- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Here when you need us most.

PNC, Grow Up Great.

The Turrell Fund, supporting Reimagine Childcare.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

The New Jersey Education Association.

PSC.

Where your story is our business.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Working for a more a healthier, more equitable New Jersey.

Johnson & Johnson.

And by the Adler Aphasia Center.

Promotional support provided byROI-NJ.

Informing and connecting businesses in New Jersey.

And by CIANJ, and Commerce Magazine.

[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with a healthcare leader making a difference.

Dr. Jubril Oyeyemi is Founder and Chief Medical Officer, Cherry Hill Free Clinic.

Their website will be up so you can find out more.

Doctor, so good to have you with us.

- Thanks for having me, Steve, appreciate it.

- You got it.

Doctor, share with everyone what the Cherry Hill Free Clinic is, A, and B, who you serve every day.

- Absolutely, so the Cherry Hill Free Clinic, the mission is simple, primary care for the uninsured.

So if you think about about what it costs per county, what it costs you to sort of survive, you'll find that in different counties, especially around Camden County where where we're located, it's something like for a family of four, you have to make about 70 to 80, 77,000 to be specific, right?

And so you look around and you realize that, man, how many people around you actually make that amount of money?

And so what the Cherry Hill Free Clinic does is it provides medical care to provide space where folks who can't afford health insurance, who don't have jobs that offer health insurance, who don't qualify for, who aren't poor enough for Medicaid, and aren't old enough for Medicare, who are sort of stuck in the middle, and what we do is a group of volunteer clinicians, about 60 or so between doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, and PAs sort of volunteer your time so that folks in the community who don't have access to health insurance, and can't afford to see a primary care doctor can have a place to come to, and we've done that for the last six years now to the tune of thousands of visits.

Just wanted to acknowledge, with Dr. Oyeyemi and the work they're doing at Cherry Hill Free Clinic, that one of their underwriters is one of ours.

The Horizon Foundation also underwrites the important work going on at the clinic.

- You know, first of all, people say this to people who serve in the military often, and it's appropriate, but we should also say it particularly to people in the world of healthcare, especially three years plus into the pandemic.

Thank you for your service and the difference you're making, doctor, but I'm curious about something.

We are a not-for-profit production company, and we spend a lot of our time, beyond our broadcasting work and producing programming, raising money.

Now, you're a not-for-profit, and the healthcare community is struggling, hospitals are struggling to make ends meet financially.

How do you do that?

- So you know, that's a very good question, Steve, and it's interesting, because of all the operational challenges to provide healthcare at no cost to people who need it, right?

Of all the challenges we have as a free clinic, recruiting the doctors, the nurses, the nurse practitioners is actually not one of those.

I mean, it's incredible, you talk to, you know, the doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, right?

Almost every single one of 'em I know, it's why they went into medicine, nursing, to care for folks who don't have the means, right?

And so almost everyone I talk to across all the hospitals, so you know, our volunteers come from VirtualHealth, Cooper Health, AtlantiCare, Jefferson, and some from up north as well, right?

And almost everyone you talk to who hears about the mission goes, "You know what?

I wanna be a part of that," right?

- Right.

- And they might have capacity for it, but being sold on the mission is not something difficult, because you see it as a healthcare provider, you know, you see it all the time, folks coming to the emergency room with a second heart attack, with a second stroke, and when you get down to the bottom of why they're there, it's because some sort of life change happens, something happened, and that led to not having health insurance, and they couldn't afford to see their primary care doctor, couldn't afford to get $4 medications, and now they're having a second heart attack.

And so your heart just breaks for those folks, so you know, we took it upon, a group of us came together and said, "You know what?

We need to do this," and I'm just so incredibly proud of that team because we've served just thousands of neighbors who otherwise would've suffered.

- Doctor, to all those physicians, to all those nurses, to all those physician assistants, to all those clinicians, again, it's extraordinary service.

You didn't say that's easy.

You said that's not the hardest part.

And my question really, it goes back to the question of money, because the classic expression in the not-for-profit business, and I've said it a million times, I'm sorry if our audience is tired of hearing it, but when you're in public broadcasting, connected, affiliated, no money, no mission.

You could have all the greatest ideas in the world, you can wanna make a difference in the community, you could wanna do good programming, you could want to provide quality healthcare for people who don't have insurance, but you spend a lot of your time raising money.

- True, true, you're so right about that, and so you know, it's interesting, 'cause it's about 130 plus volunteers.

Half of those are clinicians, the other half are non-clinicians, and so like, our grants team for example, our sort of major sponsors team who go out and do the non-clinical work to support the mission of the Cherry Hill Free Clinic cannot thank those folks enough.

But also Steve, you know, the community, the health systems that support our work, VirtualHealth, the religious centers, for example, the Muslim community here in South Jersey that gives us the space for free, you know- - Right.

- Those are invaluable resources that help us do what we do, and then there's thousands of donors in the community who- You know what really gets me, Steve?

Sometimes I'm seeing a patient there in the clinic who at checkout is going, "I can't believe this is free.

I just can't believe it," and that patient is going, "You know, I wanna give something, here's my $5," and I'm going, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You keep that $5, you need that."

- One second, doctor, the patients and their families are giving?

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

It just floors you every time that happens, and that happens quite a lot, and these are folks who are often struggling with other, you know, food insecurity, housing insecurity.

I'm like, "No, no, no, you keep that," you know?

But it's just such a remarkable mission, and the community just supports it in such a way that just melts your heart.

- I'm sorry for interrupting, doctor.

I'm curious about something.

You could be making a lot of money, you know, as a physician in private practice.

I'm not saying it's easy, but you could go a different, you could have gone a different way here.

From a very personal perspective, why did you choose to do this?

- So Steve, I'll say it's the reason I actually pursued medicine in the first place.

As a young kid growing up in Nigeria, before coming here for college and then med school, the reason I went into medicine is 'cause I saw what lack of healthcare to folks who can't afford it, what that looks like.

And so fast forward 20 years later, I came to the US, you know, greatest country in the world, right?

And I realized that the same struggles, the same reason for which I went into medicine some decades ago, I'm seeing that right here, my neighbors right here who don't have access to care.

And so that drive, Steve, that drive, you know, when the clinic first opened, I had a full-time job Monday through Friday.

I was working on the weekends.

So I would round in the hospital, I would start in the hospital at 5:00 a.m. so that I can be at the clinic by 8:00 a.m., because I knew that there was a waiting room full of folks who were uninsured waiting to be seen.

And so thankfully, I don't have to do that anymore, because it's 60 plus clinicians who, and get this, the clinic is open almost every day of the month.

I mean, I say the emergency room is the only place probably open more times than we are, because folks in the community need that service.

And so yeah, Steve, that drive, that's why I went into medicine.

It's to care for folks who otherwise wouldn't have access to that care.

- To be clear, and the website has been up for the Cherry Hill Free Clinic, and again, we are based up in North Jersey, but our responsibility is to the entire state, the region, but primarily New Jersey.

I wanna be clear here, some of the services, adult primary care, chronic disease management, wellness exams, preventive care for the uninsured, folks who are struggling to get the quality, accessible, affordable child, not childcare, I'm thinking our childcare series, but healthcare, for so many of us, we take it for granted.

Dr. Oyeyemi, I cannot thank you enough for joining us.

And also the other thing is if you wanna go on the website, find out how you can make a difference, how you can be helpful.

We're not gonna turn this into a fundraiser for the Cherry Hill Free Clinic, but make a difference.

You know, we take it for granted too often what we have.

Thank you, all the best, Jubril, we appreciate it.

- Thank you, sir, appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

- You got it.

Stay with us, 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 Kelly Hart Executive Director of the Center for Family Resources.

Kelly, thank you for joining us.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- Kelly, you were telling me right before we got on the air that the center is based in Passaic County.

- That's correct, yep.

We're at Passaic County.

- As the website goes up, tell everyone what the center is.

- So the Center for Family Resources we work with children and families in Passiac County.

We cover all of the county except for the cities of Passaic and Paterson.

We run Headstart and Early Headstart programs as well as a home-based program option for pregnant women and children.

We also have some community initiatives including rental and utility assistance as well as the Family Success Center.

- Now Kelly, your background and your becoming the Executive Director of the Center for Family Resources is interesting.

I have my notes but your communicating and sharing it is a lot more compelling, please.

- Yes, so this isn't the path that I thought I was going to take when I went to college.

So, I actually went to college for communications and I thought I'd be a film director, but now I'm a director in a different aspect.

I really found my love for working with the community, children, and families after college.

So I started as a teacher and then I went into our Family Success Center and worked directly with the community.

Went back to school for my master's in nonprofit leadership and management and here I am now as the Executive Director.

- Your ability to connect with families, particularly women, heads of families, women who are, obviously people don't need to hear this from me, there's more pressure on women in family situations than men in most situations.

Your ability to empathize and connect with those women, talk about that.

- So you said the word empathize.

So empathy, I think, is really where I've been able to get to where I am now.

I have found that I have this love and joy for connecting with families.

Women do, they do have it harder than maybe other people.

And Head Start and Early Head Start programs are for families that maybe have a lot of other circumstances around it.

And we wanna make sure that they get this headstart in life equal to somebody else who maybe has a better situation, whether that be financially or other risks, homelessness, teen parents, these are all things that affect women and children and Headstart really is able to give them these tools.

- So people hear Headstart, not everyone understands what it is.

Describe what Headstart is and the impact it has on families, particularly on children, who otherwise would not be getting a headstart.

- Right, so Headstart is a program from the federal government.

So it comes from the Office of Headstart, which is based in Washington DC, and it really gives the low income at risk families more of a chance to have this preschool education.

So that when they get into school they found that children that come from lower income families are behind when they get to school.

So we have created this program that's not just preschool, it's wraparound services too.

So we have staff that are able to work with children with their mental health and wellbeing.

We have family service workers who work directly with the families.

We have... Special needs are being met in our classrooms.

And this is all happening early on 'cause we have a option of pregnant women.

So it's pregnancy through when they go to public school at five.

- Really interesting to me because every organization, particularly in the not-for-profit community, struggles on so many levels.

But COVID, we're taping this in the spring of 2023, every journey, every pivot, every decision, every layoff, every cutting back, greater demand for services, trust me, there's a question here.

What would you say the most significant impact of the Pandemic has been?

Not just on your organization but on the people you serve every day.

- So, okay, so I have an answer for both of those.

- Sure, separate them.

Okay, do the organization first.

Do the organization first.

- Okay.

In terms of our organization I'm gonna say a pro and a con.

So the pro of COVID on our organization is it really forced us to become more tech savvy than we were.

So making sure that we can do virtual communication, making sure were able to have... everybody in the organization has an email, everybody has a computer, everybody has these means of working either from a virtual platform or in the office for when we weren't here.

The hardship of that was we lost some staff.

So we have found some of the positions harder to fill since COVID.

One of them being our Home Base program.

Home Base is a great program.

I actually was a pregnant woman in the Home Base program.

It's fantastic, but finding people who want to go into people's homes is hard, especially since COVID.

It's hard for the parents to want someone in their homes, for staff to wanna go into homes.

'Cause I think that risk of whether it be infectious disease or whatever, is kind of higher and heightened since COVID.

- So I wanna be clear.

So again, for us as well, a lot of con, a lot of negative, lot of problems, but also, and it's hard to say this because so many people suffered.

Talk about empathy.

So many people have suffered in so many ways particularly small businesses and others through COVID.

There have been some positives for us as well including our ability to do programming this way.

Now for our clients.

- Right.

- Those you serve, most significant impact.

- Behavior.

So we have found that children are really affected.

So whether its, kind of this...

I would say it's behavioral in a sense of the mental health of our children has really been affected since COVID.

And it's very evident when you go into some of our classrooms.

They're struggling so we're really trying to provide different supports.

Whether that be more parenting classes for our families, whether that be more outreach to different providers to be able to have mental health consultants on hand for both children and families.

So it's the mental health and wellbeing that's really affected the children and families that we serve.

- Before I let you go, Kelly, first of all, thank you for joining us.

We appreciate not only you being with us but sharing the story of the Center for Family Resources.

The greatest satisfaction you get from your work is?

- It's helping others.

So I love helping others and I was doing it at a community level and now it's not only the children and families but it's the staff.

And the staff that work for Center for Family Resources really are important and special to me.

And every day I want them to know I see them, I hear them, and I value them.

So that's really where I'm at.

(Kelly laughing) - Kelly Hart is Executive Director of the Center for Family Resources.

Kelly, we thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you so much.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato, We'll see you right after this.

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

- We are now joined by Dr. Vasantha Kondamudi, who is Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Holy Name Medical Center, to disclose one of the underwriters of our healthcare programming.

Doctor, it's great to have you with us.

- Thank you for inviting me, Steve.

- Our pleasure.

Listen, in reading about your background, your journey, you've been a physician for a few years.

- Yes, since 1985.

- I'm curious about this.

Your passion for medicine comes from where?

- I would say from my childhood.

As a child, I lost my brother at the age of six years, and that had a big impact on my decision to be a doctor because I was always curious and my parents encouraged, and they, you know, they actually helped me to go with my dreams.

And by God's grace, I was able to enroll in a top-notch medical school in India, which is a Christian medical college.

from your personal, not just your professional perspective, but from your personal perspective, describe, and I appreciate how people wanna move on from COVID and I get it, we're taping at the end of April.

"Let's move on.

We're past it."

Get it.

But I happen to know that your experiences were very profound and personal during COVID.

Please talk to us about it.

- Yes.

You know, it was facing almost very close to death, and as a human, the fears were real, the anxiety was real, especially having to deal with so many, not only patients, but also with the physicians who are going through the same emotions like you.

But I was able to actually relieve their anxieties by being with them.

Even though I was an executive, I could have stayed in my office, and giving orders, and making strategies, and plans, and treatments, et cetera.

I personally went from floor to floor, was with all the residents and physicians from 10 to ED the ICU to the floor, so that I could share their emotions, and calm them down, and motivate them to see another day while they're going through their hardship.

And it's a lot of emotions, I would say, but I think I had to manage my emotions first, and I had to be strong first, in order for me to share and stabilize their emotions.

So, it was very emotional for all of us.

- And as you move forward several years, when COVID began for us in March of 2020, the long-term impact of COVID, of this pandemic, not just on the hospital community, but on the future physician pipeline, if you will.

- Mm-hmm.

- Please, 'cause physician burnout is real.

The challenges from a human personal health perspective, mental and otherwise, is real.

The physician pipeline as it relates to COVID, please.

- Yes, it impacted on physicians, their emotions.

And it was almost similar to, I would say, post-traumatic distress...

Many physicians, the emotions ranged from anxiety to fear, to depression, to various others, burnout.

I would say that which actually resulted in many several physicians they have actually committed suicides, as you probably heard in the news, and also impacted our residency enrollment.

Actually this year we had- - Did it go down?

- Yes, it went down for the emergency physicians.

So that lot of emergency physicians in the match program were not matched because the physicians were reluctant to join emergency medicine 'cause of the way that they faced as the pandemic evolved, and it hit the emergency department first before it- - So, how do we move forward?

I'm sorry for interrupting, doctor, how do we move forward by encouraging, not just encouraging the best and the brightest to go into medicine, into the physician community, but also the training of those future physicians, please.

- So, this is a role modeling.

Many of us have survived.

In order for us to motivate those best and bright, first of all, they need role models.

They need to see that the physicians who went through pandemic and how we are different people right now, we are strong, we are courageous, and we are flexible.

There is a different types of traits or different types of attributes that we need, we have acquired going through this challenge, which is severe crisis.

So, by talking to the students and by engaging them from the time that they're medical students, that, you know, just encouraging them to see that there is hope and we are stronger ever after pandemic.

- I'm sorry for interrupting.

What about graduate medical education and all this?

- Yeah, it is the same thing.

It is, first of all, you need to go through medical student.

As a medical student, after completing medicine, you would join graduate medical education to join different types of residencies and specialties.

So, it could range from emergency medicine to internal medicine, OB-GYN.

There are several residencies and fellowships.

So, I think that's what is needed.

And sorry, when you mentioned encouraging the students to take up medicine, and I think that starts in the high schools.

So, I think it is important to reach out to the local high schools and allowing them to volunteer in the hospitals, those that wanna pursue.

And I think there is a lot more education is needed in terms of, you know, in the public sector.

And I'm sure that, you know, the one side we suffered, but they are on the other side.

I think everybody realized the importance of having enough workforce, and the importance of becoming doctors and physicians to be on the forefront to meet another challenge.

And actually I feel that there is so much of, so much will be learned through the pandemic.

- Dr. Kondamudi, not just to you and your colleagues at Holy Name, but to all the physicians at the hospitals across this state, this region, this nation, and the nurses, and other clinicians.

You know, we call them the heroes in the first year, and then somehow we forgot.

I'll be off my soapbox when I say this.

Thank you for everything that you did and that you'll continue to do as a physician leader.

Thank you, doctor.

- Thank you.

- I'm Steve Adubato.

See you next time.

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

Funding has been provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

PNC, Grow Up Great.

The Turrell Fund, supporting Reimagine Childcare.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

The New Jersey Education Association.

PSC.

Where your story is our business.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Johnson & Johnson.

And by the Adler Aphasia Center.

Promotional support provided byROI-NJ.

And by CIANJ, and Commerce Magazine.

- (Narrator) New Jersey is home to the best public schools in the nation, and that didn't happen by accident.

It's the result of parents, educators and communities working together year after year to give our students a world class education.

No matter the challenge, because parents and educators know that with a shared commitment to our public schools, our children can learn, grow and thrive.

And together, we can keep New Jersey's public schools the best in the nation.