“What brings you in today?” I asked my new patient, a healthy appearing clean cut thirty five year old married man with kids. “Check me out, doc.” (STD check? chronic disease screen?) “My brother was just diagnosed with diabetes, I want to make sure I’m okay.” (okay, easy—sugar and cholesterol check) No prior medical problems for him.…
She was born in the neighborhood, and grew up in the neighborhood. She raised her children in the neighborhood. Her family and friends are in the neighborhood. She still gets medical care in the neighborhood. But she no longer lives in the neighborhood. Not after she was shoved to the ground and raped at gunpoint in the alleyway…
The patient with the gun shot wound to the arm came back to clinic, and is healing nicely. Home nursing is working out a little less nicely. Challenges in coordinating care–two visits in two weeks. Still, between my care and their care, and the natural healing of the human body, the gun shot wound is…
As a family physician on Chicago’s South Side, every day brings painful and beautiful stories, many variations on a theme–gun violence, senseless loss, deep heartbreak for loved ones, deep love for family, faith in God. Patients share how they cope with life constraints and limited opportunities with warmth, humor, anger, sadness and love. I am going to…
Her son was a war hero, survived his tours of duty unscathed. An upstanding boy, an upstanding serviceman. At age 33, father to two sons, he was killed on his doorstep in Chicago. “That 17 year old punk,” his mother says, “killed him for his wallet.” “My son didn’t know not to fight.” The killer was found. The killer…
Last summer, I learned about the epidemic of violence in Chicago through the eyes of high schoolers through my work with the University of Chicago Medicine’s Summer Service Partnership. All three neighborhood teams chose to address violence for their community health service-learning projects. You can read what I learned here, in an op/ed I published in…
Someone posted an eye-catching flyer in the community health center today: “Let’s replace the violence in our community with love. People who love each other, don’t shoot each other!” The flyer was an advertisement for a tee-shirt with a bold slogan. “LOVE: Let Our Violence End” The “O” in LOVE touched me. Our violence. Our…
Prevention Not Prescription 