- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been provided by The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

TD Bank.

ADP.

The Fidelco Group.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, Clean Energy program.

Johnson & Johnson.

Fedway Associates, Inc. MD Advantage Insurance Company.

And by The Adler Aphasia Center.

Promotional support provided by ROI-NJ, informing and connecting businesses in New Jersey.

And by NJ.Com, keeping communities informed and connected.

[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi, I'm Steve Adubato.

And I want to start right off that a lot of us out there, I'm over here, you're over there.

We're in this thing called this sandwich generation, what is it?

We got kids, some people have grandchildren, but also you have older parents.

They have more needs.

They need us and a person who understands this better than most is joining us right out of the box.

She is Dr. Christine Masterson, Chief of Women's, Children and Dermatology Service Lines at Summit Health.

Doctor, so good to have you with us.

- Well, thanks for having me, Steve.

It's an important topic I'm happy to speak about.

- Yeah, let me ask you this, I keep thinking I'm in the sandwich generation.

Cause my mom, she's got issues and, all good mom, I'm there for you, but we got kids, but I know that my wife, Jennifer, she has way more stress than I do being a part of the sandwich generation, women experiencing more stress than men.

It's not a contest, but it's a fact.

- Yeah, I see patients every day where women are under a lot of stress who are in this generation.

Studies have shown that women do spend more time on the childcare portion of caregiving, men and women spend approximately the same amount of time on aging parents.

But with that, the amount of time that women are spending outside of possibly caring for the home or having a full-time job really adds up.

- My wife has actually, it's not about my wife, Jennifer.

She's literally just talking about that this morning.

She runs a full-time business, we have three children, all with different needs and whatever, and she helps her mom, dad, et cetera.

Stress, so specific concrete advice for women dealing in the sandwich generation with everyday stress.

- Yeah, I think some of the first things I like to tell women, it's okay to say no and it's okay to ask for help.

A lot of women think that they need to be perfect, that they need to do it all, maintain the work employment, be the class mom for the students, make dinner, do the laundry and also take care of your parents.

- I don't want to promote Uber but be the full-time driver.

- That's right, that's right.

Chauffeuring a lot.

And it's okay to ask for help, to create a community of support, whether that's family members or people in your town or school system to help with some of these tasks.

Another really important thing is that you have to take time for yourself.

A lot of women put themselves last on the list.

So they'll make sure that their parents have their appointments or their children get to the dentist, but their appointments get pushed off and off.

And this includes really important things like screening for breast cancer, cervical cancer, making sure that you're getting your well-woman visits or your physical exams.

- Exercise matter a lot?

- Exercise-- - Oh by the way, many say I'd love to, don't have the time, I'm in the sandwich generation.

- Yeah, and that's something I hear often women will complain of gaining weight and not having time to exercise, but it is important.

Exercise is a great way to relieve stress.

And even if it's a short period of time, even just 30 minutes, three or four times a week can make a big difference.

Even simple things like walking up the stairs, parking a little farther away in a parking lot and getting that exercise of walking to the door can really be a great way to relieve stress.

- How has COVID, taping on the 20th of July, there is no has past tense with COVID.

- Yeah, it's interesting.

Every time it seems we think we're past it more and more problems arise from COVID.

- Including stress for parents, disproportionately women.

But how has COVID impacted to date the women who are already feeling stress with all the responsibilities they have?

- It's had a huge impact, the impact of homeschooling and needing to be able to supervise children, especially younger children who may not be able to navigate the virtual world of education while being expected to hop on Zoom meetings and maintain their employment.

And also thinking about, oh, I'm going to have to feed the children lunch because they're not in school where they normally get it and plan for dinner and run the dishwasher one more time.

It's really added to the burden along with the isolation.

So not being able to see family members and the guilt associated with that.

And also not being able to offload some of that support system that we have had in place to help with some of these tasks.

- One more quick followup on women and COVID, please clarify this, for countless women of all ages and the men in their lives who weigh in, simple question came from our terrific team of producers, disproportionately, let's just say disproportionate, they're all women.

How does the COVID vaccine affect women's ability to have a child?

- Yeah, so that was a big concern in the beginning, but the science is really there to say that there should be no scientific link to infertility.

While studies haven't been done specifically on infertility, the American College of OBGYN, the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine and the Society for Reproductive Medicine all came out with a joint statement saying there are no scientific links to infertility with the COVID vaccine.

The millions of people who have gotten it, there have been no reported infertility concerns.

So, I do encourage my patients to get vaccinated.

I believe it is safe.

Even in pregnancy, a woman who's carrying a baby currently, the data really is coming out saying there's no harm.

And if anything, there could be a huge benefit.

- A vaccination's an important key to getting past COVID.

- So as we tape, lower than 12, under 12 cannot get the vaccine.

The Delta variant is what it is.

We don't know what it's gonna be.

Children and vaccines.

When, and if the FDA is emergency approval would you recommend that parents get their children, our daughter's 10 turning 11 vaccinated?

- Yeah I strongly believe in the vaccine.

And I think once they determine the dosage that's safe for children, that that will be an important step.

And I would encourage vaccination once those children do become eligible.

I think that along with continuing to be smart in terms of hand hygiene and masking where appropriate, I think those are going to be important steps in containing this.

- Dr. Christine Masterson at Summit Health and Summit Supports, our public health education programming.

I can't thank you enough.

We wish you all the best and look forward to continuing the conversation about women's health, children's health and dermatology we'll get to at a later time, service lines at Summit.

Thank you so much, Doctor.

- Oh my pleasure, thank you.

- Great job.

I'm Steve Adubato, we'll be right back.

To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're now joined by two very distinguished scholars, talking about police reform and a range of issues.

Thomas Shea, Professor and Program Director of the Police Graduate Studies Program in college, in the College of Education and Human Services at Seton Hall University and Juan Rios, Assistant Professor of Social Work in the department of sociology, anthropology and social work at Seton Hall University.

Gentlemen, thank you for joining us.

- Thank you.

Thank you for having us Steve.

- Tom, let me ask you, the work that you and Juan are doing around police reform and related issues, why is it more important now than ever?

- Well, I think, and much to our own fault and policing, I don't think we've humanized profession enough.

And I think that goes back to the fact that it's sort of a paramilitary type structure, wearing uniform and authoritative, and I think that the message gets lost that behind that uniform, are people.

And people with faults and people that do bad things and just like any other segment of the population.

And I think that the difference between that and the rest of the population in the United States is that policing seems to be the one segment of population where it's okay to generalize.

Many of whom are minorities, but I'm always very careful about how I phrase this, because this is such a sensitive issue.

I'm a staunch critic of bad and corrupt police, but a staunch supporter and defender of good police.

And I think that a lot of good police are going through some very difficult times right now.

- Hey Tom, your background in law enforcement, tell everyone.

- I retired from the Long Branch Police Department in 2017, to enter academia.

- Juan, you have a personal connection to these, not only this subject, its not even one subject.

You have a personal connection.

Share it please.

- Absolutely.

So the work that I'm doing, is not only driven by the importance of how this affects our society at the current state, but also my background.

I have an uncle who was shot and killed by a police officer through a routine stop and frisk situation.

And you know, back in the eighties, "Stop or I'll shoot" was not a suggestion.

And having that loss firsthand, what it's like to lose someone at the hands of overzealous policing definitely does inform; one, how I both engage with the community regarding this topic, but as well as to being, having corrective relationships, such as the partnership I have with Thomas Shea.

Being able to collaborate with law enforcement officers and the police officers, who all want the same thing as community members, which is we want safe communities.

- And is that what the Community Care and Justice Initiative is all about Tom?

- Well, that's actually more of Juan's baby.

I was brought into that-- - Juan, jump in on that and I'll come back to you, Tom.

- Yeah, of course.

So, the Community Care and Justice Initiative is a very innovative and fantastic initiative because we bring in a partnership from one, Essex county, two, the South Orange Municipality and three, Seton Hall.

So we have the academic research component.

We have the community component and we have law enforcement really driving it.

So it's really being able to look at how can this partnership be able to identify what the community's values, assets and needs look like.

And we define community, not just per residents, but residents, neighbors, and visitors and law enforcement is included within that population.

- Tom, let me ask you something particularly with your law enforcement background, how do we pursue quote on quote police reform, whether it's better training, whether it's increasing diversity, and our law enforcement units across the nation are not nearly as diverse as they need to be reflected in the communities they serve, a whole range of other things, including the civilian review board, Newark and other places being talked about.

Tom, how do we do that without so many police officers, your brothers and sisters in blue that you no longer work with, but tell me all the time and tell you, "We're under siege, we can't do our job.

We are now the enemy and we can't even protect the people who are most vulnerable, who are disproportionately black and brown."

Loaded question, I know, but how the heck do you pursue police reform without demonizing the police who feel demonized, many?

- They do.

- Not just a few.

- And rightly so.

Rightly so, some of them do, some of my colleagues, matter of fact.

My former colleagues might, and in the Long Branch police department who're retired, but I think that we have to, well that's one of the reasons why I started the research project as now involved with that project that Juan's doing in South Orange.

I interviewed a bunch of cops in anonymity, and I think that's a shame that they are being interviewed at anonymity 'cause I think there'll be looked at completely different and they should be able to disagree.

And I'm not talking about the police leaders, the police leaders come out and give those stock answers that we see in the paper.

Not all of them, generally speaking, but they give those stock answers regarding what you know, does not reflect the moral compass of this agency.

And I think that, if we humanize the profession more and let the people from the street talk, the ones that are having daily interactions with people.

And the second part of that is, there needs to be an increase in accountability in policing.

And part of that, I just completed a research project with a professor from St. John's university, Dr. Bernard Jones, an African-American professor who had a lot of bad experiences with policing.

And we completed a project where we discussed taking the internal affairs component out of the police department.

Not to civilian complaint board, but to competent professional, former IA, former internal affairs investigators to have an objective and independent investigation.

- Is the basic argument that having a internal affairs is an inherent conflict?

- I think it is.

- Is that the argument?

- Yeah, I was an internal affairs officer for six years.

And it's a very, very difficult job when you're investigating people that you work with.

Whether you feel you're doing the right thing or not, A moral courage is a very difficult thing to do.

And it's very easy to take the laissez-faire approach.

- How strong is the code of blue, the blue code?

How strong is it, Tom?

- You know, I always hear blue code and I don't necessarily believe in that, at least from my experience.

- You may not believe in it, but do you believe it exists?

- I believe it exists, but not in the sense that they're doing it because they're covering for other quote on quote police officers.

I think it's more of a human nature aspect, not to want to talk out against your own.

- Juan, let me ask you, you come to this, not just as an academic and a scholar, but someone who's experienced, as you just shared a little bit of it, and we can't even imagine the kinds of things you face.

Do you believe it's realistic over the next five to 10 years, that real meaningful, forget about just police reform, but that communities, disproportionately communities of color, that the majority of people in those communities could begin to have real respect for men and women in blue, with a gun and a badge, serving to protect them, in spite of the Derek Chauvins of the world.

- No, absolutely.

I think that, we think, when we talk about policing and I'm gonna give my example, as you mentioned earlier.

My lived experience of having someone killed, who is, was my father figure created a sense of disconnect, this thing whenever I seen someone in blue approach me.

I know what it's like to have my face on the hood of a car.

I know what it's like to get tackled in my community for just being in front of my household, if someone else wouldn't fit the description, but these corrective relationships and partnerships like I have with Tom, are the ones that are able to have been able to help me look at policing differently.

But we're all saying the same thing.

One thing that Tom says that I quote all the time is that we have to move away from tribalism.

The most, one of the most profound statements that he made to me, he said, "What do you have when you have a hundred good cops and three bad cops, but those hundred good cops do not do what anything in order to correct those bad cops.

What do you have?

103 bad cops, but Tom is one of those good ones, and what I've seen in him is that we have, are saying the same things in our community.

We want relationships about how we're policed, by who we're policed.

That these people, that the folks who are policing have a connection to the community, have an investment to human dignity and worth.

And that is how we move forward together.

Not through tribalism.

- Yeah, you know, again, we don't attempt to serve as judge jury or anything else, but I mentioned Derek Chauvin, there are several of the police officers who stood, and not just stood by, but stood and kept the crowd away and did not stop their colleague from doing what he did to George Floyd.

People can decide for themselves, what a good cop or a bad cop is or is not.

Hey, Tom and Juan, thank you.

And by the way, Seton Hall is one of our higher ed partners, and I've been honored to teach there for the last several years in the Buccino Leadership Institute.

So I want to thank you gentlemen, and wishing you and your colleagues all the best.

- Thank you so much for your time, Steve.

- Thank you for having me here.

- Thank you, gentlemen.

We'll be right back.

To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We are pleased to be joined by Dr. Steven Sheris, Executive Vice-President and Chief Physician Executive of Atlantic Health System and President of Atlantic Medical Group.

Good to see you, Doctor.

- Thanks for having me, Steve.

- I'm curious about something.

We've asked a whole range of healthcare and physician leaders about the most significant pivot that they've made as it relates to COVID.

What would you say yours has been?

- Well, I think for a lot of leaders who are used to managing every detail of healthcare, because it's necessary to assure good outcomes and safety, COVID has required us to really trust our teams and let them operate with maturity, experience, and agility in an environment that is constantly changing.

So we have to give up a lot of control in order to succeed.

- The other thing that's interesting, and I'm fascinated by communication, and to disclose, communicate clearly, Atlantic Health is one of the underwriters of what we do.

But I'm gonna ask you this.

From a communication point of view, if telehealth is here to stay, if telehealth is gonna be such an important part of our life, does it make the ability and the need for physicians to be even more effective communicators, not in person, A, and B, how the heck is that being taught?

- Right, we knew right from the onset of the pandemic when telehealth became really the only way we could safely remain connected with our patients that we had to develop a different communication style.

And not only did we build the telehealth platform and stand it up within three days way back in March of 2020, but we simultaneously embarked upon a communication strategy.

The web presence, how you remain connected, how you maintain the relationship that you have developed with your patients over the years in the exam room, but through the barrier of telehealth.

And I think the patients really appreciated that.

I think it remained a personal experience.

- You know, there's so much convenience involved.

But a personal anecdote, which I know is gonna be shared by a lot of others, that's the only reason I share or disclose, is I was, there's a dermatologist who's absolutely great, and I sent her a picture.

I said, "Hey, take a look at this, Doctor."

And she goes, "Well, I can't tell from the picture.

You have to come in."

And I came in and she did what she needed to do.

But I realized that, while telehealth is incredibly useful, there are limitations and we need to realize that it can't all be done, nor should it all be done that way, but it does have a place.

Is that a fair assessment?

- Absolutely.

It's one of many ways to deliver care.

It will not supplant in-person care.

Often, it will be necessary to lay hands on the patient or see something in person to get the full clinical picture.

But what it does for us is it enables our ability to remain connected with our patients and actually reach out more frequently, less expensively.

- That's right.

- And in a real connected way to ensure health and wellness, and also take care of patients when they're mildly ill. - Doctor, you and your colleagues very committed to helping those who are long-haulers from COVID.

Exactly what's going on?

We had in October, stood up our Atlantic COVID Recovery Center, headed by Dr. Fred Cerrone and David Sousa.

And pretty quickly, we were seeing 12 to 15 new patients a week taking care of a total of 650 patients to this date with a varying array of symptoms, anything from the usual brain fog that you might read about to neurologic symptoms, to cardiopulmonary symptoms, to fatigue, patients actually felt lost.

Like there was no hope.

And for us standing up this center, it gave them one place, one stop shopping, one coordinator, one navigator, where they could get help and begin to direct their care as appropriate.

- Do you mind if I shift gears to talk about leadership in this sense?

You have a connection and a relationship with a former Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, correct?

- Yeah, it was a fleeting relationship because I got to participate in the care of his chief of staff when I was in the Navy about 30 years ago when I was a cardiology fellow at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

- Can I ask you a specific question?

- Sure.

- And studying General Powell on his leadership style, one of the things that always struck me and is that not only was he tough and strong and made tough decisions.

And he said to me, one time in interviews, "Sometimes people get peeved at you for making tough decisions or giving them feedback they don't want to hear."

The other side of him is a very important, empathetic and compassionate and caring part that you shared with some of our producers.

And you talked about publicly, please share.

- Well, yeah, you know, after that incident where we took care of his chief of staff in the cardiac cath lab during a heart attack, what struck me and I was in my thirties at that point is General Powell then reached out to the entire care team and not just to the doctors, to the cardiologists, but to the techs, to the secretaries, to the nurses each and every person got a personalized photograph from General Powell saying, "Thank you."

And to me, that's the greatest sign of a leader when he deflects credit to his teammates for successes, when he remembers that a small word of kindness can leave a lasting effect.

And so that always stuck with me and a year and a half ago when our CEO, Brian Gragnolati, who you know, was the chair of the American Hospital Association, invited me to an event where General Powell had spoken.

And I related that story to the General.

And I just said, "General, I want to thank you for saying thank you."

So in some way, my career came full circle because it taught me a lot about the effect of words and leadership and trust and imbuing that trust in your team enables those people to achieve great successes.

- Finally before I let you go saying thank you to frontline healthcare workers, a year and a half into this pandemic, how important?

- The thanks has been overwhelming from our community members.

That's who we serve.

Right from day one, the outpouring of support that we got at Atlantic Health System was a never ending well of resilience for us.

And we could not have achieved what we did without the thanks of our community.

So it was returned back to us immeasurably.

And I want to say again, thank you to everybody who has supported the healthcare workers through this pandemic.

- And we and the media want to say thank you as well, and say thank you to you doctor for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you, Steve.

- I'm Steve Adubato, we thank you our audience for watching and let's make sure we see each other next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

TD Bank.

ADP.

The Fidelco Group.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, Clean Energy program.

Johnson & Johnson.

Fedway Associates, Inc. MD Advantage Insurance Company.

And by The Adler Aphasia Center.

Promotional support provided by ROI-NJ, And by NJ.Com.

- Hi.

I'm Governor Tom Kean.

A dear friend of mine had aphasia, which is a language disorder that occurs from a brain injury or a stroke.

It robs a person's ability to communicate, but it doesn't affect their intellect.

Programs and services offered at the Adler Aphasia Center help to improve my friend's communication skills, as well as her self confidence and quality of life.

Most importantly, she was among people who understood her.

If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with aphasia, there is hope.