I am trying to make an actual TV show.

It's so hard to find a funny show that isn't filthy.

I watch them, but I don't want to.

Let's do this.

Fire!

Like lots of fire.

I'm so dedicated.

So cool.

Where does it go from there?

You know.

Oh, I forgot your attention.

Now.

This is bigger than you can handle.

Well, the new plans for tonight.

Gone for both.

Oh.

What are you waiting for?

Let's go.

Cool.

Absolutely.

So please welcome Van Lathan.

Then.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, everybody.

How y'all doing?

A little more energy.

That's what I like.

I, That was a beautiful episode of television.

I love medical shows because it's this great American human drama all wrapped around stuff that you didn't know could happen to you.

So you go straight to MMD and freak yourself out for like the next 5 or 6 hours straight.

I want to introduce Jocko Sims up here.

The man who brought me here to Denver to speak with you guys so that he can tell you a little bit about what we're going to be talking about and introduce our illustrious panel.

So I called my man.

Take it away.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you everyone.

Just such an incredible episode.

I'm so glad that we got to share that with you.

And, I won't take up too much time because we should just definitely get it going.

So I want to introduce our panelists.

The creator of New Amsterdam, my former boss, Mr.

David Schuler.

Come on down, please, sir.

Okay, it's coming on down.

It'll sit right here.

Then we have from the Mile High Medical Society.

We have Doctor Neil Mitchell here.

Thank you.

Right here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Right.

That's right.

Okay, good.

We have doctor General Alan Davis from Craig Hospital.

And we're glad to have Doctor Michelle Albert from the American Heart Association.

All right.

Thank you.

I'll turn it over to Van.

So, David, I'm going to start with you.

Tell us a little bit about how New Amsterdam came about.

Why it jumped out at you, how the show became, what it became.

Got it.

First collaborator, not boss.

Right.

Like five years of collaboration.

You know, your New Amsterdam came about because I was searching for ideas I wanted.

Not even necessarily to write a medical show.

As a writer, I'm always looking for conflict.

Tension?

And paradox is like two things that are completely incongruous.

Like two things that don't go together will create the ultimate conflict and tension, which will give me stories forever.

And so I read a book of by Doctor Eric Mann Heimer, who was the, medical director of Bellevue for 15 years and during his tenure, he was diagnosed with cancer.

So he became a doctor and a patient at the same time.

And that's what I thought.

Okay, that's going to give me a story.

How does that work?

And so I knew that that was going to be the engine that was going to be the way into New Amsterdam.

And that's how it started.

Quick follow up.

This particular show takes several different aspects of the American experience and melds them together.

You have something that was very familiar to me.

Me trying to get my grandmother to go to the doctor, trying to drag her to the doctor.

You have that plus the interplay between the, the physicians there, there seems to be a cultural IQ that this episode had that I wouldn't have actually expected from something that's on network.

How does that come about in the show?

How do you guys get to that point?

So I write the pilot, first episode of the show.

That's all me figuring it out.

Who?

The characters.

What's the world, what are the stories?

And a lot of that came from Doctor Manheim, his book.

And when the show gets picked up a series, you bring in a room of writers and collaborators.

I mean, even on the pilot, I was calling Jocko the night before filming saying, this isn't sitting right with some of the back at NBC.

How can you help me?

Tell me your story so I can write the day before we shooting.

So, so it's so great to have collaborators.

So when the show got picked up to series, I hired a room of ten writers.

And I feel like what I learned was, the show's not about me.

Like, I'm a conductor, and I'm hiring an orchestra of incredible voices and virtuosos who each play their own instrument and who each are experts at that.

So when I hire writers, I'm looking for points of view.

You.

I don't even care if you're a great writer.

I want to I want to hire people who are great people and who have a story to tell.

And so this episode was written by Erica Greene Swafford.

Yeah.

Give her a round, Mason.

And directed by Peter Horton.

And so Erica came to me and all the writers, like, I have a board in the writers room with all the ideas that I find really interesting in medicine, and all the writers completely ignore that board.

And they because they, they have their own passions, which is, again, what I learned.

Let them tell the stories that they're dying to tell.

And this was a story Erica was dying to tell.

And she wanted to tell about a story, about how hard it is to find care in rural communities.

But we're a New York City hospital.

So it's like, Erica, how are we going to tell that story at New Amsterdam.

So then Erica went away and came back and hit upon this idea of this bus crash about a group of ladies from Alabama.

And then we kept working about who are the ladies.

What other stories are there to tell besides just lack of rural care?

And so once me and Erica figured out what those stories were, then we brought it to the room.

And then our other writers brought their experience to this episode.

Wow.

Wow.

Fantastic.

Jocko.

So we saw you doing that, being really, really hard on that young brother right there, man.

Getting them right with them in the shape.

So you're playing the the, the boss at the head of the surgical department, like, and you're playing a very prominent black doctor, and you're doing that on a major, major platform.

What was your thought process going into the role?

How did you look at that?

How important was that portrayal to you?

Yeah.

First of all, I had I always told the story that I wanted to be a doctor when I was in school.

I even had a medical symbol on my high school ring.

But I got to college and realized I didn't want to be in school for the next 12 years.

So, kudos to you for that right there.

And everyone else appeared.

But, I took a theater course and fell in love with it, so I always wanted to play a doctor.

So when this came along, it was, an opportunity to live two dreams at once, in a sense.

And, yes, David did call me, the night before we shot, and that was a shocking experience, a great way experience that, or creator of the show would get my opinion or what?

I thought as an actor, it's not something you see all of the time.

And, just, being able to to to step in the in the shoes of Doctor Reynolds, as has been life changing for me.

It's been very impactful.

And one of the most exciting, amazing things has been people contacted me, actually, while the show was on and saying, because of you playing Doctor Reynolds, my son now wants to be a doctor, and I thank you for that.

So, I'm not sure what the question was, but it's been very impactful for me.

So actually, I'll actually I'll follow up with another question.

So as I'm watching the show, I'm watching the interplay between you and the younger black doctor, and there's something that's happening there that's familiar to me.

He's singing along to a gospel song, and we all know that's, like, culturally imbued into us.

And whenever we hear it, we start humming to.

And you say, time out for that.

Be present.

Be here.

Be where you are.

And at first I go.

Now why do you treat them like that?

And then I go, well, they have to do the surgery and stuff.

When you're in that position, like on the show.

What do you draw from in your own personal life that allows you to kind of grind into that relationship with him, where you got to say, cut the church off?

Cut that off.

Stop that black southern part of you right now and be the physician in this room.

Yeah.

I've.

I feel like, someone who has grown up in church.

You always have that, you know, duality of of when to when to pray and when to sort of rely on, reality and tangible things that you have to deal with here.

As far as stepping into that role with Ian Duff, who's just, incredible in that role, he was fantastic.

I feel like I've been big brother to a lot of young men, and I've had to, you know, say, stop being a knucklehead.

A time or two.

And I've been in his shoes as well.

But I think I do play the mentor.

If you haven't seen much of the show, I'm not always a jerk.

And every episode of is very loving, caring character.

But, yeah, you know, I just seize any opportunity that they present every.

Yeah.

One week, I would be, like, a little bit of a stickler and other times that, you know, be a little baby and having fun at the birthday episode where I got to be very funny.

So, Yeah.

Also, just let y'all know, I love to, like, let the audience in on, you know, how things came about.

And Jocko was kind of a big brother in me, a little bit to get me out here because, you know, I always ask, you know, what's this?

What's this?

And he goes, so black doctors fan.

You come into Denver.

And I'm glad I did.

Okay.

Doctor Michelle Albert from the American Heart Association, how realistic is what we just saw?

How much did it touch you in terms of what you saw with the care, with some of the pitfalls that particularly black people, particularly the black women, fall into with how they are attempting to get care and what they know about their own bodies, how much they resonate with you.

So thanks for that question and thanks, everyone for being here.

You know, I'm going to answer your question with a little bit of storytelling.

I think it's always important.

Whenever, you're in a particular circumstance to understand, you know, why we do what we do.

So I went into medicine because I grew up in an environment, that was a working class environment.

And I saw the juxtaposition between poverty and health, and that.

Soil has actually provided, the runway, from which I view pretty much everything.

The other parts of my life, I'm a cardiologist, a practicing cardiologist.

So I got really excited in the episode where I saw the sweet and shocking and the and the or, etc.

because, that is how I live my life.

I am a critical care cardiologist.

And I went into cardiology because my grandfather had cardiac arrest.

I was raised by my grandparents, and my one day, the next door neighbor came by and said, hey, your grandfather just didn't say, hey, but, your grandfather just died at the street corner three blocks away.

And, there was nobody to give him CPR.

There was no defibrillation, none of that.

And as a young child, experiencing, that sort of loss is always seared in your mind.

And you want to make things better?

Not just for you, but, for the circumstances that existed, brought that about.

So the other part of my life, I actually direct, I run a research center at the University of California, San Francisco.

And it's called a center for the Study of Adversity and cardiovascular disease.

And adversity is important.

Because you see, in this context, in the emergency room, people are showing up with all different types of adversity.

And we know that not all forms of adversity result in health outcomes, but certainly sustained adversity will.

And that's what you saw showing up in that emergency room.

The other part of my life actually relates to, these medical students in some way.

I serve as the dean of admissions at UCSF School of Medicine.

And, UCSF, for those of you who don't know, UCSF, it is the medical institution in this country.

It's the only it doesn't have an undergrad.

So a lot of the public might not be aware of it, but it's actually the number two ranked medical school in the United States.

And as you heard that, I am immediate past, present American Heart Association and also immediate past president of the Association of Black Cardiologists.

So I tell you all of that, to say, the reason that I do what I do is because we saw coming into that emergency room, what you saw coming into that emergency room are human stories.

Stories that many of us might be familiar with.

Some of us may not be so familiar with.

And as a physician, I feel like my number one role is to meet people at the human interface.

Yes, we we have that technical knowledge and all of that.

But it's really bringing people at that human interface.

So yes, to the answer to your question.

You know, this is something we see daily or I see daily in my clinical practice.

And the solid example that I will give two solid example is one in a critical care setting, where someone is dying and, family members come in and some family members may not have even interacted with the particular relative who were dying for a long, long time.

But, because of their distrust in the medical system or, you know, throwing lots of things at you, saying, hey, did you do this?

Did you do that?

And being very abrasive, versus, the other circumstance where you're actually walking somebody through the death process?

For me as a doctor.

I find that to be the most, important of processes is really walking someone, into the next, world.

The other circumstances in the clinical setting where I'm the only black, cardiologist in my health care system at UCSF.

And, what that means is that there are many black and actually not black patients either, who will just request, to come to my clinic.

And, when they come to my clinic, they'll complain and say, you know, I've seen these other doctors.

They're not listening to me to treat me poorly.

And, you know, I'm coming to you to see if you can help me.

And oftentimes, they end up spending about 45 minutes.

And if you know anything about going to the doctor's office, you get 20 minutes for follow up and maybe half an hour for a new patient.

But end up spending about 45 minutes to an hour talking to these, persons about the human part of them, the parts of their stories that have nothing to do with the fact that they had a heart attack and, you know, have heart failure, or they had some cardiac arrest and they survived and they made it through their hospital course.

Because while people are interested and they really care about their health in those aspects, it's that juxtaposition between the social factors and the actual medical factors that are bringing in, bringing them to me.

So again, yes, I see this all the time.

And, and to, the, I think for us in health care, it's really getting to the human part of the story and, and leveraging that with our medical knowledge.

Absolutely.

Wow.

Yeah.

Give it up for it.

Doctor Allen Davis, you, run a hospital?

So as we're talking about disparities that we see with, with, with black people in their health outcomes.

Can you give us anything?

Real world experience.

Can you describe some of those things that you see, some of the challenges that black people face in getting care?

Financially?

Culturally?

What do you see from being right there and present?

That kind of tells us what we're up against.

Well, I could, start the story from any one of a number of, avenues, but I what, actually going to go a little off script because that's what we do.

And I would love back to your I will get back to your, question.

There was something, Jocko, that you said that, I thought would be really important to put in the room.

And I'm going to start by, divulging that I'm 66 years old.

And so I am that first generation of African Americans and women to actually have greater opportunities.

I'm a I'm the first, beneficiaries of the civil rights and the women's rights movement.

If you think about my age, I've wanted to be a physician since I was a kid, but I didn't know the physician I was.

I'm old enough to think girls are nurses, boys or doctors.

So I was going to be a nurse since I was tiny.

And then, of course, these two movements came along and it changed things.

I want you to know the power that seeing black doctors on TV does, because my role models was television, it was Marcus Welby.

For those of you who may be of a certain age, it was the bold ones, and it was, Medical Center.

These, these, these three shows.

And all the physicians were men and all the physicians were white.

And so what you are doing in terms of, as you said, that whole idea that because of you, my son now wants to be we have it where there's more of us in the space now and in this space.

And we do have, I think, an incredibly important role to play as role models.

So thank you.

And that is one of the ways that the role modeling comes about.

And so it's really worth putting the desk.

Second, I've had a number of different ways.

My my career path to running one of the, nationally and internationally renowned, neuro rehabilitation hospitals for spinal cord and brain injury is a a very crooked and crazy path.

And by the way, your paths are rarely straight or narrow.

I'd say to our young, burgeoning physicians.

But what I would say is be at the bedside long enough.

And so I actually took care of patients for 25 years and had advancing and more and more opportunities to actually be sitting at tables where folks were trying to make things better.

I say, I got my, I'd say I really cut my teeth on in terms of the social determinants of things that were just spoke about, of, of health at Kaiser Permanente, where I spent 24 years, most of that time in clinical practice, actually practice for 25 years before I did this crazy change into pure administration.

And, my role at KP before coming to Craig Hospital five and a half years ago as a vice president of government external relations.

So I lived in the community, and I really got to understand the importance of what's upstream from a health care.

I call it a non system because it really is.

And that's what you got to see playing out in this particular episode.

Through any of a number of avenues that we are not going to be able to actually fix what's going on in the health care system until we deal with education, until we deal with economic opportunity, until we deal with and understand that our zip code has far more impact on our health outcomes than our genetic code.

Until we start getting upstream and working collaboratively across sectors to actually deal with the implications of poverty.

And frankly, the implications of this social construct called racism, or this social construct called race, because it is not, biologically based.

And so I find myself now in this place not to answer your question, but I did feel like, I wanted to make sure that, I did state that there's policy and advocacy work to do.

There's absolutely economic work to do, and we need to have more of us in the rooms where that, those conversations can happen and be held.

The interesting thing about working in a neuro rehabilitation hospital is it brought to the fore for me when I was recruited for this role and said, I actually, I didn't tell you, I am an obstetrician gynecologist, has nothing to do with, neuro rehabilitation.

But, I found myself thinking about why, when I had to go do this interview for the job.

The first.

The first round interview.

Why do you want this role?

You've had opportunities.

Recruiters call you.

It's like, no, keep doing what I'm doing.

That's a whole nother set of the stories and the tapes we play in our heads, which as women, let alone as African-Americans.

But when I started talking and I realized that when people find themselves, these are people who woke up with one reality and due to accidents that they could not have seen, suddenly go to bed with a very different and catastrophic reality in terms of what these injuries do to folks.

And then I had to stop and sort of take a deep look in the mirror at myself and say, there's this thing that happens when I see and I bet for many of you, you see people in wheelchairs and we marginalize them.

We marginalize.

In fact, 85% of people with disabilities are unemployed in this country, 85%.

And it got my social justice hackles up, because I had to realize that you do that a little bit, too.

And these were people who, the day before were just like you and me.

And so I said, this is a this is work just based on my heart.

The way that I practiced medicine, which I loved, I didn't run away from that.

I ran toward new opportunity and perhaps ways to make make systems better.

That I really did want to be my warrior for the vulnerable.

That's what I wanted.

And that's what I call myself a warrior for the vulnerable.

So you take these marginalized, the populations, people who find themselves on the other side of these disabilities, and you sit and you place upon that, that is at the intersectionality of race and gender and poverty and these, injuries.

And it takes whatever might be happening in terms of opportunity, and it just magnifies it.

So, you know, as I think about next chapter for all of us, it's that you take, as I said, race and a spinal cord injury.

Good luck, especially the way that poverty plays out in the way that our even our systems are, are constructed for folks with disabilities, Medicaid, income limits that are put on that don't allow people even to work or they'll lose their benefits.

And it just takes things that were already just horrible and or, certainly challenging circumstances for people from a health perspective.

It makes it worse.

And so we have I feel like when I say, and I actually think God is present in those hours, whether we're singing or not, by the way, and having been in the operating room as a surgeon, I can tell you that God was present in many, many operating rooms over the 25 years that I was there.

But what I feel like I said, why did God put me at a neuro?

So was a nice gynecologist, like, you know, in a place like this.

This is just an insane thing to have this incredible honor, privilege and opportunity to do this work.

It's to use my voice in an even bigger stage in a bigger way, through that title that I carry CEO and president to make a changes, on behalf of many communities and especially my own, as I think about our health status.

And in that episode went so many places and you did catch my breath when I when she look at her, she crashed hard at her folks.

When it dawned on me, I was like, oh, what I did.

I did not see that one coming.

So that's how I'd answer it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Give it up.

Y'all so hesitant to clap like I got buzzes on your hands or something.

It's alright to give praise.

That's what we do.

Doctor Mitchell, you started a scholarship for black medical students at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

What's it called?

How did it come about?

What was the impetus for that?

So it's called the Charles de Blackwood, MD Endowed Memorial Scholarship, and it's at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and it's for black and African-American students.

It came about because, I was, a participant in the Mile High Medical Society, which is the Colorado chapter of the National Medical Association, which is the, it is the national organization for black metal providers in our country.

And we went to, we went to a, a scholarship banquet, and it was like, oh, wait, the diversity scholarship was being given to a white woman and an Asian male.

And I was very confused.

I was like, wait a minute, why is this happening?

And so be me.

I went up and asked a question and they were like, well, you know, she's from a rural area in rural, rural folks are underrepresented in medicine.

And so that's why she got the scholarship.

I'm like, okay, what about the Asian male?

Is he from a rural area?

And they said, no, he actually in Colorado, Asians are underrepresented in medicine.

That's not the case in the rest of the country.

But in Colorado, Asians are underrepresented in medicine.

And I was like, okay, but what about the black people?

And so they were like, well, yeah, but and I'm like, okay, well, we as a modern medical society, we need to start our own scholarship.

And so that was how it started.

And so I went to the development office and I said, what do we need to do?

And they said, you need to if you raise $100,000 over five years, we can match $100,000.

And I was like, okay, that's it, that we can do that.

And so in three months, I had people pledge to raise $100,000.

And so we had our scholarship right.

But I didn't stop there.

So then I was like, okay, but now we have a scholarship.

Like we can give the money out and now it's gone.

So what I need is an endowment.

And for those of you who don't know, an endowment is where you raise a lot of money and you only use the the interest, not the principal.

So then you have a scholarship in perpetuity or forever.

And so then I said, okay, how do I get to do that?

And they're like, I want a full tuition scholarship.

And they said, well, you need to raise $1 million.

And I was like, well, that's great, but I actually want a scholar per year.

So actually I want $4 million.

And so that's what.

And so I was like, I need to raise $4 million, y'all.

Just so y'all know, I'm a general internist, I don't have a lot I don't make a lot of money for it.

I mean, I'm I'm a doctor, but I'm not a doctor.

So, so I was like, okay.

So I said, all right.

So I went to the dean and I said, hey, Dean, this is what we're doing this we want to do.

The president's office is going to match up for 100,000.

What can you do?

And he's like, well, if you raise two, I'll give you two.

And I was like, okay, now I need to raise $2 million.

And now they became real, right?

And so, along with, my colleagues, you know, Terry Richardson and Johnny Johnson and the rest of the, my medical society, we were able to reach at first million and February of 2021.

And that was great.

The Dean matched it.

And so we had now two scholarships, but then we needed to raise our second million.

And that's where we are today.

So we have until June 30th of this year, 2024, to raise an additional $500,000 that the Dean will match.

So then we can make sure we have the final, amount of money so that we can have a scholar each year forever.

And thank you that all of you guys, you ever meet somebody or, like, listen to someone talk and then go, yeah, I could see how they raise the money, but I didn't do it by myself.

Yeah, but, you did the energy.

I'm like, what I got to give, man.

Okay, I'll tell you.

Let me tell you what you owe.

Wow.

Okay, so than you audience, you can go to more black doctors.org.

Okay.

And let me tell you, I would you like to tell us about how more black doctors got started?

Well, doctor Nia reached out to me.

Oh, you tell this story.

Kind of funny how you reached out to me or whatever.

So this is what I did.

So I was like, so.

So we reached the first million, and, like, the group was like, look, y'all were tapped out.

We don't know where you get this money from.

And I'm like, okay, well, let's write letters.

And by let's, I mean me write letters to black actors who play doctors on TV and in the movies.

And so I wrote I mean, I had a long list, y'all.

Long list.

And you know who the only person to respond to was?

And so, and all I wanted Jocko to do, really, I was like, you know, if you could, like, put up a post about, you know, the Charles J. Blackwood scholarship and maybe your followers, we want to donate money involved.

But he's like, no, we need to think bigger.

And I'm like, well, that's good enough for me.

And he was like, no, it's not good enough for me.

So there's that, right?

Yeah, sure I did.

I would say that.

But yeah, so I was like, yes, absolutely.

I say that this is, this is this is a movement.

You know, it's a you can only do so much when it comes to posting and asking people to donate.

But I feel like, we can get people behind the movement.

So I did come up with more black doctors.org.

And the idea is to raise awareness about the importance of black doctors.

Right now we have only 5.7% of all doctors identify as Black or African American.

Some other notable stats.

Black infant mortality rate.

Black infants die three times the rate as white infants.

But when they're dealing with black doctors, that starts to go down.

Cardiovascular deaths between black patients and white patients.

When you're dealing with a black doctor, that goes down by 19%.

So it's great for everybody.

It saves lives.

It's great for the health care system.

We need more black doctors.

So if you go to black doctors.org more black guy.

Yeah more black doctors.org.

You'll learn more about the Charles J. Blackwood scholarship Fund and you can donate there.

So everybody please go to that website and donate.

And speaking of that, we have some future doctors in the house today.

Do we not, Jocko like.

Yes.

We have first, Sandra, who is the recipient of the, she's one of the scholars.

Please stand and wave everybody.

University of Colorado, University of Colorado.

And we have our other students.

You can stand up and and just, you know, go ahead and introduce yourself because it's about you.

Stand up.

Turn around real quick.

Everyone.

Everyone stand up.

Turn around.

Here we go.

Here's the mic.

Hi everyone.

My name is Sandra Pia.

I'm a second year med student at the University of Colorado.

So thankful to be here.

Thankful for all the doctors that we get to be around.

Thank.

Hi everyone.

Thank you for your time for being here.

And thank you for having us.

My name is Stacy Clark.

I am also a second year medical student at Iraqi Vista University here.

Parker, Colorado.

Hello, my name is Matthew Duncan and I am so glad to be here.

And thank you for having me as well.

And I am a second year at Rocky Vista University.

Hello, I'm Jared Underwood and I'm from Parkville, Colorado.

I'm also a second year at Rocky Vista University.

My name is Adonis Grissom.

I'm a third year going into my fourth year, also at Rocky Vista University in Parker, Colorado.

And I'm Doctor Reynolds from another.

Sorry, sorry.

Ladies and gentlemen, here's our future round of applause.

Thank you.

You know, I have a personal question I want to ask.

Is that okay?

All right, so as I'm talking to you guys, I don't get a chance to talk to a lot of black medical professionals.

My father passed away a couple of years ago.

He died of congestive heart failure.

And I remember very, distinctly before I left Louisiana, being in, the hospital with him.

And, you know, when you have CHF like you, you hold fluid on your body.

He was putting a demon, the whole thing.

And the doctor walks in and the doctor says to him, he goes, we're all sitting around.

He goes, well, you're at heart failure.

My dad goes, I'm gonna be all right, right?

And the look on the guy's face, I never forget the look on the guy's face was like, not really.

And but nobody in the room understood what he was talking about for the next 20 years or however long he passed away.

I struggled trying to get him to maintain a level of care that would be necessary for him to stick around, you know, not him or any of his brothers live to 70, right?

So like I tried to do that, and it's such a frustration for younger black people who are living sometimes with older relatives to make them.

Hey, that thing on your arm.

Let's go get it checked out with me.

If I wake up late and I got a headache, I'm going to Beverly Hills CSI and I'm going to get checked out.

How do we fight this battle?

How do we implore those that we love to stay around and a little bit more, take their health a little bit more seriously?

I know so many young people that are exhausted with this, and it seems like an ever like an everlasting fight to get them to do that.

Well, is there anything you guys could say?

Well, maybe I'll start because your story, I lost my father when I was in high school.

He died of a heart attack at 44.

I was 17, and he started, the his cardiovascular journey in his mid 30s.

He was 35 when he, he left us.

He we were in his in the military.

We were in the that he went to San Antonio for a few weeks and was an inpatient on a cardiac unit, I presume we were these little kids then.

And when it was about a year later that we learned, he was getting his care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in DC.

And we learned that that day that he'd gone to the doctor because he'd fainted, which actually was probably.

I forget what it's called, where you you get some malignant arrhythmia is what he probably had.

So VTi or v v t probably.

And he.

And so he faints.

My mother says you got to go to the doctor.

He goes, he comes I get home that night from high school and he said, oh, I just need to stop smoking.

And I go to bed.

I say, good night, old man.

I'll see you in the morning and never saw the last words.

People say to him because he died.

We found out a year later that when he'd gone to the visit to the doc, they'd, recommended what we wouldn't do today, but, he needed open heart surgery.

This was 1975, 1975.

So some time ago, and he never had discussed that with anyone because he was afraid.

I think the answer to your question is multifaceted.

There is a there's a tendency to over, I'd say to victim blame is what I'd say.

So you have to be careful to say there are things that we are not doing.

This whole notion of will taking, taking, better, sort of responsibility for your health and wellness is, a little bit of a first world problem, even to be able to say it when you're trying to put food on a table and do all the other sorts of things.

So.

But but that said, there is still a responsibility for us to take care of ourselves.

I'm one of five kids, and I'm the one who doesn't have a weight problem to to let you know in terms of my even my own siblings.

The other the other part, though, is really how accepting is the medical system and how receptive are they of people of color or poor people?

I mean, in terms of medical literacy, there's none there.

I, I actually without I won't tell you what system, but I had a horrible experience, worst experience I've ever had seeing a physician earlier this week.

And where I felt dismissed, humiliated and confused about what it was that I was supposed to do even after when this man had the nerve to ask, well, what do you do for a living?

And I said, I'm the president, CEO, Craig Hospital.

And I was a physician in this system for 24 years.

So now, you know, the system maybe for 24 years, that even after saying that, that did not change his comportment at all.

And so the system is not necessarily aligned to take care of people, because we all have implicit biases and explicit biases that can play out, too.

And so to be a victim of that earlier this week and then ironically be sitting here today, I'm still I go home and that I'm still shook over what happened.

But then what I can do is use my voice and I did and fire as part of my English.

So, and and and go elsewhere and go elsewhere for care.

But, but the problem is that we don't all have that sort of agency or advocacy.

It's very easy to be in that position.

And feel that vulnerable, was a new experience for me, nearly 40 years in health care.

And so I think some of it is also the work that has to happen within our systems around dealing with implicit and explicit bias.

And some of the best, research on that actually came out of Denver Health, around how this plays out in the room.

And what we know is it's why more black doctors, whether it's dot org or just get, some more black doctors and, women physicians and other physicians just because race concordance matters when it comes to adherence.

And it's about trust.

So a physician walking in a room and saying that and probably did not engage that family, your family at all, which is still happens where I always tell people, don't go to the doc, you should never go to the doctor without a doctor in your pocket if you happen to have one.

But certainly to go with advocates and to be armed and not let our systems intimidate you.

But they do.

We talk a language that nobody understands.

We are dismissive of family, and it's worse when, frankly, your, based on gender and based on race and based on age and based on, socioeconomic status.

This is ours to fix.

The health care systems.

I'm sorry to preach.

No, sorry.

I wanted.

So part of your question started with a cardiovascular question.

And, you know, I have several components, to an answer.

The first is, I just for the audience and for the students, cardiovascular disease is is the number one killer.

So if you look, to your left and to your right, one of three of you in in the front row will succumb to cardiovascular disease.

And if you look at the three of us, actually four of 5 or 6 of us here, at least 50% of us will die from cardiovascular disease.

And so what that means, is multifold.

First, one has to get educated, about cardiovascular disease.

And that can happen through multiple mechanisms.

We heard about the health literacy issue, which is why organizations like the American Heart Association and the Association Black Cardio creating a pathway for young persons interested in all different types of medicines, and not just only being a doctor, but being a pharmacist, being a nurse, being a physician's assistant.

All of these parts of the health care team are really important because when the doctor walks in and and says to your grandfather, your grandmother, you have heart failure and they don't know what that means, it may actually be the nurse or the pharmacist or another, person who's part of that team who is able to actually sit with them and actually explain to them, you know, what is actually happening.

So in addition, to really knowing, the stats about heart disease and knowing, your numbers and I won't bore you with that here, because that's not the point to this, this panel, I think mentoring and sponsoring, no matter where you are and whatever community you exist in, a lot of times I'll get asked, what's the most important thing that I, as an individual, can do?

To help with, the crisis of, doctors of color.

And I will say, look at your school system.

If your school system is not diverse, whether it's, higher socioeconomic status or mid-range or low, certainly not socioeconomic, institution.

Then asks, why is it only for higher socioeconomic status, folks, and follow that trail?

Similarly, across the spectrum, one of the reasons I'm involved in admissions is because of this issue.

It is not just only important to get people into medical school, but also to create a culture within the medical school, and beyond that helps to sustain careers, throughout the process.

And that's a lot of, there are a lot of things that go into to that process.

And then it's actually before medical school.

How do you when you are applying to medical school, what kind of advice that people give you who helped you write your essay?

Who wrote your letters of recommendation?

Who actually inspired you to become a doctor in the first place?

So all of us, I feel, can play a role in this.

There are organizations, like the ones I mentioned that have actual organized programs around us.

There is the there's a, a historically black, black, college and university program and HSC Hispanic serving institution program.

For example, the American Heart Association.

As you know, one of the reasons I've been involved with the Association of Black Cardiologists, for example, since I was a second year medical student, because it provided the opportunity for me to see black doctors and, and to get, the mentorship and, and just social support.

So I would encourage all of you to join, both organizations, ABC and, and I'm not here to, to, to just advertise, but I'm, I'm just here to say that each and every one of you who watch a show, you have a role to play.

And it's not an amorphous role.

I mean, you can walk out of these doors and do something about it.

With in your the primary schools that are around you and, the middle schools that are around you and the high schools that are around you, and then as leaders in, at a national level, international level, and in health care systems, we need to be at those tables and not just be at the table as the minority person or as the black person, but be at the table as an authority.

In terms of what you bring, in terms of your whether it's your medical, you know, skills, whether it's the medical plus research skills, plus your leadership skills, all of it.

So when you speak that people will listen and that you can influence others, to vote for the things, that will make consequential change.

We are at a point in this country right now where there's a huge pushback against Dei, right?

And that huge pushback against the I will probably disallow the types of scholarships that, we were discussing here today.

But, we have to get creative around, these, issues and topics.

And we also have to recognize and I'm glad you brought up the point about, disability that, we all are.

You know, there are intersectionality that do exist.

And it's actually is at those intersectionality that things can be the most, severe and most stark.

And so diversity and inclusiveness and equity actually involves an entire spectrum of people.

It does turn out, however, if you happen to be black or if you happen to be American Indian or Alaska Native, you tend to fall at the most severe spectrums, of any of these things.

Yeah.

Well, you guys, well, thank you for that, by the way.

Give it up for that one.

Make sure I go jog later, because I don't want to be in the 50%.

Like, I got to, give it up for your panel, you guys.

Full tastic time, everyone.

You were now armed with a lot of knowledge that you need to make change.

I hope that you take the opportunity to thank you guys for having to stay.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.