PBS高端访谈:急诊室医生"砖城"寻根之旅

 　　JEFFREY BROWN:Next: An emergency room doctor returns to Newark and grapples with pressing public health issues.

　　Ray Suarez has our conversation.

　　RAY SUAREZ:Dr. Sampson Davis is the fifth of six children in his family. He was raised in Newark, N.J., in the 1970s. He was surrounded by crime, drugs, and murders and by the notorious high-rise projects that earned Newark its nickname, Brick City.

　　Many of those high-rises have since been torn down. Dozens of other buildings in the city's neighborhoods have been abandoned. Newark remains¹ one of the tougher urban areas in the country, with a third of its residents living below the poverty line. The city's medical system also is under stress.

　　WOMAN:Not ignoring you. It's just that it's been very busy.

　　RAY SUAREZ:Many residents lack access to primary care. The city's three remaining emergency rooms—three others were shut down in the last decade—are often packed to capacity with patients.

　　After making a pact² with two of his high school friends graduate medical school, Dr. Sampson Davis returned to Newark to work in the E.R. to try to make a difference.

　　DR. SAMPSON DAVIS, "Living and Dying in Brick City: An E.R. Doctor Returns Home":All right, let's go see another patient and fast-track. Want to go out towards the waiting room.

　　RAY SUAREZ:The lessons he learned there and the stories of the people he met and treated are the subject of a new book, "Living and Dying in Brick City: An E.R. Doctor Returns Home."

　　SAMPSON DAVIS:We'd see about 100 patients, 125 patients a day.

　　RAY SUAREZ:I spoke³ with him recently at Saint Michael's Medical Center in downtown Newark, New Jersey⁴.

　　Dr. Davis, welcome to the program.

　　SAMPSON DAVIS:Thank you. Thank you for having me.

　　RAY SUAREZ:The stories are gripping, memorable⁵. The people you meet along the way are the kind of people who, I can see why they stick with you forever.

　　But the thing that's unusual about the book is that, along with these stories, there's all sorts of resources and diagnostic guides, and information digests, where to get help for certain kind of illnesses. It makes it an unusual book, really, in that way, the way it's structured.

　　SAMPSON DAVIS:It was definitely a tough book to write, in the sense that I feel like it's part memoir⁶, part self-help, part anecdotal, so I think it's a lot of different moving pieces that came together.

　　But I feel like it sort of was important to tell the story of a person who had a certain ailment⁷, vs. talking about the ailment, because if you tell the story about the mother who's a nurse, who works in a hospital, who calls the ambulance because she's having some shortness of breath, and the ambulance isn't arriving in time, and now she's succumbing⁸, and she's having difficulty breathing, her husband puts her in a car, drives her to the hospital, and before she reaches the hospital, she succumbs⁹ and passes out.

　　I rush out with a gurney, place her in a gurney, and we rush her back into the emergency department. She's full-term pregnant. We do a stat C-section, remove the baby, and then unfortunately we were unable to resuscitate¹⁰ her.

　　So you have this person who is a part of the community, who's here to help the community. When she called the ambulance, the ambulance for whatever reason, it didn't show up in an expeditious¹¹ way. So now at the end of that chapter, you talk about some of the signs and symptoms when you're having shortness of breath and what to do.

　　But then you also get to the issue, the social issue at hand. We have an overflux of patients coming into the emergency department, and if you're using the ambulance system for a non-emergent issue, you are taking away from that person who's not able to breathe. Now, imagine that was your grandmother, imagine that was your father who was having trouble to breathe.

　　RAY SUAREZ:Reading your book reminded me that living in the poorest neighborhoods in this country is not only unpleasant, but it's bad for you. It can shorten your life.

　　SAMPSON DAVIS:It absolutely can.

　　I mean, these stories, collection of stories in this book really chronicles patients that I have seen throughout my career practicing emergency medicine. And it's always issues around health care and access to health care in inner cities.

　　RAY SUAREZ:Access ends up being an enormous issue, because very sick people land in the E.R.s where you have worked, and it's a lifetime of accumulated effects, and now you have to fix them.

　　SAMPSON DAVIS:Right, and fix them fast, in that split-second.

　　So I see patients come in who are suffering from heart attacks, obviously, who have strokes, but the strokes are a result of uncontrolled high blood pressure, who maybe are on dialysis, and that's an effect of their uncontrolled diabetes¹² and high blood pressure.

　　I see trauma¹³ cases, gunshot—young gunshot victims who prematurely¹⁴ lose their lives on the streets. I see cases of patients who don't have health insurance, and so they try to doctor themselves at home. And when all else fails, they just sort of finally give in and cave and come to the emergency department for treatment.

　　On the other side of the spectrum¹⁵, I'm also seeing mental illness, exacerbation¹⁶ of mental illness, depression, schizophrenia untreated, undiagnosed, where the patients have chronically¹⁷ suffered from these ailments¹⁸ and never seek treatment. Society just sort of passed them by, and there's no outlet¹⁹ for them to sort of tap into, so that they can treat their depression or their illness that they're suffering from.

　　RAY SUAREZ:That's a lot of the tension in the stories that you tell.

　　As an emergency room doctor, you're seeing people in a fleeting²⁰, rather than longitudinal, way, and your frustration²¹ comes through a lot, because you can't change their lives in one night together.

　　SAMPSON DAVIS:Right. And that's exactly the point.

　　So, for me, it's important to say, what can we do, what can be done, and to step outside the emergency part, to step outside the confines of my comfort zone, the hospital, and reach into the community and say, hey, listen, you need to take your medications every day, you need to be a champion of your ailment.

　　As a family, everyone needs to sort of bond together and help treat dad who may be suffering from cancer or who hasn't gone for his precancerous screening. Prevention is so key. And a lot of the patients unfortunately that I see, they don't go for the preventative care. And by the time they're diagnosed, it's too late.

　　And then the frustration comes through from my end, because I'm saying, I could have been—diagnosed you with the throat cancer, or told you to stop smoking, or been an advocate in your health care and have the screening that you needed to sort of diagnose this early. You could have had treatment, and lived long enough to see your kids grow up and your grandchildren born, and see them thrive.

　　There's sort of fear sometimes and apprehension²² when it comes to medicine because of the lack of what are—difficult to perceive and understanding what's going on with your body. And it's truly—it's not. Once you invest that time and that energy, you can take better care of yourself than any physician or nurse practitioner²³ or health care worker can do for you.

　　RAY SUAREZ:But you can't fix some of the original causes of these illnesses, the malnutrition²⁴ that's driven by poverty, the asthma²⁵ that's made worse by life in an aging tenement²⁶ home.

　　There are causes that you know very well since you grew up in Newark that can't be changed even by the best health care. It's too late by that time.

　　SAMPSON DAVIS:I agree.

　　And so the issue is multifaceted. It's not one sort of spot that you can fix and change everything. But I think this is a start. I'm also advocating education, because I feel that, if we educate ourselves, the more we educate ourselves, that we can overcome poverty, and the fact that if we do it as a community, and we stick together, we bond together, and we support one another with education, with health, then we can start to fix some of the issues at the root of the cause.

　　And so we can erase²⁷—we can erase families who are struggling to get by on minimum wage. We can erase the drug abuse that we see on the streets and in the home. We can erase the gun violence and the domestic violence, and we can start to bring attention to mental illness.

　　But this can only be done if everyone in the community is invested. And so I think it has to be a position that we all take in which we say, yes, take better care of yourself. Yes, go for your pre-screening to make sure that you don't have any ailment that can be detrimental²⁸ to you down the road.

　　But we also can then turn to our youth and our adults and say, it's OK to get educated on these matters. It's OK to do well in school for the young person that's in school. It's OK to achieve and be academically successful and show your academic excellence²⁹.

　　Sometimes, in the inner cities, especially amongst the adolescent peer group, there's some tension where it comes to you doing well in school. It's almost perceived as you're being a nerd, or you're corny, you're trying to do better than everyone else. And so I wanted to erase that sort of issue and take away and empower the youth and say if they call you a nerd today for doing well in school, that's OK, because they will be calling you boss tomorrow.

　　RAY SUAREZ:The book is "Living and Dying in Brick City."

　　Dr. Sampson Davis, thanks a lot.

　　SAMPSON DAVIS:Thank you.

1 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

2 pact   

n.合同，条约，公约，协定

参考例句：

• The two opposition parties made an electoral pact.那两个反对党订了一个有关选举的协定。
• The trade pact between those two countries came to an end.那两国的通商协定宣告结束。

3 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

4 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

5 memorable   

adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的

参考例句：

• This was indeed the most memorable day of my life.这的确是我一生中最值得怀念的日子。
• The veteran soldier has fought many memorable battles.这个老兵参加过许多难忘的战斗。

6 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

7 ailment   

n.疾病，小病

参考例句：

• I don't have even the slightest ailment.我什么毛病也没有。
• He got timely treatment for his ailment.他的病得到了及时治疗。

8 succumbing   

不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的现在分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死

参考例句：

• Mrs. Smith washed and ironed clothes for him, succumbing to him. 史密斯太太被他迷住了，愿意为他洗衣烫衣。
• They would not in the end abandon their vital interests by succumbing to Soviet blandishment. 他们最终决不会受苏联人的甜言蜜语的诱惑，从而抛弃自己的切身利益。

9 succumbs   

不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的第三人称单数 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死

参考例句：

• Eventually the virus prevails and the infected person succumbs to the infection. 最终病毒体会战胜药物，而导致感染者死亡。
• A German lender succumbs to perverse incentives. Who's next? 一德国贷方受制屈服于非正当（投资）动机。谁将步其后尘？

10 resuscitate   

v.使复活，使苏醒

参考例句：

• A policeman and then a paramedic tried to resuscitate her.一名警察和一位护理人员先后试图救活她。
• As instructed by Rinpoche,we got the doctors to resuscitate him.遵照仁波切的指示，我们找来医生帮他进行急救。

11 expeditious   

adj.迅速的，敏捷的

参考例句：

• They are almost as expeditious and effectual as Aladdin's lamp.他们几乎像如意神灯那么迅速有效。
• It is more convenien,expeditious and economical than telephone or telegram.它比电话或电报更方便、迅速和经济。

12 diabetes   

n.糖尿病

参考例句：

• In case of diabetes, physicians advise against the use of sugar.对于糖尿病患者，医生告诫他们不要吃糖。
• Diabetes is caused by a fault in the insulin production of the body.糖尿病是由体內胰岛素分泌失调引起的。

13 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

14 prematurely   

adv.过早地，贸然地

参考例句：

• She was born prematurely with poorly developed lungs. 她早产，肺部未发育健全。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• His hair was prematurely white, but his busy eyebrows were still jet-black. 他的头发已经白了，不过两道浓眉还是乌黑乌黑的。 来自辞典例句

15 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。

16 exacerbation   

n.恶化，激怒，增剧；转剧

参考例句：

• Bleeding may be herralded by several day of exacerbation of pain. 数天的疼痛加剧可能为出血的先兆。 来自辞典例句
• For several days, he has had an exacerbation of ulcer symptoms. 近日他溃疡病症状加剧。 来自辞典例句

17 chronically   

ad.长期地

参考例句：

• Similarly, any pigment nevus that is chronically irritated should be excised. 同样，凡是经常受慢性刺激的各种色素痣切勿予以切除。
• People chronically exposed to chlorine develop some degree of tolerance. 人长期接触氯气可以产生某种程度的耐受性。

18 ailments   

疾病（尤指慢性病），不适( ailment的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His ailments include a mild heart attack and arthritis. 他患有轻度心脏病和关节炎。
• He hospitalizes patients for minor ailments. 他把只有小病的患者也送进医院。

19 outlet   

n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄

参考例句：

• The outlet of a water pipe was blocked.水管的出水口堵住了。
• Running is a good outlet for his energy.跑步是他发泄过剩精力的好方法。

20 fleeting   

adj.短暂的，飞逝的

参考例句：

• The girls caught only a fleeting glimpse of the driver.女孩们只匆匆瞥了一眼司机。
• Knowing the life fleeting,she set herself to enjoy if as best as she could.她知道这种日子转瞬即逝，于是让自已尽情地享受。

21 frustration   

n.挫折，失败，失效，落空

参考例句：

• He had to fight back tears of frustration.他不得不强忍住失意的泪水。
• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。

22 apprehension   

n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑

参考例句：

• There were still areas of doubt and her apprehension grew.有些地方仍然存疑，于是她越来越担心。
• She is a girl of weak apprehension.她是一个理解力很差的女孩。

23 practitioner   

n.实践者，从事者；(医生或律师等)开业者

参考例句：

• He is an unqualified practitioner of law.他是个无资格的律师。
• She was a medical practitioner before she entered politics.从政前她是个开业医生。

24 malnutrition   

n.营养不良

参考例句：

• In Africa, there are a lot of children suffering from severe malnutrition.在非洲有大批严重营养不良的孩子。
• It is a classic case of malnutrition. 这是营养不良的典型病例。

25 asthma   

n.气喘病，哮喘病

参考例句：

• I think he's having an asthma attack.我想他现在是哮喘病发作了。
• Its presence in allergic asthma is well known.它在过敏性气喘中的存在是大家很熟悉的。

26 tenement   

n.公寓；房屋

参考例句：

• They live in a tenement.他们住在廉价公寓里。
• She felt very smug in a tenement yard like this.就是在个这样的杂院里，她觉得很得意。

27 erase   

v.擦掉；消除某事物的痕迹

参考例句：

• He tried to erase the idea from his mind.他试图从头脑中抹掉这个想法。
• Please erase my name from the list.请把我的名字从名单上擦去。

28 detrimental   

adj.损害的，造成伤害的

参考例句：

• We know that heat treatment is detrimental to milk.我们知道加热对牛奶是不利的。
• He wouldn't accept that smoking was detrimental to health.他不相信吸烟有害健康。

29 excellence   

n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德

参考例句：

• His art has reached a high degree of excellence.他的艺术已达到炉火纯青的地步。
• My performance is far below excellence.我的表演离优秀还差得远呢。