Growing up as part of Generation Z, I became accustomed to school shootings and other mass shootings. Like so many my age, I fear when the next one will occur. But instead of living in fear, I decided to channel my worry into action.
In the summer of 2021, I began an internship as a healthcare management associate at Northwell Health LIJ Valley Stream Hospital, on the border of southwest Nassau and southeast Queens counties, each of which has been affected by gun violence. When I began my internship, I approached my preceptor, the hospital CFO, and asked if I could work on a project on gun violence prevention.
Fortunately, he supported the idea, and allowed me to create an internal campaign to inform team members about what Northwell’s Center for Gun Violence Prevention was working on and how they could get involved in its efforts.
Fast forward to 2023. As a finance and operations management associate at LIJVS, I launched and became the chair of the first gun violence prevention committee at LIJ Valley Stream. Our launch event was the LIJVS Pledge to End Gun Violence: A Conversation with Fred Guttenberg. I co-moderated the discussion with the Emergency Department chair, Dr. Sal Pardo.
We interviewed Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, died in the Parkland, Fla., mass shooting in 2018. We discussed Guttenberg’s gun violence prevention advocacy and new book, American Carnage. It was a groundbreaking, eye-opening, emotional event that was felt throughout the hospital. In addition, I led a hospital fundraiser for Guttenberg’s nonprofit organization, Paws of Love, raising $5,000 in a week.
Since that event, our subcommittee has been engaged in various community initiatives like the Youth and Police Initiative (YPI). This program aims to break down stereotypes and build relationships between youth and law enforcement. In partnership with the Gun Violence Prevention Center, I helped coordinate logistics for this program.
Thus far, we have hosted three training cohorts in high-risk communities, several of which are in LIJVS catchment area, with a fourth one joining us in January 2024. Additionally, I will help will construct a sustainability plan to maintain annual programming after training cohorts are completed.
I coordinated a Medical Grand Rounds that included three of Northwell’s leading clinical figures: Dr. Chid Iloabachie, Dr. Chethan Sathya and Dr. Gainosuke Sugiyama, who will discuss the clinical effects of gun violence that medical providers should be aware of in their practices.
Further, we are supporting the pilot of a first-in-the-system curriculum for Malverne High School sophomores in the Gun Violence as a Public Health Crisis class. This will culminate in a student-led panel, moderated by the chief of pediatric surgery at Cohen Children’s Medical Center, Dr. Jose Prince, on young people’s perspectives on the gun violence epidemic and their advocacy campaigns.
Video from Fred Guttenberg event.
Alexandra Brinton 