are seeing this all the time.
And if you could just have awindow into the reality of the
human carnage that we're dealingwith from gun violence, maybe
(13:19):
that would spark some people toaction, to do what we can to
reduce firearm related deathsand injury, because it's not
just the person that was shot ortheir family members, but in a
way, they were all impacted insome way by hearing about these
repeated the mass shootings, thehomicides, the intimate partner
violence.
We're all connected in thissomehow.
So when I described this, Ididn't want it to be gross, but
(13:42):
I wanted to be like this is thereality of what we're trying to
end right now, and I tried tochoose imagery that could put
you there, even though you don'twork in medicine or trauma.
That could put you there andyou say, oh, this is the reality
of folks working in traumaevery single day of the year.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I think it's something that comes up a lot,
as Brady has been pushing moreand more to get into more kind
of accurate depictions of notjust gun violence but gun
violence aftermath in media,right in shown media, because I
do think we have.
If you don't have any sort ofmedical background, you do have
sort of this like grazinganatomy perception of surgeries
being very clean and very neatand very quick and that it's a
(14:23):
you know in and out and thatsurgeons have kind of this
magical ability to fix everyone.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, you know, I nobody forced me into trauma
surgery.
I went into medicine because Iwanted to help people.
I wanted to be a healer.
In the beginning I didn't knowwhat type of doctor I wanted to
be.
I saw this in the book.
Trauma surgery chose me.
I didn't choose it.
I enjoyed the adrenaline rush,the fast pace.
(14:50):
You make quick decisions.
These were just my people.
I kind of felt that sort ofcamaraderie and over the course
of the years, my career, youbecome more in touch with the
human side of this, how familiesare impacted.
When you're telling people overand over and over again
strangers that you cannot savetheir loved one due to gun
(15:14):
violence, if that doesn't affectyou, then you've lost that part
of your humanity.
Then you need to find anotherline of work.
And it still bothers mePronouncing children dead on
arrival due to gun violence andreally most people don't see
this.
They don't see that.
I wanted you to understand thatlives are being impacted long
(15:38):
after we clean up the blood fromthe floor, change our bloodied
scrubs, talk to the family,write the death note.
The ripple effects of gunviolence extend much farther
from the hospital after we'redone.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
That's something certainly to sit with too, and
just think about the fact thatwe're putting so many people,
you included, who have hope andskills that you could be using
for all sorts of things, but onthis preventable manmade
epidemic that we deal with, andone of the things that happens
sometimes when we talk aboutanything in this country that
(16:14):
disproportionately impacts blackand brown people, as you know
and you talk about in the book,is that people will say black as
a risk factor, and one of theprofound things you do is you
say, to quote it, race is not arisk factor in chronic diseases,
medical errors and lifeexpectancy.
It's racism.
So could you unpack that?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Yeah.
So this is where we're reallytrying to discuss the structural
inequality that puts blackpeople at greater risk for gun
violence, healthcare inequityand I was taught when I was in
medical school that race is arisk factor for many things.
Right, and I understand betterthat.
It's not race, it's racism, andstructural racism is at the
(16:59):
core of that.
So I really wanted to reallyunpack what structural racism
means and how that impacts allof us as a society, because I
felt that this is a book that Icould write right.
As a black doctor, black traumasurgeon treating young black
male gun victims, I see myselfin them, see myself in their
(17:22):
families, who I'm talking to,and I had a perspective that I
felt was missing from thediscussion about all this.
So what can I add and talk about?
How racism impacts this andthat kind of intertwines with
our policies, right, ourpolicies that go back
generations where black peoplewere intentionally excluded from
a lot of the benefits thatwould have elevated whole
(17:43):
communities.
And I choose one example.
I talk about the GI Bill andhow you may have someone in your
family that benefited from theGI Bill out of the World War II
and how that created an entiremiddle class of people and
intergenerational wealth haspassed along.
But that was denied to amillion black service members
who served honorably duringWorld War II.
(18:04):
So that was housing assistance,that was education assistance
that was given to a lot of folks, except if you were black.
Now think about what that meanstoday if those tolders and
airmen and sailors were alsogiving the opportunity to go to
college subsidized by thegovernment or by a house
subsidized by the government andpass that along to their
(18:25):
children.
So that is structural racismthat has had far reaching
impacts across generations.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And I think that that kind of plays in as well with
sort of the reforming oflanguage or just kind of the
reframing of thinking aboutthings that you bring up in the
book a lot.
So, for example, it's not adisadvantaged community, it's a
community of opportunity,because the opportunities coming
from within, the disadvantagesare being forced from without.
I really did like thatreframing, but I wonder if you
(18:52):
see that kind of expanding outto kind of on the medical system
as a whole too, so kind ofagain pushing.
It's not that race is a riskfactor, it's that how people
respond to race is the riskfactor.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
I feel that within healthcare and academic medicine
, we are beginning to embracethese ideas better, particularly
with the younger generationthat's going through medical
school and residency right now.
I feel that they are much moresocially aware about how racial
injustice impacts our societyand within healthcare and I
(19:27):
talked about this in a bookseveral organizations that are
making concerted efforts toaddress that, particularly in
education.
But there is so much further togo.
We have so much work to do andthey can't be an afterthought.
This is going to be the core ofwhat we do, because race and
racism aren't woven in so muchof our society.
It's like it's okay to talkabout that, right, because we're
(19:49):
just trying to understand ourpast so we can understand our
present and prepare for a betterfuture.
And denying all these uglyparts of our past gets us
nowhere.
So in healthcare specifically,there is so much racial
injustice within healthcaresystem that is persisting today
that we as a profession have alot of work to do.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
You referenced that so many times, so beautifully
throughout the book.
Well, beautifully, and alsohorrifically, because it's the
reality of it throughout thebook, of just the number of
times that you, professionally,were either blatantly told or
just sort of hinted at Don't sayanything.
We cannot talk about race aspart of talking about medicine.
We cannot talk about race aspart of a response to an issue
and it's like well, how do younot?
Speaker 3 (20:33):
And we talked earlier about how I put my story in
there.
I freely admit of the role Iplayed in perpetuating that
silence by silencing myself, butalso just accepting what was
taught to me throughout mymedical education and then
continuing to teach that toothers that I was in charge of
education.
So I played a role in all this,which I freely admit.
(20:53):
But I now want to do betterright and step into how we're
going to correct the inequitiesof our past, because this
impacts all of us.
I'm going to benefit from thisand I certainly cannot turn away
from that anymore.
And after the shooting inDallas, I realized that there
was much more I had to do.
I could continue that role Iwas in, but when I was done with
(21:14):
my career, whenever that ends Icould look back and say, well,
not much has changed and I couldhave made a difference.
So that's why I'm choosing adifferent path.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I'm so glad that you're highlighting this
distinction between race andracism as a risk factor, because
I feel like, just speaking formyself, there's this stigma,
even for the people who areimpacted.
If we believe that race is arisk factor, you're basically
saying some people are justdeficient, which we're not, and
so I feel like putting the onuson the systems that we live in
(21:47):
is just very empowering.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
personally, I'm like yeah, there's nothing wrong with
us.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
We're great there is excellence everywhere, right,
but the country will try to tellyou there's something wrong
with you and then, therefore, wecan't do it.
We're disposable, basically,and you have referenced the
shooting on July 7th in Dallasand you talk about it a lot in
the book.
So, definitely, please read thebook and explore that a little
(22:14):
bit more.
But one of the things you didis you spoke at the press
conference after the shootingand you talked about how black
men were dying and beingforgotten and I'm wondering why
you, in that moment, that wasimportant for you to raise and
what that means to you.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
In that moment at the press conference.
That was the culmination of,you know, a lifetime of
Silencing myself about theseissues of racism and gun
violence and healthcareinjustice, and so I could get by
, right, so I could move up themedical hierarchy, because I
(22:53):
felt that that was what matteredthe most, that the press comes.
What was not said about theshooting really did not sit well
with me.
This was a shooting of policeofficers at a at a protest for
racial justice, a peacefulprotest for racial justice.
In the days following theofficer involved, shootings of
(23:13):
Philando Castile and AltonSterling.
And the shooter was Black whowas there targeting white cops.
I mean that, right, thereshould be enough to say, okay,
we need to unpack what thismeant for our society on a
larger scale.
But none of that was discussedand we've seen many of these
(23:34):
mass shooting press conferences.
They kind of follow the samescript and that's where we're
doing that time and sittingthere I should also.
I'll be the only black traumasurgeon in the entire group of
trauma surgeons.
What was unsaid just didn't sitwell with me and I was thinking
like, should I say somethingright now because they're
overlooking the huge issue rightnow?
(23:55):
But I thought, well, if I saysomething, it's gonna be
backlash, I'll get fired.
I thought about all of thenegative things that could
happen if I spoke up at thattime, but in the end I decided
if it's not now, it would everhappen.
And it was not me.
I mean, it has to be me rightnow.
And so I spoke and I mentionedthese things about gun violence
and policing and the ongoingloss of black men due to gun
(24:18):
violence Was unscripted.
It just came out at the momentand when I was done I just
really felt liberated.
I felt like there's just weightoff my shoulders.
I'm okay, I've said it, but Iassume that the next day I'd be
unemployed.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
I Don't understand how we've kind of gotten to this
place where people you can'thold multiple things as true at
the same time, which I think youarticulated at that press
conference right.
You can have wanted to savethose police officers who pass
through.
You can also be horrified thatsomeone would shoot at them.
You can be horrified that theyweren't able to be saved.
You can support police, you canalso be afraid of them.
(24:52):
All of those things can be trueat the same time, while at the
same time saying and there areBlack men dying in here every
day that don't get any attention.
It's not that I don't wantattention Following a mass
shooting, so that I also wantthese people who are passing
every day in my hospital to getattention.
All of those things can be trueat once.
It's just really complicatedand really hard to unpack.
Um, and so you, I think givingvoice to it was Incredibly
(25:15):
important and, as you detail onthe book, like, I think, a lot
of post-traumatic stressfollowed both the shooting and
that press conference too.
And then you know, hate mailand all that fun, the fun joy of
being a public figure.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Yes, yes, you are.
You articulated that very well,what you just said.
I should have you edit thatpart of my book.
I'm like that is really good.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
But yes, yes, I had good source materials, so in
Raising that, it sort of gets tothe point you mentioned before,
which is that.
And then there's racism.
And if we don't talk aboutracism, then it does put the
burden on People like you toraise it.
(25:55):
But if we can have it as partof the conversation, then it's a
known fact and until then, it'slike you have to, as the only
black trauma surgeon, be the oneto raise it.
And you know, I'm wondering forlisteners who Maybe they are
coming from a place wherethey're like okay, but why would
you raise it then, you know,isn't it about the police?
(26:17):
Or maybe for someone who says,uh, you know this is.
You know, we shouldn't reallybe talking about race at that
moment for listeners, why is itso important to To carry more
than one thing at once and toreally think about the
complexities and Make sure thatwhen we think about mass
shootings, we're also thinkingabout the daily trauma that you
(26:39):
see?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah, because I've been carrying all those things
at once for such a long time,right, and I For me, I got to
the point where I was no longerthriving.
I was existing right andremember 2016,.
There was so much death due togun violence.
Remember a month before that,that was the Orlando pulse mass
(27:02):
shooting.
So there was a lot happeningthat year and I had I felt that
I had to give voice to it atthat time, because there are so
many people who are dealing withus on a day to day basis that
will never have the opportunityto have access to that sort of
platform to speak for themselves.
(27:22):
So at that moment I felt Brian,you are the voice of the
voiceless.
Right now, you just have toaccept what is going to happen,
because this is the one chanceto bring light to this issue and
you are the one person that cando it.
And I you know I have to givecredit to my wife first, right,
because I didn't want to go tothat press conference.
(27:43):
When I was asked, I said no,and she was the one that said
get over yourself.
You need to go to that pressconference because of the very
things we just mentioned.
So you have to be there.
You don't have to speak, butthey need to see that there was
a black doctor there at nighttrying to save these police
officers and that would havebeen enough.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Well, and I think to the point of kind of saving
people beyond, just kind of whatyou do as a doctor in medicine,
right, but your position as adoctor, like in the world, you
articulate in the book a coupleof different policies or
loopholes that have led toincreased gun violence in the US
.
But the one that kind of in thelatter part of the book you
devote a lot of attention to issomething we've talked a lot
(28:24):
about on the podcast, which youcall stranger ground laws.
If I may suggest a reformation,we've been calling them right
to shoot first, laws here atBrady and I wonder you know why
the focus on these laws inparticular and the latter half
of the book.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Well, in the latter half of the book.
For one, I wanted the book tobe hopeful towards the end
because there's a lot of heavystuff through that right out.
So, okay, this is not to behopeful.
And about healing.
And I talk a lot about racismthroughout the book and that is
the clearest policy that hasthat is rooted in racism and
there's plenty of data tosupport that right.
(29:03):
But I want to just be by myopinion stand your ground laws.
And I must say I listened tothis podcast and I think I cited
your podcast as citations.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
I may have put a little tab on it.
I'm very excited.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
But just clearly stand your ground.
Laws, shoot first.
Laws If you're black, you'remost likely if you're shot and
killed by a white person, that'susually justified.
If you're a black person thatshoots, so white person, same
situation, you'll be deemedunjustified.
So right there, you see theracial disparities in that and
there's many more.
I kind of talked through there.
(29:37):
But the point I wanted to makewas that stand your ground.
Laws.
That is the one policy.
That is the intersection ofracism, gun violence and
policing.
And I'm not saying police, I'mtalking about policing because
in a way it deputizes allAmericans, particularly white
Americans, to shoot to killblack people who may think to be
(30:00):
a threat.
And we've seen it happen overand over again.
And Trayvon Martin is theprobably the one that brought
this law to attention, to anational consciousness and I
talked about when talking aboutthe value of black lives.
George Zimmerman, who wasacquitted a few years later,
sold auction the weapon that heused to kill Trayvon Martin and
(30:24):
reportedly a woman bought it fora quarter of a million dollars,
which is a statement about howwe value young black men, in
this case you know black boy whowas shot and killed.
I mean, there's no reason heshould be dead right, but that
weapon was viewed as somethingworth having and was sold for
(30:45):
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
And I think too it's one of the things in the book
kind of just like when we'retalking about the book itself,
like I think narratively you hadset it up beautifully because
as a reader we go along with you.
It was like you getting stoppedby the police routinely for
just living your life and thepositioning of like outside
strangers or police officers aslike you as a threat, and so I
think by the time we get to thestandard ground laws, we see
well, what was the thing is youquote Carol Anderson what is the
(31:10):
thing that makes you a threat?
You're a black man and so ifthat's all that it takes to
perceive you as a threat under ashoot first law, then that's a
huge portion of the populationthat is completely unsafe
because of a law that we haveand a firearm makes a deadly
interaction.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
And it's interesting, after the press conference
several police officers told meand said you know, I never
thought someone like you wouldbe afraid of me if I pulled you
over.
And I said well, yeah, you knowme as a doctor.
We worked together in thehospital, but on the street I
don't have doctor on my forehead.
You know, I'm not wearing mywhite coat.
(31:46):
I try to do things to minimizethe chance of a bad interaction,
but still I'm just a black manout there who is deemed a threat
.
So I understand where you'recoming from.
But it led to some discussions,right, that were hopefully
changed a few minds back then.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
I just picture, early on in the book you talk about,
like you're with ski equipmentand.
I've never found a man holdinga snowboard in any situation to
be someone I'm afraid of.
But they're like a neighborcalls it in and is like that man
with a snowboard is suspiciousand it's just like that's not.
You know, like you can't.
There's no winning in thatscenario, because history is
already there.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Right.
And with that scene, people maysay well, you did all the right
things, so you're here to talkabout it.
I said, well, in that momentI'm playing the tape of what
could go wrong, even if I dideverything right, because we
know that that could be a deadlyencounter, no matter what.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah, and it's like Trayvon Martin didn't do
anything wrong, Like you know,so it's.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
And how much is that to carry when like me and White?
Lady Land has never had to havethat calculus.
Yeah, significant time andattention, I know, like when we
both go running.
Yeah, it's a different set ofcalculus for both of us.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
And it's the same thing where I'm like no one sees
my educate.
Not that those things matterbut, it doesn't.
Anyway, and when you weretalking about history, I was
thinking about the fact thatthey sold the gun that was used
to kill Trayvon Martin, and itkind of echoes to people selling
postcards and things like thatof lynchings, and that that's
(33:17):
just part of our history.
And someone from our historywho is amazing and a genius and
I love him so much, JamesBaldwin.
You start the book with a quotefrom him where you say, or he
says quote the price one paysfor pursuing any profession or
calling is an intimate knowledgeof its ugly side.
Because he's a genius and I'mwondering you know we talked
(33:37):
about it some, but what are some?
What is, in your opinion, theugly side of medicine?
Speaker 3 (33:43):
For me, the ugly side of medicine that I've come to
realize over my course of myyear is how healthcare and
justice is rooted in each one,with racism within medicine, and
there is the benefits of that,which I discuss.
You know the exploitation ofblack women to develop surgical
(34:09):
procedures and instruments, theexploitation of black men to you
know the Tuskegee.
I talk about that like that'sjust the tip of the iceberg.
I talk about all these otherways that the medical
establishment has exploitedblack people for medical
advances, techniques andknowledge that I use as a doctor
(34:29):
and have taught to futuregenerations.
But the price we paid to getthat information was to use the
bodies of people that had noagency to say no, and so that's
like the ugly side and it'ssomething I have to reconcile
with myself is that I do get todo what I do and serve humanity,
(34:50):
but it's based on theexploitation of my ancestors
that I'm still here and I justwant people to understand how we
got here so we can teach thenext generation to do better.
That's the ugly side of theprice I've paid to become an
excellent surgeon and educator.
I feel excellent surgeon andeducator is learning that all
(35:13):
this knowledge I received.
A lot of us come from theexploitation of my ancestors.
So the thing is, what do I dowith that?
Going forward?
I can't just throw it away, butI can tell you like, look,
let's look at our history on thesame way we are now and do
better.
Going forward.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
I mean it's relatable as an attorney.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Like the Constitution itself, is, so you know,
tainted.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
And yet that's sort of our base document and a lot
of the way we're taught is thisa historical.
It's changing, but a lot of itis very a historical and it
doesn't really take into account, like, the background of cases.
It's just like this is theprecedent.
So I totally hear you on that,right.
Right, I wonder if there's asort of similar correlation to
like the ugly side of gunviolence prevention work too,
which what you were doing wasgun violence prevention work.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
but certainly post-Pres Conference and the
work you've done since has, Ithink, thrust you far more into
that avenue as well.
Is there kind of a you knowwhat's the bad side of what
we're doing or the ugly side?
Speaker 3 (36:10):
I think what we could do better is to elevate a lot
of the voices that are workingin this gun violence prevention
work, and I focus a lot on Blackvictims and survivors, because
that has been what my practiceis encompassed a lot of, because
I've chosen to work at safetynet hospitals, which are usually
located next to racialsegregated neighborhoods with a
lot of endemic violence.
And I want to speak like this isnot because my patients are
(36:32):
morally bankrupt, like there'sissues surrounding this that
feed into that, and I just wantto shine a light on that that we
as a society could do better.
So we talked about, you know wealways highlight a mass shooting
and just understand Anypreventable life loss to gun
(36:53):
violence is too many.
But I want to also say you knowwhat?
24 hours after listening tothis podcast, 60% of the firearm
homicides will be young Blackmen.
So I'm at this point do we haveto do that?
24 hours after listening tothis podcast, 60% of the firearm
homicides will be young Blackmen.
(37:14):
So my at this point, do youwant to highlight all that all
the time?
Maybe not, but we shouldn'tignore it either, because there
are families being affected bythis and to really reduce
firearm injury and death, weneed to look at all the
different types of gun violencesuicides, homicides, intimate
(37:35):
partner violence, mass shootingsand address the root causes of
each, so that we all can feelsafe and secure, no matter where
we go.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
And to just, you know , to even pluck something out of
that too.
You know we didn't talk aboutit, but I think your book does a
great response to folks whohonestly and it's a racist dog
whistle, but folks who will gowell, it's black on black crime.
Or we refer to it on thepodcast, where people say, well,
Chicago is the one that, likejust, is disruptive.
But what I appreciate about theway you spell it out in this
(38:07):
book is that we're talking,though, about racism.
We can throw that argument outthe window because we're not
entertaining this nonsense.
We're talking about what iscausing violence to be in these
communities, and it's not thatit's inherently a black issue.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Exactly exactly the black on black crime.
I use, you know, department ofJustice statistics to show that
it's not about race.
This is a byproduct of usliving in a racially segregated
society based on our historicalredlining policies.
(38:42):
So it's about proximity, right.
So black people live near blackpeople, white people live near
white people.
So the rate of violent crimesame race is the same whether
you're in black or white.
How we talk about that at anational level, that's different
, right?
Because we always interjectracist tropes about black
(39:04):
violence.
That's kind of interwoven intothe American consciousness.
So I just wanted to try todispel that from my own personal
experience, professionalexperience but also use, you
know, verifiable informationthat you can check yourself to
decide whether or not I'mtalking about.
I don't want to just be myopinion but say, hey, you can go
check these sources as well andmake your own informed decision
(39:26):
.
There's so much for us to solvein this country, right?
But that's what I enjoyed aboutbeing in academia is that these
questions keep popping up,right, and we can address them
using data and science.
And get to be around all thesesmart people looking at the same
issues from differentperspectives.
(39:47):
And how do we solve that?
And that's why at the end of thebook I wanted to be hopeful and
say like, yeah, we've have allthis, but here we have such
ingenuity.
In this country, we havesomething dedicated to people
that want to make the world abetter place, that we can reduce
needless death and suffering tothe gun violence, to the health
(40:08):
care injustice, to the policeinteractions, and it doesn't
have to lead to an argument Likewe can actually do this and
everybody benefits.
But I also just wanted to saythat it's just been a tremendous
honor for me to be on thepodcast, because I've been
listening to the show for years.
It is one of the ones Iregularly listen to.
(40:30):
You're doing a great serviceand to be your guest has been
fun and an honor.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
We're honored to have you truly.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Yeah, we're honored and I'm sending that to my mom
immediately.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
I feel like that's going to be the first edit.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
That is proof that podcasting is a real job.
Thank you, all right, and wherecan folks find the book to go
buy it?
I'll link it in the descriptionof this episode, but where can
folks find it?
And you and all your fabulouswork coming forward.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Excellent.
So the book is availableAnywhere books are sold.
I'm putting a plug to supportyour local Indies, please.
If you go to bryanwilliamsmdcom, there'll be all the different
links there for where you canpurchase the book, but it's
launched nationwide in prettymuch anywhere you can think of.
Also, I did.
The audio book is available.
(41:17):
I narrated the audio bookmyself and that's also available
in eReader as well.
So thank you, thanks for havingme.
Thanks for having me, thank you.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
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 (41:45):
Thanks for listening.
As always, brady's life-savingwork 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.
(42:06):
Take action, not sides.
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