[Music]
[Applause]
I'm an emergency physician which means
that I am a doctor who is specially
trained in emergencies emergencies like
car accidents like shootings like heart
attacks strokes or sepsis and as you can
imagine that makes the ER a pretty
chaotic place but it's also a really
special one because the ER is where
people go when things go wrong we see
people of all walks of life and this is
one of the only places in society that
you will see a CEO and a homeless man
and a single mother and a student and a
refugee all under the same roof and
that's pretty special disease morbid as
it may sound is a great equalizer
because we all get sick we all get
injured and that makes us all the same
it makes us all human everyone can get
into a car accident everyone can get the
flu and everyone will need a doctor so
in a way that makes us medicine health
care societies great common denominator
and in this mindset of healthcare as
this great common denominator people
come in to see me from all walks of life
walking rolling driving in because
something has gone wrong and we welcome
them as part of our society part of our
common human and part of a universal
mortality that we all understand but
then things get interesting because what
do you do when you see someone who has
been exiled from society someone who has
been ostracized cast away or rejected
and of their own doing
I run into this actually very frequently
in my world as an emergency physician
I've always worked at hospitals that
take care of the incarcerated and when
you meet these patients they're
incarcerated for all sorts of reasons
some are honestly relatively petty but
some are morally repulsive they're
things like rape murder child
trafficking terrorism and my job is to
treat them like every other patient so
if they have chest pain I investigate
their heart heartless as many may think
them to be if they get in a prison fight
I stitch and sew their wounds until the
next brawl and if they're on death row
but in danger of a natural death I save
their life so that they can sit on death
row again so you see my job is to take
care of them like every other patient
but they're almost by definition not
like every other patients and the great
paradox in taking care of them is
sometimes the more you know the less you
wish you knew because it makes it all
the harder to care for and care about
them as your patient a few years back I
had one of these such patients and I
took care of a Nazi this man was
actually brought in to us and roomed to
an area of an ER that was not under my
care but the physician of that area was
black and the and the patient refused to
be seen by him purely because of the
color of his skin it was by completely
pure chance that day that every
physician on shift was ethnic in some
way and so I the fairly light-skinned
Asian doctor was the most ethnically
acceptable to a white supremacist so he
became mine
when I first met him he was instantly
vile the words dirty and Viet
Cong came out of his mouth before I
could even get into the doorway and
ironically none of those are accurate
racial slurs to me but racism isn't
exactly known for being accurate so all
I could say was hi how can I help you
today and after a lot of grumbling and
negotiating with him I did finally get
the story he was incarcerated for life
without parole
following the graphic and violent mass
murder of an ethnic church decades ago
families children women were slaughtered
for no reason except for his own
unbridled racism during his trial he had
given no excuses no pleas for insanity
and he was proud of his work until the
very end
perhaps at a chance for martyrdom he had
had several instances where he had tried
to commit suicide but survived them all
on his most recent attempt he had been
stealing and swallowing staples to try
to kill himself but he didn't instead he
ended up in front of me when he
developed fevers and crippling abdominal
pain all signs that likely one of the
staples had perforated his gut and his
belly was quickly filling up with
infection and pus and air even as I
stepped a little bit closer to him I
could tell he was in pain so I offered
this man this criminal this murderer
pain medicine to make his stay more
comfortable and in return I had
expletives yelled at me I moved in a
little closer to try to examine his
belly and as I've tried to touch him he
screamed out at me don't get your dirty
yellow hands on me nonetheless it was my
job to examine him to take care of him
so I reached in
to unbutton his prison jumpsuit and as
he ride to get away from me that's when
I saw it I saw surrounding his
bellybutton tattooed was a swastika and
I reached out my hand to push on that
symbol of hate to examine his abdomen
and as I did he screamed out again in
pain and I confirmed what I already knew
that this man was going to die if we did
not get him medicines and surgery I was
frustrated he was not working with us so
I got in his face
I said sir we need you to work with us
or you will die he looked right back at
me and he spit in my face I jumped back
and the guard standing right next to him
looked at me and said doc just let this
die the patient wanted to die
the guard wanted to let him die but I I
was tasked with keeping this man alive
so I tried to negotiate with him I tried
to get him to let us take care of him
and he still banished me out of the room
he shook his chains against the gurney
and made noise that I couldn't get close
and as we stepped out to debate what to
do with this dying man who wanted
nothing to do with us he got sicker and
sicker and sicker and soon his infection
had thrown him into deliriums he was so
delirious that he could no longer refuse
care from us so we swooped in we called
for his power of attorney to consent to
treat him and we filled him full of
medicines then we got him to surgery and
within a few hours he was waking up in
post-op and this white supremacist had
had his life saved by an Asian doctor a
black nurse and a Jewish surgeon
so this story sticks with me because
this is the picture of what hate is the
law has condemned this man and cast him
out Society and placed him behind bars
we have more and more morally have
already rejected him and said that he is
no longer part of us and yet when he
comes in front of me I have to find care
and compassion and a connection to him
as still part of our humanity so that we
can save his life and this is not the
only case I frequently will take care of
battered women and I'll go into the room
and I'll talk to them and I'll look at
the strangulation scars on their neck
I'll look at the bruises all over their
body I'll look at the blood that is
staining their pants and then I'll walk
out of the room go into the next and
treat their assailant and as I wash
their assailants lacerations and stitch
them closed with care I still think of
the woman next door knowing that they
were the one that did that to them I
will see drunk drivers who plow their
cars into pregnant mothers and their
three children and as I pump the drunk
driver full of blood to try to save his
life I know that next door is the
lifeless body of that mother having just
failed the heroics that we tried to give
her this is what hate is this is what we
see every day and this is the challenge
that we see while we try to take care of
everyone with the same Universal
equality and dignity and respect that we
can give all of them the hate that we
see and the emergency department is not
unique to just health care it's actually
the hate that you see everywhere in the
world and so we have to come together to
figure out how to battle it so in the ER
were unique in that we take care of
murderers rapists Harris of humanity and
yet again we treat them with dignity
equality and respect but
how do you combat hate how do you stare
it in the eyes and hold its gaze how do
you face it in the flesh and not flinch
compassion compassion is knowing that no
matter what
someone has done in their past they are
still your fellow man disease is the
great equalizer and it teaches us an
important lesson it teaches us to
recognize and relate to suffering and to
strive to relieve it
no matter what has happened in the past
no matter the circumstance that is
always our goal and that is one of the
most beautiful things about medicine
because in the eyes of medicine everyone
is a life and every life is worth saving
and as a doctor one of the most
important things we try to preserve is
our compassion for all of humanity and
the same is true for everyone else to
not let the hate of one ruin your
compassion for all because society will
judge and the law will condemn but your
role is to recognize compassion and to
reach out a helping hand regardless
regardless of morals regardless of the
law regardless of action we are all of
the same human condition and everyone is
a life and every life is worth saving
thank you guys
[Applause]
you